Slam dunk bounced out of the hoop

It is easy to get caught up in buyer enthusiasm.

We witnessed that Aug. 1.

It was the first day of sales for the 225th Anniversary Enhanced Uncirculated Coin Set.

The first person in line at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money illustrates this.

When I began talking to him, he expressed an interest in buying 10 sets.

As time passed and dealers talked of getting 500 at a crack, things changed.

When he finally went to the Mint booth sales counter and placed his order, he bought 30.

Simply listening to others around him led him to triple the size of his purchase.

He had been waiting for two hours.

In that heated environment, it felt like a sure thing.

We knew that online orders had been halted after a few minutes.

We knew that over-the-counter sales at the Denver Mint cleaned out the supply.

We were simply waiting for the last sets known to be available to be offered.

What could be more slam dunk than that?

Now eight days later, there seems to be buyer’s remorse setting in.

The slam dunk has bounced out of the hoop.

The sets were put back on sale Aug. 3.

Six days later they are still available.

Last night the Mint revealed that as of Aug. 6, a total of 217,514 of 225,000 sets were sold.

Ordinarily, it should not take long for the last 7,486 sets to be snapped up in a buying stampede.

Unless the herd has begun running the other way.

Original buyers seem to be changing their minds and canceling their orders.

New buyers have emailed me.

They tell me they have made their purchases of two or three sets each.

There simply cannot be enough new buyers at two or three sets at a time to offset overeager original buyers canceling orders for 10 times that number.

I’ll bet that the 217,514 sales number will be lower when the Mint updates it next week.

I will also bet that the first person in line at the ANA convention regrets getting carried away.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017 . He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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