Excitement fades for gold Standing Liberty

The Mint is speedily delivering the 47,884 gold Standing Liberty quarters ordered by collectors on the first day, Sept. 8.

Superb quality is the hallmark of the coins thus far, according to hobbyists.

I had a telephone call yesterday from a Numismatic News reader who said he was 100 years old. He had just received his gold Standing Liberty coin. He pronounced its quality to be outstanding.

Imagine that. The collector and the design are the same age.

Kudos go to the Mint for its efficiency in getting the coins shipped out rapidly.

The current sales number, which is as of Sept. 11, shows collectors have taken enough for the mintage to exceed the 52,000 of the original 1916 silver coin, but it is still far below the 100,000 maximum.

So far, 53,378 have been purchased.

That means 5,494 more were sold by the Mint after the first day but before its Sept. 11 accounting cutoff point.

If demand patterns are similar to what has prevailed with prior offerings that don’t sell out quickly, maybe another 3,000 will be sold by the time next weekly Mint accounting deadline of Sept. 18 arrives.

We’ll see.

Whatever the figure happens to be by then, it won’t thereafter change very much week to week going forward.

Collectors will move on to other offers.

The first of these other offers occurs on Friday, when the 30th anniversary proof silver American Eagle goes on sale.

With no limitation on mintage, it will not become a speculative darling. The fact that up to 150,000 of them will be in the Ronald Reagan Coin and Chronicles Set will serve to put a damper on the actions of profit-seekers.

Speaking of profits, on eBay, secondary market action for the gold Standing Liberty quarter is subdued. Top graded coins are still offered for $749, but how many of these are being purchased?

Smart buyers can probably pick one up in original government packaging for not much more than what the Mint is charging.

But that being the case, why shouldn’t collectors just order the gold Standing Liberty from the Mint at its $485 issue price?

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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