Dear United States Mint,
Not a day goes by that we do not receive angry emails from both collectors and established dealers in the rare coin market about the lineup, marketing, and rollout of the Mint’s numismatic products. It would truly be exhausting to answer them individually, and so we devote most of our time to creating numismatic content that is meant to excite, inform, and benefit the collector.
Therefore, it is unusual for us to form a response to one of these letters. But when, after a week of predictable sell-outs and manipulations takes place in connection with a highly anticipated Mint release and the Director of the Mint feels compelled to write his own letter, we feel that we should respond.
Just to be clear, Director Ryder, the professional numismatic community can be divided into two camps. There is the camp that would like nothing more than to see CoinWeek and other hobby publications grab a paddle and take the United States Mint and its numismatic products behind the woodshed and give it the business. And there is the other camp that looks for ways to take advantage of the U.S. Mint’s customer base by building their own marketing concepts around the Mint’s limited-edition product lineup and injecting themselves into the flow of these coins from the Mint to the collector.
Human nature and “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) play a role in all of this, of course. But from where we sit, nothing that happened with the rollout of the Mayflower collector coin and medal sets or the End of WWII privy mark program should have come as a surprise.
Given the high initial cost of U.S. Mint numismatic products, there is often little upside for collectors, most of whom collect out of sheer enjoyment. Many of these collectors understand that there’s no guarantee that they will recover their initial purchase costs when it is time to sell, but they spend their hard-earned money on your website anyway.
They may sometimes hope that they hit a home run and that their purchase will turn a tidy profit in the future, but they know as well as anybody who follows this industry knows that this is not the typical outcome.
The Mint’s limited-edition offerings often follow a different trajectory, however. The profits that come from these offerings happen in the immediate aftermarket, with the repackaging of Mint products by third parties and the sale of these newly repackaged products by telemarketers and promoters. For the most part, these third parties do a better job marketing U.S. Mint material than the Mint does itself. They understand the powerful pull of FOMO and often reap huge profits by setting high prices and riding the tide down.
Now, the Mint has made an effort to reach out to the coin industry for feedback and insights in recent years, holding a number of annual numismatic forums (we assume one would have been held in 2020 were it not for the COVID pandemic). And having attended several of these forums ourselves, we are struck by two things: 1) the Mint expects its industry partners to bear the full cost of attending and giving the Mint what amounts to unpaid marketing insights, and 2) whenever industry stakeholders push them on understanding the Mint’s role as a leader in the industry, Mint officials push back, saying that their hands are tied because they are a government agency and not a business.
Yet at the same time, Mint officials highlight in their annual report the fact that they have “produced over 24 million ounces of bullion and nearly 4 million units of numismatic products” and in the course of doing so have “achieved the status of being a top 100 e-commerce retailer according to Internet Retailer.”
Achieving top 100 e-commerce retailer status is an extraordinary accomplishment given the niche nature of coin collecting, but it also serves as a clear reminder that the United States Mint is the largest coin dealer in the world and that it conducts its numismatic and bullion business completely aware of this fact.
So let’s take a look at the remarks Director Ryder made in connection to the recent sellouts.
He begins his letter by affirming once more the dual nature of the Mint as a federal agency and a retail sales operation. The profits, he says, are transferred to the United States Treasury’s general fund as a way to “pay back” the taxpayer, as it were. Given the profligate spending of the federal government, however, these profits probably don’t make much of an impact on anything. But we digress…
The Director then goes on to say that, during his tenure, he has challenged his staff to come up with new and creative products to energize, excite, and expand the collector community. And to be sure, a fair appraisal of these efforts–given the legal restrictions the Mint has to work around when it comes to creating numismatic products–casts Ryder’s approach in a mostly favorable light. Plus, the Mint has suffered from the lack of a Congressionally approved Mint Director since Edmond Moy left office in 2011 under President Barack Obama.
But where Ryder’s initiative falls short is with the Mint’s apparent and continued lack of insight into how the secondary market for numismatic material works and the easy profits that await those who suck up most of the Mint’s limited-edition products. Admittedly, this situation is not unique to the Mint, as the initial release of many desirable consumer products is often met with scalping and speculation.
Ryder goes on to say that when the Mint develops mintage limits for their products, they try to come up with mintages that they believe will satisfy customer demand. For some products, this may well be the case. But for a product like the 2020-W American Gold Eagle with a “V75” privy mark, a mintage of 1,945 pieces clearly makes this product the key to the series, and a week after its issue, the coins are selling for $15,000 to $20,000 each on eBay.
For the Mint not to predict that automated software “bots” and other means would be employed to scoop up that inventory and shut out other consumers–and respond accordingly–strains credulity.
So too, does the idea that a mintage limit of 1,945 pieces represents anywhere near a correct forecast of demand.
Ryder then says that the Mint’s “solutions” to prevent automated purchases put an immense strain on their website that led to unintended issues for other legitimate purchasers. Here he is attempting to claim credit for trying to stop the bots (through the use of CAPTCHA technology?) and simultaneously dodging the blame for the issues collectors experienced as they struggled to use the Mint’s website to complete their purchases – even though these “issues” are long-standing and have somehow persisted after the Mint’s vaunted redesign of its online ordering system a few years back.
CoinWeek was forced to use CAPTCHAs just to visit the site on Tuesday morning as part of our newsgathering and was ultimately blocked from doing so by the Mint’s countermeasures. So just how many Mint customers were blocked from accessing the Mint’s website due to this and what will the Mint do to ensure that the IP addresses of legitimate visitors and customers are not flagged as suspicious next time?
At any rate, it is telling that Ryder does not supply any supporting details, such as how many automated orders were detected Tuesday or the Mint’s success rate at stopping them.
The Director then closes his remarks by thanking Mint customers for their loyalty and promises that they will do better going forward.
We hope they do. We hope the Mint does a lot of things better going forward.
It needs to understand and accept its role as a leader in the coin industry and stop hiding behind its existence as a government entity whenever it helps them escape accountability to their customers. The Mint shouldn’t be able to get away with this posture while at the same time deploying state-of-the-art technology, google ads, and social media to promote and solicit sales of its products while bragging in its annual report how successful it has been in doing so.
To better give collectors a chance to purchase its limited-edition products, the Mint should investigate the possibility of setting up an annual subscription program, where collectors can opt-in at the silver, gold, and platinum/palladium tiers and have a chance to commit to limited-edition products in advance of their release date, with maximum mintages based on presale demand plus whatever percentage of extra product the Mint can sell to the general public on its website.
The U.S. Mint should also establish a true wholesale program so that coin retailers and marketers can grow the modern coin market by stocking coins and sets in their stores, allowing them to sell these products profitably without needing to double or triple the surcharge.
Finally, and we hope the Mint takes this seriously, the Mint’s commemorative coin program is in serious need of an overhaul. We support limits on the number of programs that the Mint can put out each year but we also think that the current system retards the Mint’s efforts to create interesting and innovative products.
This past week the US Mint offered a new product almost every day. I assume that they prepared weeks or months in advance but the overall performance of the US Mint in their estimates of numismatic demand and past history determining quantifiable demand has been thoughtless and reckless. I have been lucky to obtain all the “rare” items I ordered on line, using the good ol’ “as long as I get mine” strategy.
It’s total nonsense to send a message that “projected demand” was satisfied. It was not. I’m winning so far. Are most honest collectors winning? Probably not.
If us collectors were all winning, then winning would not be anything special, like everyone gets a trophy mentality. When there’s money to be made, an easily, hypocrites come out of the woodwork work to complain if they did not get in on the easy side of money. A system can never be setup where there is an equal outcome for all.
Baloney….the Mint has in the past established a “time frame” to order and the quantities to mint without having to have any leftovers. The “prostitution” of collectors to a “lottery ” system where a relative few who win the “lottery” , be it by good fortune, or by millionares paying desperate people a premium so they can in turn sell to other millionares i.e. $2600 turns into $20,000.
Be genuine Bob these decadent US MINT DECISIONS WERE NEVER FORMED FOR NAIVETE OR INNOCENT CAUSES GET REAL.
So many whiney people. The biggest reason people are upset is because they did not luck out for the easy buck. If 99% of the people complaining got a gold v75, it would have been flipped faster than the mint’s website crashed.
If they made 50,000 of them, they would not have sold near that and the people complaining would not have been interested, because the easy buck is not there.
No, I did not get one.
But yes, the mint’s website is really really bad and needs to change. OK with the limited releases and “instant rarities”. Creates a lot of interest, except for the whiners who missed out and “never buying from the mint again blah blah blah”. I say good, cya.
If everything was mintage-to-demand, there would be very little secondary-market value, and almost everything could be had a short time later under the issue price.
Well, that’s certainly a take one could have about the issue.
Too bad…I feel bad that you “did not get one” so you then believe that people are “whiney” or conplainers rather than legitimate collectors expressing there views. Then you say if MINT were to mint to order, well there would be no incentive to collectors , HENCE, back to the side of dealers and well to do affluence. You also say the mint website “is very very bad” Your insite is exactly that “your insite”
I think that I was finally able to buy the two Mayflower gold Proof set, but it involved a lot of wrangling. I was shut out the first three days because I had a dentist appointment in the morning and could not be on my computer. Today someone posted on a blog that the set was available again, and I was able to get it to work.
I think that the mint’s product limits of less than 5,000 gold sets and less than 15,000 silver sets are too low. In 1920 over 150,000 Pilgrim commemorative half dollars were sold. This was followed by sales of over 20,000 coins in 1921. There are far more collectors now than in 1920, and yet the mint “projected” that there would for fewer units sold. Where did they come up with these numbers? They don’t make sense.
In other words: to hell with you I got mine.
T.V. coin dealers own the mint emergency production coins hoards we didn’t get a chance to get these coins. 1per household limits dealers have hundreds if not thousands of these coins. The mint is my mint and every American. Not the coin vault Ricks rare coins or hsn but they get the coins why is that us mint?
It wouldn’t have been as frustrating if I wasn’t tested by captcha. I was using my cell phone to order and the pictures were quite small and I was locked out. By the time I was able to get to checkout after about thirty tries the privy silver was sold out. I purchase coins regularly and it is terribly unfair that I wanted just one yet dealer had over 100. Something is wrong with the inequity of that
Too bad…I feel bad that you “did not get one” so you then believe that people are “whiney” or conplainers rather than legitimate collectors expressing there views. Then you say if MINT were to mint to order, well there would be no incentive to collectors , HENCE, back to the side of dealers and well to do affluence. You also say the mint website “is very very bad” Your insite is exactly that “your insite”
Thank you there is no other way to put it.
Wow! I just want to know how a lot of people outside of some of us regulars even heard about the Privy marked coins? Not that they don’t have the right to buy them but some of them are shoe sellers, beanie babies, jerseys and game systems and then, Oh! here is this coin I heard is heavily sought after!! Just frustrated but like I said they had the right to purchase them. There is no answer how to “get to them first”, but I am a little intrigued how someone said they purchased the Mayflower Gold Proof Set after 3 days of trying. I have a question, What Blog? We have been members of the Mint for over 35 Years and faithful purchasers so we understand people’s annoyance to put it mildly.
I say stop coin collecting and see what happens.
Had a very bad experience with the pay pal use of buying the coins that I have been buying for over twenty years and with no recourse the mint just deleted my order and I was not notified until it had been done. Through no fault of my own pay pay deleted all my credit cards when I was hacked on the card I have used since I started using the mint to get my coins. You should find a way to get out of the pay pal web and go back to the card holder’s company with the approval of the card holder. My account was deleted and I was notified after my order was deleted with the mint. I had no chance to use another card to complete the transaction the people just deleted my order, then wrote me the e mail that it was done and I had no recourse to get the five A E coins that I was sent an e mail saying the order had been approved. The mint is so wrapped up in the millionaire buyers that the smaller purchasers have no chance but to buy the coins at the inflated prices of the million dollar buyers. Why can’t you give the small time buyers a chance to receive their orders and then give the million dollar buyers their greedy purchases. You should learn something from the e mails you are getting.
Hello
I have been collecting silver eagle, sometimes gold eagles since 1986, when they first came out. Never had a problem collecting from the mint, until these big coin dealer got into tv shows. Then it seemed like the big coin dealer ended up with the biggest share of the coins from the mint. The dealers not only sold the coins for outrages prices, but the also started to sell the graded holders for a huge extra price. How can a coin be worth more because it was first release or first day of issue, when the coins were sold out within the first few minutes or hours? The mint used to give loyal customers first chance on special coins, but they decided to do away with that policy. They just limit the amount a person can purchase, per household. People with better computers and people who don’t collect coins end up with the coins and sell them on-line for a large profits. I have been seriously thinking about quitting collecting coins, because it has become way to expensive to continue!
Sure…let’s just mint 500 million of each coin so no one gets their feelings hurt…
Yanno, I’m not a rich person. I don’t have a big honking fast computer. What I do have is an outdated cell phone and a lot of perseverance. Because of that, I haven’t had to miss out on any products that I have wanted. I also take advantage of the mint’s subscription service for the coins I know I will be wanting every year. That has made getting silver eagles and other items very easy. There is a lot to be said for persistence and planning. I also make sure to keep up with the release dates and times so I don’t miss the release of coins that I want. This has worked very well for me. Instead of complaining, I found a way of making the best of my situation. I understand that people may have issues with the way the mint conducts their sales and/or marketing, but I don’t think that means doing without the coins that I want to purchase at a reasonable price. The profiteers are aggravating to me as well, but how do you tell another person that they can’t buy coins? They set limits on the numbers that a person can buy, but they have no control over what people do with them once they buy them. Personally, I’m not as eager to collect items that are oversaturated in the market. If a person can just go out and grab 10 anytime they want, then what’s to collect? There would be nothing special about them.
I SAY STOP BUYING FROM GREEDY COIN DEALERS LIKE HSN LET THEM SITE ON THEM FOR EVER. IT’S NOT FAIR FOR USE HOUSEHOLD COLLECTORS!!!!! I’M NOT GOING TO PAY $300.00 FOR A COIN THAT I CAN ORDER FROM THE US MINT FOR $85.00