Monthly Archives: October 2009
Girl Scouts Commemorative Coin Passes House
Legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday that would authorize the United States Mint to strike up to 350,000 commemorative silver dollars in 2013 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts of the USA.
The Girl Scouts USA Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, or H.R. 621, was introduced on Jan. 21 by Rep. Jack Kingston. It represents a second attempt at passage as the first version failed to make its way through last year's 110th Congress.
The final outcome for this bill would seem to be different. It had the support of 304 cosponsors and easily passed in the House by a simple voice vote. Then there is the Boy Scouts Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, which was signed into law in October of 2008. It would seem an unsupportable position to honor the Boy Scouts next year for their 100th anniversary, and then not do the same for the Girl Scouts on their centennial.
Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Medals
Lincoln Coin and Chronicles Set Mania
Thursday was a day of excitement, anger and despair for many coin collectors who attempted to place an order early for the new US Mint Lincoln Coin and Chronicles Set.
Whether an order was placed by phone or straight from the Mint's Web site, the more likely outcome for most collectors was inaction and irritation. Visitors to the site were greeted with a "Service Unavailable" or simply a generic "The connection was reset" message. The site was down more than up. Those calling on the phone were met with a repeated automated message "We are unable to answer your call at this time. Please try again later."
The sets were released at noon ET. By accounts, the Mint appeared to be the busiest they have ever been this year. An easing seemed to occur after the first hour went by. After many, many repeated attempts, phone orders went through more readily. The web appeared to be a bigger problem. The Mint site returned to a more normal and consistent behavior by 3:30 pm ET. By evening, it was as smooth as ever.
Of course many collectors were more than frustrated. The Mint did have more staff on hand, but it comes to a point that there is only so much they can do when there appears to be tens of thousands of collectors who come knocking on the door nearly at once.