Palladium bullion due in September

A one-ounce palladium bullion coin will be released by the U.S. Mint in September.

Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Mint David Motl said the new coin would be sold through the Mint's usual network of Authorized Purchasers.

He told Numismatic News that he did not yet have a specific date, but it would be next month.

A proof collector version will follow in 2018.

Motl was visiting the American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money in Denver.

It is his first ANA show since taking the top spot in January.

While he was there, the Mint booth sold out the supply of 225th Anniversary Enhanced Uncirculated Coin Sets.

But even with a 500 set limit per buyer at the convention, the supply on hand lasted for five hours.

The set was offered beginning at 1 p.m. Mountain time, three hours after it had sold out in minutes on the Mint website.

The 6 p.m. bourse floor closing time also marked the exhaustion of that supply.

When asked why there was no order limit on the set, he said he was not sure they were effective.

There are many ways to get around these household restrictions, he said.

Motl is a numbers guy.

His background is accounting.

He joined the Mint in 2006 as deputy chief financial officer, according to his biography on the Mint website.

He said he had analyzed another recent sellout without an order limit.

There, 60 percent of the total quantity available was taken by buyers of five sets or fewer.

As a numbers guy, he was pleased to report that the Mint website was up 99.4 percent of the time since it was upgraded in 2014.

The website can handle 90 orders per second, which challenges Ticketmaster.

Telephone order calls are answered in 20 seconds or less.

Ninety-nine percent of all orders are shipped in two days.

"My number one goal is to make sure the Mint is successful," he said.

Customer service for him is a huge priority.

So collectors will watch and wait to see what else Motl can accomplish.

That future could be very interesting.

"We can be a little bit more flexible with new ideas," he said.

Where that flexibility will lead could keep collectors on the edge of their seats.

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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