I hope this is the correct spot for this post.
This all relates to Tuvalu's commemorative Gods of Olympus which is a three coin set with a very low mintage of 1500 coins per release.
I have tried to buy each of the three coins from the
Perth Mint. With the first one I had no chance of getting one. This process was the same for Poseidon's coin. The last one, Hades, was just put up for sale and again a swing and a miss.
Being a bit disillusioned by the whole thing I started to do what I do best, RESEARCH.
First finding is that the Authorized Purchasers(ap) get first crack on the quantities of which are unknown to me and perhaps anyone. The coins are made of silver, 2 ounces each. THe other thing I found disturbing was that the ap's dictate their own price. The mint has zero input on the final pricing on their acquired coins.
Feeling discouraged I went on
ebay to see if the secondary market has started selling theirs for profit. I was stunned to see that the new coin, Hades, was over $400. So with the original price no one will ever know it exists. FYI ~$165/coin. The other thing that bothers me is that they don't have purchaser limits. On
ebay I saw one person selling the first 20 coins of the Hades issue. Un Friggin impossible. I found many more examples of this.
Well now I can see why people want to be an AP. First choice of coins, get to list your own price once brought home. It's an instant profit business in this case and I would love to be part of that.
In summary AP's have no limit for purchasing coins and no limit on their markups.
I'm off to find the disillusioned collectors and help them spread the word of the poor practice of price control and even worse dictating where the few coins are to go.
At this point I'm thinking full boycott from me.
Posted 10/20/2014 07:59 am
