Maybe The Mint Should Consider Repricing Their Coins..?

I cancelled all my RCM orders this past month. Cheaper to pick up old RCM product on ebay at a discount to their original price.

As long as people are buying at the current price level then they'll keep selling at that level. Until they see a significant, extended drop in demand for the finished products they have no reason to drop prices.

The drop in demand has already occured with none of the June issues sold out and the July issues available next week.

None of the recent coins are selling that well on the secondary market. The last hit was the glass butterfly and even that coin's price has dropped significantly.

I agree that the production costs should be more transparent. Granted, the mintages are low. That means that they do not consume as many dies to mint the coins. It also means that they probably pay a greater price for the dies.

Concerning the designs of the coins: they should really seek out visual artists (GOOD ones) and train them a little bit on how metal moves in the coin form when pressed to show them what the medium is capable of and what doesn't usually work very well. If they spent more time designing the coins they wouldn't look so bubbly and cartoony and people would actually look at them like pieces of art. That in itself would make them more desirable. I have kept one single coin from the 1976 Montreal set because I liked the artistry in it. Most of the rest are bland or too linear. As I looked into it more I realized that the designs I liked most were from the same engraver.

OOPS I digressed. It happens.

Going back to transparency: The costs should be available on request (they don't have to publicize it), because seeing as they are a Crown corporation and they do publicize their profits what would be the harm? Set out a formula for pricing so that the public understands the price and it doesn't look like every coin is an arbitrary number that is 3-5 times the spot metal price. For some coins it is alright, but for the cartoony or the gimmicky coins they lose a lot of credibility in price and design. The RCM has a lot of respect in terms of innovation (being the first to do certain things), but they lack the artistry to pull it off properly and tastefully.

So I think that there are two important factors in fair minting: art design vs cost transparency. With each new innovation - slow down! - and get true "out of house" artists to take the lead under the guidance and training of the RCM. Simply putting out a coin for every animal and point in history possible is boring and confusing.

Ok, hopefully I'm done lol.

Libertad, you're making way too much sense. Better take a breather...

I can only hope that the RCM pays attention to constructive suggestions like the ones you are proposing.

Also to stay on topic, I don't think we'll see the mint's prices dropping anytime soon, in fact probably never.

Granted, it doesn't fit in with the world wide decline on metals and currency, but does anybody else see the connection between those that 'buy out' a particular coin "for the secondary market" and why the mint won't drop prices?

Hey - Imagine You are an exec at the mint.... You are thinking about pricing the coins in the next release... "lets look what happened last month... we sold out of this, this, this, and don't forget this coin. I think our prices are what the market would bare. I think we can knock it up a notch or two......Ooops too high, we didn't sell out anything"

Creating a false market can never be good. It certainly hasn't helped the common collector with ever higher prices - yes, a few have made some money on these ups and downs, but I think in the long run I'm going to continue just collecting for my own pleasure.

Actually, the 2013 silver dollars (Canadian Arctic Expedition and Seven Years War) weigh 23.17 grams which equates to 0.7 ounces vs. 1.0 ounce. With silver at about $20 per ounce, a coin with 0.7 ounces of 0.999 fine silver has about $14 of silver in it. So, a selling price of $70 represents a 5x multiple.