US Mint 2016 24k Gold Coins To Celebrate 1916 Designs

Actually, the cost of producing these coins is quite high compared to the cost of producing a bullion coin with the same gold content. The development costs have to be spread over a much smaller mintage, the cost of die per coin is also much higher because because fewer coins are struck with each die set, the tooling costs are more per coin, and the special handling and packaging costs are greater. So far this year, 755,500 1oz Gold Eagles have been sold and another 200,500 Gold Buffalos sold. There have been 70,000 1/2 oz, 148,000 1/4 oz, and 865,000 1/10 oz Gold Eagles have been sold so far this year. The only "design" costs for these coins are for changing the year and the only tooling costs are for the production of the die. These coins are struck in a mass production environment using higher speeds and lower forces than those used for numismatic coins and receive minimal human handling and use standard bulk packaging. Bottom line, if you want bullion prices buy bullion coins. A 1/2 oz Eagle is selling at ~$640 (single unit price) with gold at $1295 as I write this. With this gold price, the 1/2 oz Walker will sell for $840, $200 above bullion price. Since the mint is not supposed to sell numismatic coins at a loss and since they are required to sell bullion coins as close to break even as possible, and since numismatic coins provide far more profit than bullion sales, I don't think that markup is that bad. These coins are not intended to be investments in PMs, and truly not even numismatic investments. Only a very few modern numismatic coins have increased in value without a corresponding increase in the PM value.

w1ksz. The dime was the first, the least expensive, and arguably the most popular design. With it's low cost, the dime had the most after-marketability because it could most easily tolerate a high percentage markup and still sell well.

IndianGoldEagle, here is your image (converted to B/W) and a similar image from my coin:





There do appear to be some differences but I don't think that what you are seeing are tool marks. Possibly just a die state issue or die variation or strike variation. If that is the worst you are seeing, I don't think it would prevent a grade 70 from being awarded.

Wasn't the dime sold with no limits? I believe that gave dealers a chance to buy all the Mercury dimes and then sell them to the public at inflated price. Have you seen all the coins in MS70 selling for over $300 for the dime you got for $205. How can there be that much difference in these coins to justify an MS70 grade? There are a lot of people trying to swindle the average coin collector. I would like genuine 1916 Mercury dime and 1916 LSQ in at least fine condition and I will get them eventually if I get good opportunity. I have the 1916 LWH dollars in my set. Mighty hard to find the old ones in anything beyond fine condition without really shelling out the bucks. When I go to my LCS I hardly ever see LWH dollars from teens and early 20's in anything but G to VG condition. Show a LWH to someone under 30 and they won't even know what they are and same goes for LSQ.

Perhaps the fantasy half and quarter have "gone begging" (in the words of one previous poster) because many collectors, such as myself,who might otherwise purchase a U.S. Mint product, do not care for either the fantasy nature of the issues or the disproportion of the high selling price.

I'm still sorry I blew the money for the 2014 JFK fantasy piece and don't intend to repeat my error. These coins are fictional and should never have been produced in gold.

I apologize to those who may be smitten by these pieces and don't mean to belittle their collections, but these "coins" are not for me.

Nor would I play the grading service game with these.

The SLQ and WL are just too expensive for most collectors. The dime sold out quickly because of the higher limits and it was at a price most collectors could afford.

With a ten per household or person limit on the dime I do imagine that many collectors might have spent the $2000 plus to buy ten knowing that at that rate they would not last long and then have potential to quickly appreciate to be flipped to those left out like me. It would be easy to get friends to put there name on an order and then round up 30-50 coins. Dealers must know many people and as a favor they get them to order ten coins while paying them a tip for doing so and paying for the coins. This way they could herd a couple of hundred coins maybe. A person could then make a quick 50-75 bucks selling the coins to those that did not act quickly.

And just for fun, here are the two 27mm gold coins side by side: the 2009-W UHRDE and the 2016-W Walking Liberty Centennial. The 2009 coin is actually the same size as the coin it pays tribute to but as far as I know there is only one 1907 UHRDE coin. I saw it at the Smithsonian when I visited D.C. several years ago (that one is priceless).