2018 Commems - 6 Weeks To Go

Those BCA numbers are surprising. It's not the greatest design and the same among all denominations, but I'd have thought the sympathetic theme would have produced more sales than that.

Hasn't the market in effect already reduced the mintage? Anyone who wants a low mintage coin can buy one now.

Actual mintages hardly ever come close to the maximum mintages allowed by the authorizing legislation. The last time there was a sold out mintage was the 2014 Baseball HOF half eagle and it sold out quickly on the first day. Was that because of the topic? or because the coin was curved?

Will something similar occur with the Apollo half eagles? I suppose if the Mint puts a household limit on, and dealers start offering to pay folks to buy the coins for them, then it will be time to get your order in

Although 31 U.S.C. §5112 (m)(2)(A)(iii) limits the maximum authorized mintage for either $5 or $10 gold commemoratives to 100,000, the specific authorizing laws for the 2017, 2018 and 2019 commemoratives further limits the maximum mintage to 50,000. The Baseball HOF $5 half eagle was also limited to 50,000 (The reported mintage is 50,101. I doubt anyone went to jail for minting 101 too many ). The Baseball HOF coin was a quick sell out. TPG graded 70s typically now sell for around 50% above the Mint issue price.

The 2017 and 2018 half eagles didn't come anywhere close to being sold out. Even so, the latest TPG graded 70s ebay sales for last years Boys Town half eagle (the current key date) are around double the Mint issue price.

The Apollo half eagle is once again curved and the topic probably has as broad an appeal as the Baseball HOF. IMHO it's worthwhile to keep this coin on the radar to see how the Mint markets it and its potential for being a sell out

Not exactly commemorative issues...no surcharge benefiting anyone soooo...low mintage limits possible

Are those numbers across all sets and packaging or just the packaging that includes only the aforementioned coin?

I'd say yes and no. For the commem itself it seemed to have helped, for the medals I think it's pretty clear it held those back. Seems to be a matter of perspective with the wild card of how many people sat them out because they were annoyed with that tactic.




I don't think that plays a role at all. It's an issue that gets a ton of press, worthy issue but so is every wide spread disease. Anyone who is trying to make sure the issue gets addressed will donate directly as they could spend half as much as the commemorative cost and put a lot more money in the pocket of the organization.

The amount of people that would buy one just so they "donated" a little is very small. I've always felt disease subjects like that aren't a good idea anyway. They're a depressing topic to a lot of people when collecting is supposed to be fun and an escape. There's still plenty of historical events, people, groups, ships, ect that can be done without keeping down this path of a terminal illness short set.




Both in my opinion but also because the mintage for the gold was fairly reasonable. The 50k pushed it a little bit but that was one of the few topics and new novelty with a great design that could absorb that mintage. That said the half never sold out even though it was an insanely popular topic with a brand new curved coin. That is very strong evidence of what we all already know, mintage does matter.

Lower mintage everyone wants it, mintage to demand or a mintage to high and a lot of people lose interest and know they can get it cheaper on the after market if they wait a bit.




I doubt dealers would pay much for them with the high limit. There's going to be a grading delay anyway with the TPGs making a new slab for them unless they've gotten some info and are working on it already. Maybe a small flip potential selling to a couple big dealers if they did, but usually the dealers only offer that when they expect a sell out.

Ironically the ultra low household limits on something that does sell out fast really just drives up the after market price. The more dealers have to pay for it the more they have to charge to make money from it

I look at it the other way myself where I think the medals would have sold out and more of the commemorative would have sold on its own without the medals. I think we can both agree it's fair to say that there were people who didn't buy the commemorative by itself because they waited for the one with the medal. That's the main reason I am skeptical of how much the medal combo really drove sales of the dollar.