ATB Five Ounce Silver Coins

The fact they had to spend so much money on new presses may be the only thing currently saving the series

Well, I ordered my puck on the 7th of June and it's supposed to be delivered tomorrow. 12 days...not so bad I guess. Thought for sure since I tacked on a couple silver mint sets and some other goodies to bring my order over $300 that I'd get free upgraded shipping, and maybe I did. My order was stuck in "processing" or "on hold" for a number of days. I don't like their vague explanations of those statuses.

Oh well.

The free upgrade should get you 2nd day air shipping via UPS, and that should apply on every item in the order even if they ship separately. If you pay the extra $12.95, you are supposed to get next day air. Both types also say that you are supposed to get quicker shipping from stock (a few days instead of up to two weeks) but since they also claim to follow FIFO I am not sure what that really means and they have a habit of claiming items are not in stock when they really are, just to make it look like they ship quicker. The bottom line is that the only thing that you can really ding them on is if they used FedEx/USPS instead of UPS 2nd day air. What bothers me is that so many items are introduced for sale with a backordered status (which doesn't mean what it sounds like at PBGS). The mint should wait to offer new products for sale until they have at least some stock ready to ship at PBGS for all "normal" offerings. Things like the 2012 SF proof SAE set, which won't begin shipping until sales conclude are acceptable exceptions.

Clair I wonder is the mint has decided that no matter what happens with silver 204.95 will be the bottom floor for pricing on these. Does seem a little strange to have a price listed this far in advance though for something thats moved around so much over the last year

Very possible. Seems the Ps should already be down to about 190 considering the others are going for a little over 150 now

Clair: what's eye opening about your statement is not the firm pricing nor the release dates, but the fact is this is the first time the Mint has sent out any kind of circular or flyer promoting the ATBQ collector coin in the nearly 14 months since the first coin was offered last year. It comes a little too late as they have made huge marketing mistakes to the collecting public with this huge medal sized coin. As if they don't know what to do with this coin. Is it a medal? Is it bullion? Is it even a coin? If the Mint's confused, then this was an ill-conceived idea all along, written into the legislation to placate the silver lobby and Sunshine Minting, who supplies all of the 5 oz. blanks to the Mint. The doomberg blog, referenced by CK, has it right, it's a poorly mismanaged program that pleases a tiny minority of collectors, whereas, and you have mentioned it on this thread and elsewhere, investors shun the bullion coin for its non-liquidity, a similar premium per oz. to the ASE, and the simple matter of size and storage. As examples of the coiner's art, they shine, as bullion they are an epic FAIL. Doomberg, aka Captain Overkill, always writes with clarity and precision on Modern issues if you follow the Mint News blog.

Ghost especially now it is cheaper to buy the bullion. I like the P coins better personally and think their value will hold better no matter what silver does which is my biggest issue with the bullion coin. The P coin will always have a premium over melt, what they may be is silver crashes is yet to be seen, but it has to be better than the 30 bucks the bullion would be worth is we got 5 dollar silver again