Comments on: US Mint Reviews American Silver Eagle 25th Anniversary Set Rollout

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:38:22 +0000

Bill, thanks for your comments. I really respect someones comments that has 25 years of history behind them. And yes, I’m the little collector you described. Like I said above (Nov 10 comment), I would have liked three. One for each of my kids and one for my wife and I. Now I watch ebay and really see the shysters come out. $750+ for one set. $3500 for 5 sealed sets so one can then send them to NGC or PCGS and take their time on a turnaround, pay ~$100 for the five to get graded, then relist them on ebay for $1500+ PER SET. Like jeff said, don’t want one? Don’t buy one. I totally agree. If people pay $25k for a set, that’s their business. But like I said, this whole thing was a fiasco. The limit should’ve been 2-3 sets per address and credit card number AND the website should have worked correctly. And also like I said above, the Mint has “contracted” to have a state of the art website installed and completed by the end of 2012??? This entity just made ~$31 million. And it’s going to take a year to do this? And the contract was wrote in what, less than ten days after this BS went down. Like I said. This whole thing is a joke and someone should have their office packed up and be made history after the Senate/House finance committees hold a joint hearing into this joke. But I guess that section of the gvmt is too busy pointing fingers and blaming each party for the national debt among other things.

By: jeff

jeff — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Not happy? Simply don’t buy them.But there is a thing that applys to all commodities,supply and demand.

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:41:55 +0000

I have been collecting coins from the US mint for over 25 Years. The US mint has a history of not getting it right when it comes to limited mintages. The US Mint gets the dealers and speculators all hyped up and they make 31 Million dollars in 4 hours. Then the dealers and the speculators clean up and make a big profit too. The little collector is out and the US Mint does not care. We saw it with the ATB 5oz bullion coin; only 33,000 minted for a bullion product, which were only sold to the big guys. Now this 100,000 five sets. I may wait 3 years to buy one at a reasonable price or I might just forget silver Eagles and buy Pandas. In my opinion the Pandas are a better coin and also change each year. I did cancel my subscription to the US Mint for Silver Eagles. We need new people at the US Mint who like collectors. I think the mint angered lots of collectors with the opening of the 5oz bullion and it is not selling. The price will come down on the 100,000 and people will wish they did not spend $700 to $1500 dollars on a $600 set. How many collectors now are done with the eagle?

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:49:59 +0000

@Jason, pretty much what I said above, and you are spot on. This whole thing was a total disgrace. This is EXACTLY why this country is in the state it is in today. It’s operations are totally disfunctional. This also is a prime example of lack of accountability for one, as in, who’s accountable? The only people getting the shaft here are the true collectors, not the turn around/flippers or the Mint.
I actually just started collecting eagles a year or so ago and was pleasantly surprised to “fall onto” the 25th ann. set being offered. I work nights, woke up on three hours sleep to place my order. Website crashed, phone system locked up. I went back to sleep, woke up three hours later, same deal. I eventually placed my order, they were happy to charge my card and put me on the list, only to hear rumblingsd a few weeks later that some orders may be cancelled as mine eventually was. Pi**ed off does not come close to my feelings when I got the official letter basically saying “screw you.” I then read that this is COMMON for the mints website on limited edition issues. WTF???? When this happened to Ticketmaster, people were fired and the system was upgraded to state of the art. As far as I’m concerned, the finance committee should hold a hearing on this. It’s one thing for the Mint to say “we value you as customers and do our best to offer top notch customer service, it’s another thing entirely to do exactly that.
Yes, I’m still beyond pi**ed.

By: Jason Fitzpatrick

Jason Fitzpatrick — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:29:39 +0000

Here is an idea. Amazon has an amazing platform and internet backbone in place. Why not just use the Amazon plaform to sell US Mint products.

Instead of spending (read, wasting) $50M of taxpayer money on a new system, the cost would be a few hundred thousand dollars. Hell, Amazon may set them up for free just to get the business. Give Amazon a flat fee to operate the site and direct orders to the US Mint for fulfillment.

By: john

john — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:47:13 +0000

YO WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE 100 SETS FOR SALE. YOUR 5 SET LIMIT IS A JOKE. 100,000 LIMIT WELL OK EXAMPLE OF SITES WITH SO MANY SET HSN, MODERN COINS IN MODERN COINS IN FLORIDA. YES THEY GIVE PEOPLE A PREPAID VISA AND PAY THEM TO BUY THE COMMON COLLECT GETS THE SHAFT. OK NOT YOUR PROBLEM. U S MINTYOU ARE SMARTER THEN THAT. YOU DEPEND ON THE CUSTOMER COME ON SERVE US.

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:28:19 +0000

I dont blame dealers or even the flippers on this issue. I worked part time for a coin dealer and its there job to buy and sell coins ect. Its the mint that is at fault here. They knew this would be a very hot item and should have set a 1 set per house hold limit. They still would have sold out and made there 30 mil. on 500,000 oz’s of silver. Not counting S/H. And we would not have any thing to be upset about other then the poor ordering system. I have been buying the mints stuff for a while now. I only buy stuff that has had some melt
value to it. I dont have the money to give on there junk stuff.

By: Jim B

Jim B — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:51:53 +0000

The mint blow it in a big way on this issue. I will no longer be buying modern stuff from from the mint. I have some completed sets of silver quaters, half dollars and silver dollars. I will take the cash I use to spend on the mints stuff to upgrade these sets.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:23:06 +0000

Here’s what should happen. The Mint should immediately seek permission from the Treasury Secretary to authorize the minting of an additional 100,000 sets and like what Jim said above ( November 4, 2011 at 10:19 am) lower the limit.
I would have been happy with three as that is what I had ordered (of which has now been canceled). I wanted one for my wifeand I, and one for my daughter and son.
This purely is a disgrace and it just shows what the gvmt can get away with. Subpar service and zero repurcussions. The same thing happened with USAJobs. VP Biden launches a federal jobsite, the gvmt contracted with Monsterjobs and everything was fine. Then the gvmt contractor finished USAJobs website and it’s been a total disaster. Maybe the mint needs to stick to stamping metal and outsource their IT department to a private, competent company where someone is held accountable.

By: David

David — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:48:25 +0000

I think it was all planed out by the us mint and other well know dealers as a get rich quick scheme The FBI should be investigating this matter NOT THE MINT NO ONE SHOULD GET THEM!!! Its no fair all pepole on this planet should be trated the same rich or poor I WILL NOT BUY FROM THE MINT ANYMORE ITS A WAST OF TIME AND MONEY NOTHING IS OF ANY REAL VALUE