CoinNews

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.

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