Whats the deal with these America The Beautiful 5 oz's? I see the usmint is wanting $230 for them, but APMEX has them for $189 Do people not like them or just unpopular? Or did they mint too many?
Lumps of 5oz silver; and not particularly beautiful in my opinion. Definitely not well known in Europe and difficult to buy over here to complete a set. Premiums are somewhat high but the earliest years might be come numismatic as limited issue. Apmex prices are frequently strange - based on stock turns I guess.
As others have posted, APMEX is now keeping the best coins for grading and selling the rest as bullion. I bought two ATB coins from APMEX about 3 months ago and both coins had large areas where they appeared to have rubbed against something hard. Also, the case on one of the coins was badly cracked on two sides. The problems did not occur during shipment. APMEX allowed return of the coins, but they did take a month to refund the money. No more ATB coins for me.
For example, 5oz year of the snake: Perth mint - $203.10 Goldstackers - $191.10 Bullion Bourse -$181.40
To answer your question Mowa,there are two types of ATB 5 oz coins.The ones that apmex sells for about $180 are strictly bullion coins.So do the math,they cost about $36 an ounce.The mint produces 50k or so of them. The ones that the us mint sells are "collector coins" with a special finish.Same 5 ozs,have a P mintmark on them,lower mintages(the 2012 mintages. were about 15k)So thats why the mint ones cost more.If you like big coins then buy the bullion ones.I buy both.
The entire ATB program is getting interesting (again). The 2011 collector versions sold directly from the mint to the public were on sale through 2012. The Mint announced well ahead of time that sales of the 2011s would end on 31 Dec 2012. No one had a problem. Sales of the 2012s is turning into a different story. Instead of following the same schedule the mint, out of the blue, announced last week that sales of the Hawaii issue were terminated. These had an announced max mintage of 25,000 but the Hawaii had only sold slightly under 15k at the time. The El Yunque, on the other hand has sold over 15k and is still available as are the other 3 2012 coins. Why Hawaii? Why now? And why no advanced warning? We're waiting for the next "sold out" notification from the mint. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The problem with anything nationally based like ATB coins is that it wont appeal to people outside that country. Would you buy "India and Beautiful" or "Argentina the Beautiful" coins? Unlikely (unless they were at about spot) so the only market for the ATB coins is the US.
All true but look at the size of the market within the good 'ol USA. If they were trying to move half a million of these I would question the program but with sales dropping to 15k and possibly lower it's a different ball game. Also, the collector versions "could" be terminated at the drop of a hat which adds to the interest. Only the bullion versions sold via authorized purchasers are mandated by law to be available. Latest sales numbers for the 2012s: 2012-P El Yunque National Forest 15,695 65 2012-P Chaco Culture National Historical Park 13,160 74 2012-P Acadia National Park 13,854 118 2012-P Hawaii Volcanoes 14,767 173 SOLD OUT 2012-P Denali National Park & Preserve 11,519 226 As of now there are no release dates for the 2013 issues available from the Mint.
My theory is that the P stamped "collectors/vapor blasted" versions were never supposed to be made in the first place. I think it was a way for the mint to cover up the flawed stamping process. The 5ozer's were new to the mint and maybe they finally figured out how to use it? The vapor blast finish covered up the defects of the bullion and now they found out that people were buying less and less of the P pucks. To go from 33,000 in 2010 to 126,000 in 2011 back down to 20,000 in 2012 seems a bit odd. That is the bullion mintage. The P mintages were 27,000 in 2010 and down in 2011 (still no reliable info on the final totals yet?) and even further down in 2012.
White Mountain New Hampshire was scheduled to be released on the 28th with the bags and rolls but has been taken down to the TBD on the bottom of the list. The game is afoot! Be nimble
If anyone is interested in selling I am looking for one of each - Hawaii and Denali in shiny condition, not sand blasted or graded. My benchmark price is that of Apmex.
The link below is from the US Mint site and shows mintages for the bullion (shiny) versions as of 15 Jan 2013. http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/atb/?action=mintageTotals They have announced that the Denali final mintage will be only 20,000.
We have a full set of great quality images and mintages up on the site, all on one page. Just hit refresh if all the images don't load first time. http://agaunews.com/portfolio-items/america-the-beautiful/
