Your comments are very insightful, concise & relevant to the current situation of a lack of reasonable U.S. Mint’s sales strategy. You said it here better than I could. Please forward your comments outlined here to the Mint’s Office of Communications because from the comments of many CoinNews readers on this coin blog website, you sum up the thoughts of many of us very well. Thanks for sharing your ideas!

-NumisDudeTX

What the Mint staff have completely missed are purchases that are made for aftermarket sales. There are a number collectors that also purchase additional coins to sell at some point in the aftermarket. These are the customers and additional sales that the mint are losing. When lower mintages are quickly sold out to whom did the Mint think were making these purchases. Yes, there are just the collectors but the additional are going to the collector / dealers. I am not talking about the corrupted TV coin shows. I am talking about the true collector base.

To the US Mint staff, for the future of our hobby, please listen to our commentary.

Why do people buy US Mint coins? As an investment, which they also enjoy collecting, but no one will collect anymore if the product loses value after purchase or stays about the same.

Value is produced via rarity, just like why coins from the 1790s are worth so much, because they didn’t make many. But everyone wants them because they keep going up in value because o low mintages.

If the MINT would adopt a strict 1st come, 1st serve policy for ALL products and a household limit of at least 5 every time and a max mintage of 50K for gold coins and 150K for silver, they would sellout every product they produce and people will keep coming back for more annually.

Deviation from the above plan of proven success (every product they have done that with has increased in value (20th and 25th anniversary AE, baseball coins)) is why they have lost 100s of 1000s of customers since 2007 (that and raising the price of their collectibles by about 50% to 200% over a few years’ time with zero reason beyond greed (a 5 or 10 % increase at most would have been accepted).

You make some great points! When I originally went over the U.S. Mint’s Annual Report for 2015 released recently, I laughed out loud at U.S. Mint Principal Deputy Director Matthew Rhett Jeppson’s totally clueless comments! He actually said in a public ANA coin show Q&A open session last year responding to a question from a collector in the audience worried about U.S. Mint products being misrepresented (fraud) by t.v. coin show dealers – “I can’t worry about what happens to our coin products once they leave the Mint.” That is his irresponsible, clueless attitude! He truly thinks that he knows the numismatic marketplace in just a relatively short time on the job (he is NOT a numismatist!) when it takes at least a minimum of 10 years IMHO to get exposed to all aspects of the numismatic hobby/industry/science (a $5 billion a year business just in USA each year not including foreign coins, precious metals ingots/bars/rounds rounds & not including U.S. Mint sales totals). Jeppson has a lot of explaining to do for sure for losing so many Mint customers since he came onboard the ship he is now sinking quickly, but Congress is busy trying to turn the economy around & their constitutional oversight of the Mint is the last thing on their minds! I hope to G-D Jeppson is never confirmed as U.S. Mint Director! Write, call & e-mail your elected officials in Washington D.C. CoinNews readers – it really can make a difference & it doesn’t take too much time. If we are going to complain then we need to be a part of the solution! Thanks all.

Happy collecting!

-NumisDudeTX

From the Mint’s 2015 Annual Report:
“As we continue our efforts to retain current customers and reach new audiences, we have to listen to the people who buy our products. That means making it easier for our customers to shop however, wherever, and whenever they want. To do that, we launched a new e-commerce site last year, which has made the shopping experience faster, simpler, and more reliable. ”

So they want to continue their efforts to retain current customers and reach new audiences and listen to those who buy their products and the ONLY thing needed is to make it easier for the people to shop? Amazing. Quite a plan they got there …….. totally one dimensional and delusional IMO. Of course the “people” he is referring to could just be the big buyers/dealers and AP’s, and not collectors.

This guy has been there for a while and it doesn’t take rocket science to start getting familiar with the job, unless he doesn’t care or is incapable of doing the job …or both.

Way past time for the feds to start knocking on the Mint’s doors, I wonder why it hasn’t been done already. Imagine stuff like a dime struck on a nail getting through to auction, how did it get off the Mint’s premises? And how many people were involved? Seems this is okay with the Mint because I haven;t read anything about their reaction to this sale …. Maybe the Mint attitude is if it has left their premises or is sold to a customer (speaking of their regular products), it doesn’t care anymore

The 2016 official “Red Book” – A Guide Book of United States Coins – 69th edition lists the 2013-W Proof 1-ounce platinum American Eagle with a mintage of 5,763. But their numbers are based on old info sometimes due to publication deadlines for printing the annual book. Of course the U.S. Mint usually takes about 2 years to issue final official audited mintage/sales figures. Why it takes them that long to account for every coin & set sold in any given year is a big mystery. They should be required to finish a final audit within six months tops. They do a quarterly inventory at their fulfillment center warehouse in Memphis & even put off expedited shipping option during about a week while they do it, so I don’t know why they can’t get their accounting act together!
By the way, the 2014-W $5 National Baseball Hall of fame gold coins had a limit by law of 50,000 coins, but the Mint’s figures & the Red Book list a total of 50,102 sold, & it has been that way practically since they sold out on first day of issue! If this number is correct, the U.S. Mint once again broke Federal public law that called for no more than 50,000 gold coins across all options.

By the way the Mint issued its annual report for Congress recently & U.S. Mint Principal Deputy Director Matthew Rhett Jeppson said the Mint’s customer base has dropped off noticeably & he basically doesn’t know why! The 1.5 million customers on their mailing list is quickly dwindling down. Mr. Jeppson needs to take a big hint at that statistical fact starring him in the face.

-NumisDudeTX