Sales of American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins to the U.S. Mint’s authorized purchasers have dropped precipitously of late, leading to an ever-increasing buildup of inventory that could see the issues taken off of allocation in the near future. If the trend continues in the coming weeks, sales of Silver Eagles will no longer be on pace to surpass 2015’s all-time-high of 47 million units sold.
For much of this year, demand for Silver Eagles could be counted on to absorb most or all of the Mint’s stock of the coins, which tended to hover around one million pieces per week. Lately, however, sales have slowed, leaving hundreds of thousands of pieces to be applied to each succeeding week’s allocation, allowing the Mint to build up a sizable inventory the likes of which would have been almost unthinkable just two months ago.
Although the Mint has continued to produce roughly one million coins per week, sales over the past five weeks have totaled 843,500, 468,000, 517,000, 938,000, and 250,000 units, respectively. The latter figure was posted last week and marked a low for 2016. At the time of this writing, the Mint has sold 295,000 of this week’s 3,649,500-coin inventory, leaving 3,354,500 pieces unsold.
The overall total for 2016 has reached 26,795,500 Silver Eagles sold, which amounts to 57% of last year’s final tally. Today, July 13, is 53.4% of the way through the year, so sales of the issues remain on pace to break 2015’s record for the time being.
On the collector coin side of the Mint’s operations, the most recent U.S. Mint sales report notes that the 2016 Ronald Reagan Presidential $1 Coin and Medal Set sold 5,901 units during its first week of availability. This is an impressive debut for a product in this series — only last year’s Kennedy set has seen higher first-week sales (13,349) since Coin Update began publishing the reports in 2010. The Reagan Coin & Medal Set is the 39th and final release in this series, which launched in 2007.
Approved designs for the upcoming Palladium coin: Adolph Weinman’s Winged Liberty dime obverse, and his reverse of the 1907 American Institute of Architects medal.
Finally, Dennis Tucker of the Citizen’s Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) has a new article over at Coin Update giving a status update on the U.S. Mint’s palladium coin program. During the CCAC’s recent meeting in Colorado Springs, they received a briefing on the palladium initiative from Ronald Harrigal, the Mint’s acting quality manager for manufacuring. Some of Harrigal’s key points are included below.
The palladium bullion coin program has been mandated by Congressional legislation, while palladium collector coins remain optional and subject to the approval of the Treasury Secretary.
Congress did not stipulate a release date for the coins, nor their diameter. This will in part ensure that some of the difficulties and expenses encountered in the run up to the launch of the America the Beautiful 5 oz. coins are not repeated, as the Mint has time to trouble-shoot design possibilities without an impending deadline.
The Mint is currently engaged in talks with potential palladium suppliers, hoping to line up at least two reliable sources.
The Mint is aiming for a High Relief option for its palladium coins.
Tucker notes, “Quarter-sized (24.3 mm) test planchets have already been struck (with Martha Washington designs and nonsense dies), with Harrigal reporting that further development is needed in regards to the upset-rim profile and other factors.”
The Mint has been communicating with the Royal Canadian Mint in order to learn from Canada’s ongoing palladium program.
Harrigal is aware of probable limits to comsumer demand for palladium coins, which will likely affect the Mint’s handling of bullion and collector coin production.
Tucker’s full article can be found here.