US Mint to end 90% silver production.

[MorganMan]

Now they will all be .999 silver!

Nice!

 

Link to article

 

 

 

[numisport]

Oh that's great..... now they cannot be priced. Marketing literature will say Market Price or 'Call for Price'

[Conder101]

Why would they not be able to be priced?  Were they unable to price the proof or burnished ASE's?  Those coins and the  silver proof, and the commemorative were already priced at a significant premium over bullion because they are "collector coins" aren't they.

[Mohawk]

Well...from the standpoint of modernizing and properly competing with other modern mints, this is a good move by the US Mint.  .999 Silver is what most modern silver collectors want now, not some archaic alloy that is a holdover from the days when silver coins were a medium of exchange and needed the copper to allow them to hold up and be useful for a period of years.  The US Mint has clung to many relics from times past for too long, but they seem to be trying to change that.  It's a good sign and I think going to .999 Silver will help modern US issues compete on the global stage, but there are more areas that need improvement for the US Mint to truly become sustainably competitive, especially regarding the designs of the coins and the themes chosen for the offerings.  They also need to quit overcharging for fancy packaging.  And Conder is absolutely correct.  Collector versions of .999 Silver Eagles are priced all over the US Mint website and have been for years.  Overall, it's a step in the right direction.  Does anyone know if the gold offerings are going to .999 as well? 

[MorganMan]

I thought all the current gold was .999 already. I know the gold buffalo's are.

[numisport]

On ‎2‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 1:21 AM, Conder101 said:

Why would they not be able to be priced?  Were they unable to price the proof or burnished ASE's?  Those coins and the  silver proof, and the commemorative were already priced at a significant premium over bullion because they are "collector coins" aren't they.

I understand and my statement was more or less one of bewilderment than fact. I'm still mad that the U.S. Mint balked on the 2009 proof Silver Eagle. I still don't believe they didn't have a backup source for .999 silver planchets. I guess I could have bought one slightly modified from Dan Carr but just gave up on Eagles all together. Can you clarify what happened to proof Silver Eagles in 2009 at the mint ?

[Mohawk]

1 hour ago, MorganMan said:

I thought all the current gold was .999 already. I know the gold buffalo's are.

The Buffalos are, but the gold commemoratives are 90% gold, unless that's changing too.  I probably should have specifically said the commemoratives, I guess.  The Gold Eagles aren't .999 either.  I think they're 22k.

[Just Bob]

52 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

The Buffalos are, but the gold commemoratives are 90% gold, unless that's changing too.  I probably should have specifically said the commemoratives, I guess.  The Gold Eagles aren't .999 either.  I think they're 22k.

I can't view a post like this without pulling out the Red Book, so here is the breakdown: Gold Commemoratives, classic and modern: .900 gold, .100 copper. Gold American Eagles: .9167 gold, .03 silver,  .O533 copper. Gold Buffalos, First Spouse coins, and the Ultra High Relief gold coin minted in 2009: all .9999 gold.

I haven't read the FAST act, so I don't know if it included anything about the composition of gold coins. The article did state that the  composition of all other coins would remain the same, so, at least for 2019, it looks like gold commemoratives will not be .9999.

[Mohawk]

That's interesting......but maybe the copper content doesn't cause the issues with gold that it does with silver since gold is inert.  But I wonder if this will hurt the gold products going forward.  After all, .999 is becoming the world standard for all modern precious metal offerings.  Who knows?  I've long given up on trying to determine why any modern mint does what it does......some things make sense, some things are just crazy and there's everything in between those two points.  I'll just stick to my 1961 to 1975 Canadian Proof Like Sets.....they're already made, so nothing like this matters there!

[Numismatic, A.A.S.]

On 2/24/2019 at 1:21 AM, Conder101 said:

Why would they not be able to be priced?  Were they unable to price the proof or burnished ASE's?  Those coins and the  silver proof, and the commemorative were already priced at a significant premium over bullion because they are "collector coins" aren't they.

Exactly, they did a study and wasted $780,400.00 to determine that they need prices with the products. Then spent another $3.4 million on the promotion and interactive pricing chart for precious metals and what we pay vs. market value per ounce etc...

[Conder101]

On 2/25/2019 at 9:50 PM, numisport said:

Can you clarify what happened to proof Silver Eagles in 2009 at the mint ?

In 2009 demand for silver bullion coins was through the roof, world wide not just in the US.  There are only so many firms that make the planchets and they were overwhelmed. (The Mint doesn't make their own gold or silver planchets) The producers were having to ration planchets to the various mints.  It was either that or cut some mints off completely (Who knows the US Mint might have been the one that got cut off if they did that.).  Due to the lack of planchets and high demand the mint had to ration the silver eagles to the distributors (and the mintage of the 2009 was the highest ever, if they could have gotten more planchets they probably could have sold a lot more.  At least during one month that year they didn't ship ANY to the distributors because they just didn't have the planchets.)  The law authorizing the silver eagles says the mint has to coin them to meet the demand and the demand was already greater than the planchet supply.  The law does NOT say they have to make proof versions of the coin so the mint decided that since they had to make the bullion coins to meet demand and didn't HAVE to make proofs, they couldn't justify diverting planchets to proof production.

[numisport]

16 hours ago, Conder101 said:

In 2009 demand for silver bullion coins was through the roof, world wide not just in the US.  There are only so many firms that make the planchets and they were overwhelmed. (The Mint doesn't make their own gold or silver planchets) The producers were having to ration planchets to the various mints.  It was either that or cut some mints off completely (Who knows the US Mint might have been the one that got cut off if they did that.).  Due to the lack of planchets and high demand the mint had to ration the silver eagles to the distributors (and the mintage of the 2009 was the highest ever, if they could have gotten more planchets they probably could have sold a lot more.  At least during one month that year they didn't ship ANY to the distributors because they just didn't have the planchets.)  The law authorizing the silver eagles says the mint has to coin them to meet the demand and the demand was already greater than the planchet supply.  The law does NOT say they have to make proof versions of the coin so the mint decided that since they had to make the bullion coins to meet demand and didn't HAVE to make proofs, they couldn't justify diverting planchets to proof production.

Thanks for that info. I think you or somebody else at this forum set me straight on this once before and sorry I had forgotten the story. The 2009 proof Silver Eagle dilemma caused me to sell the rest of them and I bought ho hum rolls of unc. silver eagles.