Gold Kennedy Half Musings

I just got back from the ANA show.

The mint announced they are suspending sales of the gold at at the show due to all of the scalpers.

One dealer who had a booth on the end of the isle and directly across from the US Mint area was talking to someone while I was browsing and he was tell the other person he paid 12 people to stand in line and fronted them the buy money. Another dealer who knows one of out club members told him he brought in 27 people to buy the gold and paid them each $800.

There were a few dealers who had 15-50 sets at their tables and another dealer set up across from the mint display had bright green t-shirts that said "We will pay the most for your 2014 gold halves)

I guess when dealers like this has the audacity to do it right in front of the mint they ruin it for everyone.

One dealer was asking $3650 unslabbed.

We rolled by the line at 9:45 (show opens at 10 pro the public) and there were several hundred people in line not counting how many had already made it through the line.

The mint needs to release 10,000+ coins at these events and make you register and limit the coins to 1 per person.

When you limit it to 500 and the line is sandbagged full of straw buyers collectors lose out.

I agree that this type of coin release needs to be reviewed by the US Mint team.

They create artificial hype over certain coins and generally create large short-term profit opportunities for the dealers who have the resources to seed the waiting line with their "agents." Collectors, for the most part, tend not to benefit.

The "hot-ness" of the coins generally wears off after a couple/few months (see gold Baseball HOF coins) and the collectors who bought into the hype and overpaid for the coins at release are the ones left holding the bag.

I'm not against dealers making a reasonable profit - it's necessary for them to stay in business. And I'm not the type of collector who complains about how I can't make instant profits on the coins I buy. I just believe that the Mint being a party to the creation of pseudo rarities and the aggressive over-hyping of certain coins is not appropriate.

Maybe the Mint thought this type of hype would be good for the hobby and a way to re-invigorate the collecting of modern US collector coins. On the whole, I don't believe the evidence supports this position.

Another news article with a video of the stampede.

Hundreds make mad dash to buy gold JFK coins at U.S. Mint in Denver Thursday morning
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...ld-jfk-coins

Well, good luck with that. I strongly agree that the crazy prices that resellers are getting for this coin because of the special labels will not hold up in the long run, but I also sincerely doubt the coin will ever drop to spot, simply because this will end up being a "key" issue that many future collectors down the road will want. Plus, what happens if the spot price of gold actually goes back up?

Also, one recent figure that caught my eye had to do with the 2009 Ultra High Relief gold $20 piece. Apparently that coin had a mintage of 115,178, and they are still trading at roughly twice the initial issue price 5 years later. Right now the sales figures for the Kennedy Gold Half Dollar are somewhere near 70K, with a sharp drop-off after the first day of sales. Do you think the eventual mintage will end up being significantly higher than 115,178? I'm guessing it won't, simply due to the cost. Of course I could be wrong...

APMEX has the PR70's for $4995. Silvertowne has Denver issue for $4900 as well. Reminds me of baseball cards and beanie babies.

MCM has NGC Early Release PF70's (Kennedy "Ask not.." label) for $1699 cc $1649 wire (free shipping)