Letters to the Editor: Dec 3, 2019

In Response to the 1995W Proof Eagle Article

In the Nov. 5, 2019 issue of Numismatic News, I think you missed the real reason the 1995 W Proof Eagle did not sell well. You had to buy the 4-coin gold Proof set to get one in the set. $990.00 was a lot to spend on a silver Eagle and the gold was not worth that much in 1995. It made it an expensive investment.

I told my friends to buy them as a good investment with a 50,000 mintage limit. My friends scoffed at spending $990.00 on the set. They were mad they didn’t when they saw what it went to. I wish I had bought more than one set. This was the best coin deal I have bought from the mint. I have seen the silver Eagle alone sell for $5,000 and the gold is worth more today. I still have my original 5-coin Proof set. I am proud to have it in my collection.

Alan Ledford
Denver, Col.

Time Marches On

I started collecting in December 2015. My first coin was a 1943 Walking Liberty half I purchased in Madison, Wisc. I spent a lot of time holding it and imagining how many different things it purchased over time. It will always be worth far more than any pricing guide would indicate!

Since then, I never thought I’d find silver coins in circulation. And I tend to regard discovery stories with a healthy bit of skepticism.

Until this summer!

I was at a CVS in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago when I noticed what looked like a handful of coins in the return of a Coinstar machine.

What I found was a couple of Canadian pennies and two silver dimes: 1952D and 1963D. Both were in pretty good condition to boot. Yes, between the two types, more than a half-billion of them were minted. But to think of all that’s occurred in that time!

I keep them on my desk as a reminder that time moves on without our consent.

Dimitrios Kalantzis
Chicago, Ill.

Disappointing Purchasing Experience

Today, 11-14-19, at 12:00 p, I had an item which went on sale today at 12 noon, 19XE enhanced reverse proof silver eagle in my cart for checkout.During the checkout, the screen would go blank instructing me to refresh the page, which I did only to have to reenter all my info for payment.

I finally was able to get to the last step to place the order at 12:17 pm, only to learn this item was no longer available.I was able to take a screenshot of the item in my cart.My question is this, since you, the Mint, knew there would be a high demand during a short period of time since there were only 30,000 available and only one per household, were there any precautions taken to ensure that orders could be placed in a timely manner?

Also, when an item (if available) is placed in a cart, isn’t that item considered no longer available to other buyers, until the order could be placed? If I no longer wanted this item and logged out from your site, then I could understand that it would be available to other buyers.The Mint’s lack of preparation for this anticipated item was very poor, to say the least, and I can understand why people lose interest in buying from them.

Theresa Levins
Philadelphia, Pa.