Craig, thx for the response. I live in Southeastern Alaska which is much like the Pacific Northwest. Very green we’re I’m at. I live in the middle of the Tongas National Forrest. Our weather is rain, rain, more rain, lol! I hate rain and here I live in a frickin Rainforest, lol!! Go figure! We get snow, plenty too but not too much. I have a Bobcat with a V Plow Blade to snow removal. I live in a Native Village. The island I’m on is Chicago Island, it’s about 50 miles west/southwest of Juneau, the state capitol. We have the largest concentration of Brown Bears than any other place on the Planet. I personally know 8 people that have been mauled, only one has died. I know of other folks that have been mauled but I don’t know them personally. I happen to have built my house in a place that’s known and called Bear Alley. We have 2 dogs to help with the bears. They leave us alone and we leave them alone. Yes, I ALWAYS carry a gun or two guns, lol!! We live in Paradise. I want to stay here till I croak! The only time I ever want to leave here is to go on a hunt, that’s it. My wife and I did it all in our younger days, we enjoyed life, a bit irresponsible, moved and traveled! Having no kids makes that very easy to do. When we hit our 40’s, we were like, we better start thinking of retirement, etc. so we buckled down, stayed at the same jobs and retired. We lived in our younger days. Boy did we, lol! . Our friends all want to travel, etc. and we’re like, have fun, we are staying home. Lol! I’m glad we did it the way we did it. Somehow, someway, we came out smelling like roses, just have to remember there are thorns on roses and you can get pricked, so be careful out there in the Wild!!
Sorry for the off topic and all.

Well, as always, Good Luck ALL!!!

All we need now is one more piece of information – “The total number of 1976-S Silver coins that were melted down or scrapped by the mint.” Then the publishers can update the true mintages for those coins. Major D, I agree, that 11,000,000 mintage number is unusual, suspicious, and a little to round. The true mintage numbers will be important, since the 1976 Silver Bicentennial coins will most likely get more attention from collectors when the new 250th Anniversary Centennial coins come out in 2026.

I think the 45M is inclusive of all quarters, halves, and dollars in Silver BU and Silver Proof. ” A large number were melted.” Curious to what that large number(s) is/are. Nice piece of info Cali.

(11Mx3=33M) + (4Mx3=12M) = 45M

Cheers

I’m glad you finally got a letter! I didn’t get one recently. I have received one a couple months ago I think. I did get one tho. I’m getting excited about our L&B Gold coin! I too am hoping it’s a “sleeper” AND will blow a lot of skirts up, lol! I thot I was the only person that still says that saying, lol!! I have one coming from the mint too! I’m waiting to see what I’m going to do with it tho. I may get it graded and sell it, all depends on how many skirts get blown up! I’m thinking we’ll have them by the end of this month (May)!! I’m getting tired of waiting for them. When I was building my house, I would order lumber packages from down South, charge it on my CC (got about 350K miles doing that) and pay off the CC. We give miles to our family and friends so they can fly up here for free.
even after they fly up here, it costs another $350-$400 to fly a bush plane to where I live. So it gets expensive without using miles. It helps them out a great deal. I’ve been selling coins, about 15K so far. Ebay has a $25K limit! I’ll have to see what I have to do if I go over $25K. In 2014 I did $250K just on EBay alone! I kinda went crazy, buying and selling. I don’t plan on selling nearly that much this time. I still have so much still to unload. There’s a company on the East Coast that’s been calling me, wanting to buy my collection! They said they’d even fly to me. I’m a bit skeptical, probably will low ball me and I don’t want to be pressured into selling for a lot less than what they’re worth. Decisions! Decisions!

Well, as always, Good Luck ALL!!!

All I can say is what my Father In Law said to all 5 of his daughters once they got old enough to leave the nest and go to college. You’re welcome to come back to visit anytime but……….if you stay longer than 2 weeks, you’re paying rent, lol!! I kinda adopted that as we have lots of family and friends come for a visit and our new house has a huge loft upstairs, has it’s own bathroom, 65” TV, etc. every single person that’s stayed with us have told us they feel like they’re staying in an Air b&b. They’ve all said they want to move in!! When I built this house, I had a theme, a modern Alaskan Home! I didn’t want one of those houses you see in housing developments, nor a house that looks like a Lodge. I wanted it to feel warm & welcoming too! I hit the nail on the head!! Our home turned out very nice and it’s warm & welcoming. Plus it looks like a modern Alaskan house. We took our time, built it right, went 150K over budget too!! That was my fault tho. I designed it, built it and I picked out every single thing that was used to build this house. My wife said the only thing she wanted was a single large sink and a 6 burner, double oven stove/range. I listened and she got what she wanted. Actually the range/stove ended up having 6 burners, double oven AND a griddle!! I picked out the paint colors, appliances, tongue and groove, etc. she let me do everything. She was still working, flying every week to work in a bush plane, ya, a bush plane, lol! It took us 6.5 years to save enough to build our house. Since I went over budget by 150K, she had to work an extra year. The worst part was having to constantly watch the weather for her flying. Many times she sat at the airport waiting for the weather to break, Lots of time’s she couldn’t fly. It was hard but well worth it. We made a doable plan, stuck to it and built our home. So glad we did. So, in answer to you Cali, you’re more than welcome to come and visit but……..if you stay longer than 2 weeks, you’ll have to pay rent, lol!! I do accept Gold & Silver for rent payments too!! !!!!

Thumbs up! (unless gold drops in price like pyrite).

As I’ve said before I like buying Au but with Au’s spot price ramping up, and lets not forget about the mints nearly $1K added value premium, it doesn’t surprise me in the least to see fewer sales of Au coins. Au is Au and fortunately the mint isn’t the only source for one to procure it. One thing is clear today, with Au spot up over $33, anyone who owns Au is a ‘happy camper’. REB is doing back flips…Lol.

Agreed, the British as well. Much more believable than my simplistic ‘Western’ accent…

Major D a few notes to consider. Wikipedia has a pretty good history of how this all went down. Unfortunately you need the resource books/articles(purchase/subscription) to obtain what has been written? Also, the US Mint was formerly known as the Bureau of the Mint. Additionally, some information used to be published under: “Department of the Treasury News”, in regards to things happening at the US Mint. The Wikipedia entry has the 4 million number and has dates for destruction of sets in 1982 and sales ending in 1987. The products changed price on at least 2 occasions. Once due to cheaper price being offered after the initial price due to an improvement in production, translating to decreased production costs. Another was a suspension of sales due to silver price. Here is a link for ease of use to what Wikipedia has on file.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bicentennial_coinage#CITEREFYeoman2011

“The San Francisco Assay Office struck the 45,000,000 silver coins first, producing eleven million sets in uncirculated and four million in proof, then began the base metal pieces.”

“By 1979, the Mint anticipated an eventual sellout for the silver proof set, but admitted that with massive quantities unsold, there was no realistic possibility of selling all uncirculated silver sets.[21]” “A large number of sets were melted by the government in 1982.[38]”(Yeoman pp. 174, 207, 228. Red Book)

See the part on “Production” and citation list for more possible information.

“CaliPedia”