Posted 11/06/2019 3:14 pm
But it also means that when they come back down, they come down hard.
Whenever they have a low mintage hot item with a low or 1 per household limit there will almost always be complaints from people who get shut out pointing to the big dealers who have lots of them and claiming the Mint caters to them and give them special deals. They don't. The dealers have simply done exactly what you have pointed out.
The only time I can remember they ever gave them a special deal it came back to bite them. I believe it was 1983, proof sets were $11 apiece but the Mint offered to the big dealers a price of $8 apiece for orders of I think it was either 20K or 50K sets or more. Silvertowne jumped on the deal and ordered one MILLION sets. This consumed all the mints capacity filling that order and all the "small fry" had to wait and wait for their sets. But then as the sets started arriving at Silvertown they put out ads selling them for $9 a set, 2 dollars less than the mint. Rather than wait forever and pay more, people were cancelling their orders from the mint and buying from Silvertowne to get them faster. Final mintage figures from the mint were about normal, but the mint made $3 million less and Silvertowne put a quick million into their own pocket. That was the end of special deals for dealers. (They do still offer a discount at the end of the year for large volume purchasers, but nothing like that proof set deal.)
Whenever they have a low mintage hot item with a low or 1 per household limit there will almost always be complaints from people who get shut out pointing to the big dealers who have lots of them and claiming the Mint caters to them and give them special deals. They don't. The dealers have simply done exactly what you have pointed out.
The only time I can remember they ever gave them a special deal it came back to bite them. I believe it was 1983, proof sets were $11 apiece but the Mint offered to the big dealers a price of $8 apiece for orders of I think it was either 20K or 50K sets or more. Silvertowne jumped on the deal and ordered one MILLION sets. This consumed all the mints capacity filling that order and all the "small fry" had to wait and wait for their sets. But then as the sets started arriving at Silvertown they put out ads selling them for $9 a set, 2 dollars less than the mint. Rather than wait forever and pay more, people were cancelling their orders from the mint and buying from Silvertowne to get them faster. Final mintage figures from the mint were about normal, but the mint made $3 million less and Silvertowne put a quick million into their own pocket. That was the end of special deals for dealers. (They do still offer a discount at the end of the year for large volume purchasers, but nothing like that proof set deal.)
