Second day of sellout watch

The Kennedy Coin and Chronicles set was still available on the Mint website when I checked it this morning.

It was called “Limited” and the sets were on back order until Sept. 28.

The set will sell out soon unless for some reason the Mint starts to get a lot of canceled orders by buyers.

But since the back order date is less than two weeks away, that should not impact the early release designations earned by sending the sets to slabbing companies.

Yesterday in the late afternoon the back order in-stock date was Oct. 15.

That might have scared off some would-be buyers and it could be why there are still sets available this morning.

I posted a short blog yesterday to report that by late afternoon the Mint had orders for 44,563 of the 50,000 that can be produced.

I timed the statement at 4:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. That was a typo I did not catch. I should have posted 4:50 p.m. Eastern Time.

I must have been in such haste I did not realize what I had done until I saw it this morning. I do not expect the 10 minute difference to have any effect on buyer psychology, but I do regret the error as I try to always be correct in my reporting.

The Mint began shipping out 25,000 of the ordered sets immediately, so it is possible that I will be getting messages from happy buyers as early as today.

Use of computers not only speeds up order taking and shipping, it also speeds up analysis.

Already the Mint has told me that 78 percent of the online orders were from desktop computers while 16 percent were entered via the new Mint mobile app. Another 6 percent was entered via social media.

Telephone results could not be tallied as quickly so we will have to wait a bit to see how many sets were sold by the 147 customer service representatives recording telephone purchases.

Will the set sellout later today?

I have to think it will, but as Yogi Berra reminded us, it ain’t over until it’s over. It is certainly possible that because we still cannot proclaim a sellout that some of yesterday’s buyers might get skittish at the uncertainty.

The rate of sales dropped dramatically as the day went on.

The Mint reported that 25,000 sets were sold in the first 10 minutes and 40,000 in the first hour.

So in the 3 hours and 50 minutes after the first hour, the Mint sold 4,563 sets.

All of these figures go into the mix and can add to the sense of uncertainty.

With an order limit of two sets and the $57.95 cost plus the $4.95 handling fee, would-be individual buyers are risking just $120.85.

So here we are on another day of Kennedy sellout watch.

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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