Mint Stats: Interest wanes for 5 oz coins

It’s almost hard to remember the frenzy as collectors scurried to get the first 5 ounce America the Beautiful silver coins just two years ago. At its peak, the first five coins in the bullion series sold for nearly $5,000 a set.

It’s almost hard to remember the frenzy as collectors scurried to get the first 5 ounce America the Beautiful silver coins just two years ago. At its peak, the first five coins in the bullion series sold for nearly $5,000 a set.

It would be an exaggeration to say you can’t give them away these days, but truth is the interest just isn’t there.
So it wasn’t surprising when U.S. Mint Deputy Director Richard A. Peterson announced recently that mintages will be dialed back for both the bullion and collector ATB 5 ounce coins in 2012.

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The Mint had been producing 126,700 of the bullion coins. Petersen said the new mintage has been “penciled” in at 45,000 per bullion coin. As for numismatic collector coins, that mintage looks to be at 25,000, compared to the previous counts of 35,000.

The last three 5-counce coins of 2011 haven’t sold out yet, and the first coin of 2012 is already on the market. Lower mintages seem a good idea.

And who knows, maybe that will make the numismatic coins more collectible in years to come.

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