Mint looks for loyal silver Eagle buyers
The 2017-W uncirculated silver American Eagle goes on sale at noon Eastern Daylight Time today.
Price is $44.95.
There is no order limit.
There is no mintage limit.
Are you a loyal Eagle buyer?
Will you jump at the chance to purchase this specially made collector product?
Sales of the 2017-W proof silver Eagle have reached not quite half the number of those sold dated 2016.
This year’s sales number is 278,199.
For the 2016 piece, it is 563,008.
Halfway sales numbers are common this year for various Mint products when comparing 2017 issues with 2016.
Clad 2017 proof sets at 292,156 are about halfway to the 595,184 2016 issue.
The uncirculated coin set is 157,814 compared to 285,796.
The 2017 silver proof set is 196,304 versus 369,849.
If demand for the 2017-W uncirculated silver American Eagle runs to the halfway mark, we will see a mintage of roughly 100,000.
The 2016-W issue stands at 201,173.
Numbers will change because the issues of both years are still on sale.
Once sales begin and deliveries start for the 2017-W uncirculated silver Eagle, the secondary market will pass judgment.
Will buyers there be excited or bored?
Right now it looks like they will be looking for something else to get their speculative blood flowing.
Many collectors buy only proofs, so the uncirculated version of any coin starts off with a handicap of sorts.
But even 100,000 2017-W uncirculated coins is a significant number.
The Mint will pocket between $4.5 and $5 million in sales plus handling charges at that level.
If silver stays relatively stable for the next few years, what kind of secondary market price will the 2017-W uncirculated silver Eagle achieve?
Whatever the answer might be, it should be higher than the price of the more numerous 2016-W uncirculated silver Eagle.
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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