Medal’s moment passes

Have you purchased a 9/11 medal? I know that this question probably would have been more apt on Sept. 11, but that’s just the point.

If you were going to buy one, you already would have – at least that’s the story that the weekly sales totals are telling me on the Mint Statistics pages of Numismatic News.

In recent weeks sales numbers have actually been going backwards.

It is like a door was slammed in our minds after the passing of the 10th anniversary date.

Perhaps buying a medal helped people in observing the anniversary. That is, of course, one reason why it was created. The date now has passed. Collector attention has moved on.

At some point, collectors will look at output numbers dispassionately and study them with an eye to rarity.

They will note that there are 91,789 West Point pieces as of the latest figures and just 59,701 Philadelphia medals.

Is that difference large enough to justify a future price differential? We will see.

But once that reasoning begins for this medal, we will know that things are returning to a normality that often has eluded us in the past 10 years.