US Mint 2016 24k Gold Coins To Celebrate 1916 Designs

And the Sold Out dime is now priced at $195. You would think that the mint could afford an IT person that understood special cases and would not just blindly apply the pricing grid.

Here are five special issue gold coins, from 2009-2016, taken together both with & without flash (notice the light reflecting off of the edges in the second set of images):

First, with macro ring flash:





and now with diffused sunlight only:

Now that's sexy!

Some of the websites are selling the 1916 gold coins that are graded MS70 or MS69 selling for huge markups. I think this is pure BS. The best thing that could possibly happen is that the gold 1916 commemorative coins sell out yesterday. If they are not selling then the Mint should just recall the unsold ones and melt them down.

Foxwoods

Do you know how many quarters and half dollars are left as we speak? I bought the set because I really love those coins, but a more rational person might decide they don't want to pay the Mint's markup. I would never buy another coin from the Mint unless they made some true size coins like Buffalo nickels in gold and sold them for a much more reasonable markup. The Mint sells Silver Eagles for $40 plus dollars and you can then buy them for less than $20. 100% markup over spot price is absurd. If inflation gets cranked up gold and silver may become bargains as bullion, but what about coins either circulating or commemoratives? Will inflation give a shot in the arm to collectible coins. You know during the next 10-15 years a lot of baby boomers will be cashing out art and coin collections. That would bring prices down which would be good for young collectors.

terry8835, you have to remember that the mint sells bullion coins only through Authorized Dealers (not an easy thing to become, these are multi-million dollar customers) and that the coins it sells directly to the public are a different animal altogether. They start life as the same blanks that are struck into bullion but are given special treatments by the mint before upsetting them into planchets, either by burnishing the blanks (for Uncirculated coins) or mirror polishing them (for proofs). They are struck with specially prepared die and in most cases are individually handled and encapsulated. They are struck using higher forces than bullion coins and in many cases are struck two or more times. They are put in special packaging which is in some cases completely unique to that single coin or set. The bottom line is that such coins are not bullion coins, they are numismatic specialties. As such, they cost far more to produce than their bullion cousins. The mint sells bullion coins for just enough over spot to pay for the cost of manufacture and to not lose money. They sell numismatic coins for enough to cover all costs of manufacture and delivery to the public and to make a reasonable profit. Seigniorage (the difference face value and cost of manufacture for circulating coins) provides most of the mint's profit. Numismatic coins are second and bullion last, even though far more bullion coins are sold. Congress mandated that the mint must only make enough on bullion to prevent selling the coins at a loss, numismatic coins are not subject to that limit and even if they were they would still cost considerably more than bullion. Bullion coins can be bought for very little markup above what the Authorised Dealers paid for them. Very few numismatic coins ever fall in value enough to approach bullion prices and when they do it is often the case that the spot price is significantly different from what it was when the coins were struck.

Terry:

I agree that the general public does not know much about the Silver Eagles (or any of the other Mint products other than the change in their pockets) but that's not the main driving force for that issue. Collectors buy the W version (200-400k/yr) and bullion investors buy the bullion (over 20 million/yr).

Most likely your set is a bullion set as you said but look at the reverse and see if there is a W mint mark which would indicate the burnished collector version below: