I think I got one. Got to the order processing page, watched it spin for about 10 minutes. Then got a message, error, you will be returned to the summary page shortly. Another 10 minutes and it kicked me to page that said "unavailable". So back to new releases page, still showing as available. Added to cart, waited, got message that item not added, I had already ordered the max. WTF. So I checked my orders page and it says an order was created on 7 October for the correct price. Doesn't say what it is and can't look at it but I think that means it worked.
Probably a 'scam' is a bit harsh. Sure PM went out of their way to offer the coins to the previous buyers and that is certainly a great move, The Royal Mint in the UK also offer this service on some of their series and I have made use of it in the past. However this is not the first time people have had problems with the website and we have been told in the past that the problem has been fixed, I remember it happening back in 2012 and it is still happenning. There is a 1500 mintage limit? Why? The Perth Mint could make this coin readily available so that everyone who wanted one would be able to buy it, and there wouldn't be this mad rush to buy it on the first day? They want this to happen, this is the hype which drives the secondry market. This is why people can sell them on eBay for massive mark-ups the same day they are released. The Perth Mint isn't limitiing the mintage for the benefit of the collectors, they are doing it for the speculators and to ensure that they can have another 'sell-out' coin. Is giving their customers this much frustration part of their customer service approach? Is having some customers bypass the system and call the shop directly, thus jumping the online queue, part of their sales strategy? Having seen the pictures of the coin, I would say that PM would struggle making any money on them if it wasn't for the speculators wanting to get in and flip them quickly to collectors who weren't able to wait the 2 hours or so to buy them online. Good luck to everyone who wants them, I have played this game twice before and the amount of frustration that it generates is not worth the coin you end up with.
Get to order page... Can't change the delivery address from 2 years ago. Now have to contact the PM to do so
All the way through to be told out of stock. So utterly sick of a wholly preventable farcical web-ordering system. Wasted an hour and a half fighting through something they know failed to work several months ago. Anybody would think this was a cash-strapped company that releases a few products a year instead of one that has a semi-fixed release schedule with 100 products a year. Never again.
I think presales for a series is fine if it's marketed as a subscription from the beginning of it, but to wait until it's underway to me is no different than starting a series as a subscription, then towards the end canceling all active subscriptions and making everyone who was subscribed fight for the last few coins they thought were already locked in for them. It's still changing "the rules of the game" but in the opposite way. Oh well, the count down just ended and I lost out once again. bummer.
I'm seeing 'unavailable'. Maybe they're doing what they did the last time and trickling them through in limited numbers every hour. Anyone have better luck calling and ordering?
I got through pretty early but then had issues with address (kept saying it couldn't update even though I wasn't trying to update it) then when finally sorted and placed in the queue was told - Invalid mintage for the following items: You will need to return to Step 1 and remove them from your cart in order to continue. Your order contains items which exceed available stock: Gods of Olympus Hades 2014 2oz Silver High Relief Rimless Coin - 0 Available Oh well. They definitely need a ballot type system. Easy enough to say ballot is open for a week; give people a random number when they place their interest and then generate 500 random numbers (or however many coins they had) and match it up. This wouldn't cause a rush or give people false hope.
This is probably not the thread to get into a big debate about it as there are a few on here hurting because of the stuff ups but... The mintage is an artificial scarcity designed with the sole purpose of limiting supply and it should never be applied in the first place. It does nothing to make the coin better looking, or more artistic, just harder to get hold of and more expensive to acquire. It is a marketing ploy designed to generate hype on the day of release and drive up the secondry market so that speculators can go into a frenzy on day one and then slowly trickle them out to the actual collectors. This is fine for the Perth Mint, they can ensure that they have another "sell-out" coin and thus ensure that the series can keep going. PM is in it to make money and I don't begrudge them that. This is fine for the speculators, who can make a killing by reselling the coin without having to do any actual selling, "Sold out at the Mint" is pretty good advertising. They are also in it to make money and they take a fair amount of risk, maybe not on this coin but certainly the first coin in the series. The people who miss out are the actual collectors. People who just want one coin because they like the look of it, or because they feel they have committed to the series after having struggled so hard to get the earlier coins. How does PM arrive at the mintage limit? Obviously they don't want it too large or they would miss out on the hype of having a low mintage sell-out. They don't want it too small because the more they make the cheaper it is per unit to manufacture them. They have to make it just slightly smaller than the number of collectors out there who would want it. We have seen from previous releases that speculators have been left with stock they can't shift, we have seen prices on the secondry market fall shortly after the initial hype is over and we have catalogues with price guides that show many earlier releases are now selling below their original retail value, what has happenned? The coins are the same, the mintage is just as limited but the hype has died down and most of the coins value is in the hype. Not just the PM but the SBSS were exchanging hands for well above issue price when they were first hyped up but now with all the problems and the vast number that were produced they hype has died down and the coins have lost some of their value. It took me a long time and a lot of will power not to get caught up in the hype surrounding new releases. Even more will power not to overpay for a coin just because it was a gap in a series that I thought I wanted to collect. I hope these coins end up in the hands of the people who genuinely think they are attractive and not just in the hands of people who want to make a quick buck.
It all depends on how do you define "people who want to make a quick buck" As far as I know, Dealers are the ONLY ones who can get as much as a couple of dozens of this coin. NO individual flippers can order multiples at issue price , Except Zeus which PM had NO limit each buyer. ALL dealers who sell this at Issue price , on the other hand, are Limiting 1 each buyer. Granted, some buyers may be lucky, and ordered Both #1 and #2 God of Olympics from PM, so they can preorder 1, and the same person may also ordered the Zeus from Downies, so could get another pre order for 1. But even if that lucky individual, could get NO more than 2-3 coins. While MOST of the dealers in Europe or in the U.S. are NOT as nice as the dealers in Aussie. They marked up the price by 1-2 times as high as the issue price. ONLY these dealers could make big money flipping these hot coins.
Wasn't this new series a bit of an experiment anyway? Is this the first time they tried the antiquing process?
The Hunt is On!! Perth Mint / Direct Coins / Perth Bullion - sold out ... haven't see any other sites with the coin available except talisman $400 ... 5 left this is my first investment into numis was able to scoop x2 at retail *cross fingers* :lol:
