All the gold dimes are gone

It wasn’t a 15-minute sellout, but the Mint got rid of its remaining gold Mercury dimes yesterday with little trouble.

I checked a half an hour into the sale, and the Mint’s website showed they were still available.

When after lunch I remembered to check again, they were all gone.

The Mint had 8,904 remaining from the 125,000 maximum mintage.

These coins were offered for $200 each, which was $5 cheaper than they were back on April 21.

I guess this is the numismatic version of negative interest rates.

Keep your money for months longer and pay less. We should all have bills to pay that work this way.

One reader who emailed me with the details of his ordering experience was happy as a clam.

He wrote: “I just wanted to let you know the order process for the remaining dimes went smoothly for me. Ordering opened up precisely at noon, but I had a problem checking out with my Firefox browser. I switched to the Chrome browser and still managed to add one to the bag and successfully check out even with the couple of minute delay. No problems at all.”

That is good news.

The Mint’s website was up to the challenge as it now normally is.

I have to say that the gold Mercury is my favorite of the three gold Centennial coins this year.

My opinion is a bit like it was arrived at by Goldilocks.

It is based on my experience as a kid who tried collecting all three.

I remember spending all of them as silver coins when I was a kid.

However, the Standing Liberty quarter was very scarce by the time I began monitoring my change and paper route income.

I received only a couple that didn’t have the date completely worn off.

It is hard to form an attachment to slicks with no dates.

The Walking Liberty half dollar was just too much money 50 years ago.

It paid for a week’s worth of newspapers plus a bit of change back.

I did collect them. But they were always a stretch.

The Mercury dime was just right. I filled up most of the holes in my Mercury album and it didn’t strain my budget the way half dollars did.

Happy memories.

To all the lucky gold Mercury buyers this week, I say I hope your buying experience was as pleasant as that of the reader who wrote me.

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