Another collector issue, another problem?

Is the Mint getting off to a bad start in 2016 regarding collector coin offers?

We had the mystery of the Mark Twain silver dollar delay, which has postponed the offer from today.

It turned out there was an error on the Certificate of Authenticity. They needed to be redone.

No sooner was that puzzle solved than I received another email about more Mint products that the writer says are delayed.

The sender wrote:

“I just checked the US Mint’s website and it seems the 2016 ATB quarters proof set (both clad and silver) have been moved to the TBD category. The clad was supposed to have been available for purchase on January 11th and the silver I think was supposed to be available later in January. Now both have been removed from the schedule. There seems to be no explanation at all by the Mint on why these have been taken off the upcoming for sale schedule.”

It is another question for the Mint.

But a secondary puzzle for me is I really didn’t think collectors cared that much about America the Beautiful quarter sets.

I am not trying to knock a very collectible and interesting series, but because interest has been plunging in quarters since the heyday of the state quarter series, I am simply surprised by any expression of interest in quarter sets at all.

The January 26 issue of Numismatic News reported sales of the five-coin 2015 clad set as 93,611. The number for the five-coin silver 2015 set is 94,753.

While these numbers are nothing to sneeze at, they are not large.

If the Mint is having a problem with such routine sets, it will indeed be a bad start to 2016.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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