Sell only ‘boring’ coins on Mint website?

Hope springs eternal. So, I expect, does frustration.

I had a phone message on my voicemail Friday morning placed during the middle of the night from a reader who said that the Mint website no longer indicated that the silver Eagle 25th anniversary set was sold out.

The caller suggested I look into it. I did. I placed an inquiry with the Mint when I arrived at the office even though it was a business holiday because of Veterans Day.

As you might expect, sets that were sold out in a single day back on Oct. 27 are not likely to suddenly become available two weeks later.

But there was indeed a website glitch.

Mint public relations director Tom Jurkowsky got back to me after I had gone home Friday. (Thanks, by the way.)

What he wrote was that as the Mint was processing anniversary set orders, the glitch “caused the product to go into ‘back order’ status as opposed to ‘sold out.’ This happened between approximately 4:30 and 9:30 Friday morning.”

That would be 3:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. my time.

“Approximately 50 orders were placed. These will be canceled.”

That means that another 50 would-be buyers will get bad news and there are another 50 reasons why the Mint’s pending website upgrade that is nearly a year away will seem like an interminably long time.

Perhaps the Mint can arrange to sell only “boring” coins between now and next September. That might help prevent more website snafus.