ATB Five Ounce Silver Coins

It could be worse, the 2012 First Spouses were released in the 4th quarter about 2 to 3 weeks apart. These are 5xs the cost of the pucks, so you can imagine the grumbling that happened with the tight release schedule.

I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. IMO if people will buy the ATB pucks they'd buy an ASE puck. Including me, as I'm a huge fan of the design and variants.

Someone mentioned tax refunds... and yeah, my tax refund will go towards some coins, unfortunately some make-up purchases for coins that were stolen in December. None of my P-Pucks were stolen, fortunately, but I am missing a couple 2011 ASE sets now. Bleah.

Regardless...I am in for the 2013 P releases if they happen. I hate the "sprint to the finish" model when they only start releasing them in May. It ends up being like a car payment until the last one of the year is released.

@SA4H - thanks. It was a common theft...smash a window and grab whatever is quickly salable. So they got my guitars, big screen TV, aforementioned 2011 ASE sets, etc. Not fun.

The ATB pucks were barely out of sight so they didn't take them... 45 oz of silver right there under their dang fool dbag noses.

The thing is, if they'd taken my P-Pucks, I'd be WAY out of cash considering what I've paid for them and current spot Ag value. Woof.

Lock up your valuables, ladies and gentlemen!

From Silver Coins Today........

Sales of America the Beautiful 5 Ounce Silver Coins

Demand also remained solid for bullion America the Beautiful 5 Ounce Silver Coins. U.S. Mint authorized purchasers ordered 19,800 in March. That all happened on the first day of the month. More would have sold but the Mint's entire inventory sold out and the bureau has yet to release any of the 2013-dated America the Beautiful 5 Ounce Silver Coins.

That total was significantly higher than in February when 14,340 were ordered. 28,960 moved in January. Here are the five ounce coin sales totals for March:

March Sales All-Time Total Status

2011 Olympic National Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 0 104,900 Sold Out

2011 Vicksburg National Military Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 10,400 58,100 Sold Out

2011 Chickasaw National Recreation Area 5 oz. Silver Coins 8,800 48,700 Sold Out

2012 El Yunque National Forest 5 oz. Silver Coins 0 24,000 Sold Out

2012 Chaco Culture National Historical Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 600 24,400 Sold Out

2012 Acadia National Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 0 25,400 Sold Out

2012 Hawaii Volcanoes National Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 0 20,000 Sold Out

2012 Denali National Park 5 oz. Silver Coins 0 20,000 Sold Out

Well... if they bought an inventory of 5 ounce pucks at +30 why wouldn't they send those out to be melted and pressed to 1 ounce for proof eagles? Seems to me there is a point where you start averaging your costs and don't lose near as much or anything depending on how they price the new pucks. This price dilemma is always going to be there for these pucks - unless silver jumps dramatically again. That is one of the primary reasons I keep saying I am not overly impressed with a 5 ounce coin. It is one thing to take a loss when my $50 Eagle is priced against $27 silver and another to have 5 ounces of silver worth less than $150 and want to sell it for $250 to break even on costs and the demand for the coin is less than 20,000 buyers today straight from the mint.

basebal - the problem is I think they over priced these to start with - or perhaps the start of this series was timed poorly with silver being as high as it had been. Now they are apparently convinced they can sell these near $250 and even as their own data is showing based on those prices there is very little demand. The only real solution to the issue is to lower the price nearer to actual silver costs, and hope those who already bought into the series will forgive the early price gouging and jump at the lower priced offerings to average their loses... I might be convinced to purchase a couple of these if they were marginally higher than the current price of silver ... your $180 seems reasonable enough. Instead I read the mint is going the other direction and raising the price and probably losing even more potential buyers. I am not optimistic the pucks will make the end of the series if they can't figure out what they are doing with them.

In fairness they definitely had about the worst possible timing to start this product with what silver was and likely where its headed.

That said thats why I think they need to set a floor price for these. Right now even the P versions are still considered bullion to an extent since we all base what the premium should be off of spot price yet we all have numismatic items where spot means very little to their value. They need to take steps to get people thinking about these numismatically and not in terms of their silver value if they want to increase sales. Its one thing to buy an ASE for 50 and watch it go to 20 but another to buy these for 250 and watch it go to 100.

Then throw on the fact that theyre trying to increase the premium while the metal value is declining and it has all the makings for very sluggish sales and the series being canceled at some point. If a floor value was established I think people would be more comfortable knowing that is silver crashed they wouldnt lose all the value. If you knew that say 150 or 180 was the minimum sale price no matter what youd be more comfortable knowing at worse you lose 70-100 dollars. Without that floor you dont know how much you could lose and have to assume that a silver crash could lead to these selling for under 100 dollars where the loses would be substantial per puck and huge if you have them all.

The other thing though that I've often wondered is if the mint is trying to kill demand so they can try and get the series killed from poor sales. I dont have any proof of it, but its entirely possible that theyve deemed them not worth the effort and would rather move on from them then try and increase sales

angel - the law actually says they can mint as many as they deem necessary - which would also imply they can not mint any. Interestingly when I looked up the law regarding the ATB coins 3 other things stood out to me... 1 the law indicates if they choose to do it - they could continue on making the coins - with another site selected from each state after they go through the 1st set of sites. 2 the bullion coins are by law only supposed to be sold during the same year as the quarter they represent is sold. 3 the end of the ATB series according to the law - returns us to a Washington obverse pre-1999 - with a reverse that shows Washington crossing the Delaware River...