ATB Five Ounce Silver Coins

Teach: mint bloom is the cartwheel effect on uncirculated coins. It is caused by slightly worn dies, or at least the last polishing of the die has worn off, so when the coin is struck, the metal on the coin has to flow somewhere along the face of the die, so takes the impression of the die surface which is now microscopically irregular, unlike a polished die that produces PL coins. Very heavily worn dies will produce metal flow which can be seen when rocking a coin back and forth and what gives its luster. PL coins are merely mirror-like and should not exhibit any or much of a cartwheel effect. Given that the most likely state of the ATB bullion is a proof like finish, a collector should cherry pick for this look and avoid the coins with excessive mint bloom, as these will just be considered bullion. Not all bullion coins are created equally.

angel2004: I've dealt with a number of PM companies. You can just send a check and avoid the 3% up charge fee on credit cards. I've never had a problem with Provident Metals, and they stand behind their product. The only thing you need to know is expect to see your product 15-20 days after you send the check. Most PM firms wait a week for the check to clear and then another week to package and send it out. To cut some of the wait time, you can purchase and send a USPS money order to expedite the process by a few days. Ordinarily, I just send a check and wait it out. The only time you would use wire transfer is for overseas or over a couple of thousand dollars.

Thanks Bizy, you learn something new everyday (if not you might as well be dead :-)) I guess I have seen this before, just never heard that term.

Ill be surprised if a single 2013 p makes it to market unfortunately. They should have just done the p series. To much money for most people to buy both and a lot of people will just pick the cheaper one

Lol so very true. The handling of last years series killed it too. With the current sales figures I'm not even convinced the 2012s will all come out in the p version

Celtic I agree the price is definitely hurting the Ps for sure. A silver spike could help as long as it doesn't raise the price. The uncertainty has to be hurting as well. If they are planning to keep doing the P no matter what the sales they should come out and say so.

I also agree having a few real low mintage ones would be great, but bittersweet if they stopped it. I like the pucks a lot but have no interest in the bullion versions just for the fact that if silver drops down I now have a 160 dollar puck worth 30 bucks. That said if it does drop that low I will pick up the bullion ones most of which had a lot produced. But if all we have going forward is bullion my collection will come to an end barring a silver plunge

Yep, that the problem in a nutshell, way too many of the 2011s left unsold in the Mint's inventory causing a drag in interest and pricing on the 2010s and the current 2012s. The other problem is only collectors are buying the coins in either finish, large investors haven't come on board the bullion yet. Either they don't like the size, or more likely, they are unaware this is a product produced by the US Mint. Same goes for the general public, if they are unaware of the product due to lack of advertising, there will be no orders. Still, with the mint to demand policy instituted this year on the bullion (and it may well quietly make it onto the collector version just like the gold spouses) I think there is "sufficient" interest to keep making at least 10K of these for the foreseeable future. The trending is quite similar to the fractional pt proofs of the 2004-08 run, as soon as they were discontinued, the prices went up (well, pt did too & by a huge jump), and collectors who were 1/2 interested realized how difficult it was to get OGP coins.

The real problem with the 5oz bullion is that the mint was not able to product the coins at a significant reduction in premium when compared to the Eagles. I think that when the PM lobby pushed the legislation through congress they were hoping the the 5oz coins would be far less than $2 per ounce over spot to the APs. When that did not pan out, there was no incentive for large investors to buy the coins since they are slightly less liquid that their one ounce counterparts simply due to their size. If congress had not specified the 3 inch size, the mint might have been able to produce them at a good enough premium to attract investors but the change in the law came too late for the mint to change the size and save any costs. In retrospect, I think that the PM market got greedy and did not think the plan through very well. I am not sure how much less per ounce they though they would get a fiver for but whatever it was they were wrong. I doubt that even if the mint had initially had the freedom to design a coin that was as cheap as possible to produce that it would have been enough less per ounce to the APs to cause a major shift away from the one ounce coins.

I have my 2012-P El Yunque puck and it is perfect. Look on the previous page for images.