Don't know how many follow this series but at the moment the situation has gotten quite interesting. The original max mintages for the 2012 coins was supposed to be 25,000. Currently the first 2012 coin, El Yunque, has sold a little over 16,000 and sales are slow. The other 4 coins for 2012 have also been for sale since last year, also with slow sales. So slow that several weeks ago the 4th coin, Hawaii, with sales at 14,863 was terminated, the lowest mintage for any of the collector versions for the past 3 years. The result of this has been a sharp spike in price. The Mint originally priced them at $205. That price went up to $230 later and that was the Mint price when the coin sold out. Shortly after that, a matter of days, the price on the secondary market jumped to $300. They are now consistently going for at or near $600 with OGP. But what is really weird is the non slabbed version with OGP is selling for MORE than a slabbed NGC SP70 Hawaii and close to what a slabbed PCGS SP70 Hawaii goes for. Hmmm. But wait! There's more!. There are still three of the 2012 issue coins still for sales with sales numbers currently below Hawaii's final number. Soooooo.... We're all trying to figure out if there will be a new mintage low and if so which one. And...if another coin, say Denali, does finish lower do the Hawaii values tank or does the new champ simply rise to the bar as currently set. Interesting to say the least.
Hawaii is the coolest looking one IMO. I only collect the bullion version. I used to collect the P pucks but it got too expensive and I sold them all but Hot Springs. The Hot Springs has always been the most expensive on the secondary market and should stay around the price it has been at. Thus, Hawaii, will stay at current price until a lower (rarer) mintage occurs. This could happen in 2013 because the interest in the P pucks gets lower every year. Some real ugly ones in 2013 as well. The Ohio one is awful and Mt Rushmore looks like a lilliputian war drill.
BB was selling the Hawaii volcano coin last week at $180. Picked up a few - they are all gone. Nice coin !!!
I bought in 2011 Yellowstone only because I'd been there a couple of weeks before and thought it a nice memento.
My friends...watch out for manipulated shortages.I missed the hawaii 5 oz from the mint because seeing that the sales were low,I put off buying.When there was a sudden large order of a few hundred according to the mint sales records,I didnt think twice.Then the sudden sell out at 14,800 when the mint said they would mint 16,000 took me by surprise. I didnt connect the dots,until someone in the PCGS forum mentioned that there was a sudden increase of orders for the 4 piece gold eagle set this week of over 1,000 in a couple of days,and then a sudden sell out of that offering followed. My theory is that a large retailer with deep pockets is buying up large amounts of certain coins,with some inside knowledge of how many were actually minted on a first run,with the intent of causing an early sellout and thus doubling or tripling their prices on these coins. Before you laugh,consider this...if I spend 200k or 300k on say a low mintage first spouse coin,I can buy 200 to 300 coins.The chances are if the coin has been available for six months or so,the mint wont make anymore and poof instant sellout.You cant do this with a largely minted coin,say the SAE,but you can with a coin that doesnt have a large mintage! So lets look at the hawaii P 5 oz again.At a price of $229,I can buy between 1000 and 1500 of them with 200k to 300k.If the mintage is within 4000 below the intending mintage,and someone in the know tells me that the mint has moved on to 2013 5ozers,I know that this will be a sellout just after I buy my big lot. There isnt a large downside to doing this since I bought the coins at the cheapest price available but the upside is a $229 coin that now sells for $600,possibly doubling my money. I think its wrong and it stinks.If you intend to buy a certain modern coin this year,my advice is to try to get it asap because I believe that this practice will continue.
Interesting. I can see that happening. So, now that the price has more than doubled to $600/coin when would you start selling and what kind of quantities would you introduce so as not to tank the market? The reason I ask is I've seen only 2 places where the P pucks with OGP are available, the bay and Apmex, and the quantities are miniscule. Apmex has 9 and the bay usually has only a couple active auctions on a given day. At these rates it would take forever to move 1000.
He did say "someone with deep pockets" which APMEX certainly qualifies (not saying the would do it) but if they did, then they certainly wouldn't be in a hurry to sell, I mean I don't think they would be short on secured storage space, they can drip feed a preciouse metal product which has an astronmical markup as far as modern PMs go
The link is to a completed ebay sale (not mine) with pics and info: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2012-P-Amer...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Today the U.S. Mint announced the 2012 Acadia collector version coin had sold out. Hawaii sold out first with a final mintage of 14,863. For now Acadia shows 14,716. Currently Hawaii collector versions are going for $600 both on the bay and Apmex while the Hawaii bullion version is going for between $280 and $300 on the bay and Apmex has them moving (slowly) at $343. So far no one can figure it out and now with the Acadia sellout we're wondering what happens price wise. Then to add to the mix the Chaco and Denali collector versions are both sitting with mintages of just under 14,000 but still available on the Mint website. For reference the initial Mint price for the collector coins was $205. It's currently $230. So the Hawaii coin is going for 2.9 times of the original sell price. Never a dull moment with this program!
^ someone (read here apmex or similar) probably bought out the bulk of the Hawaii mintage to try and corner the market.
The latest numbers as of 25 Feb show a tight race for lowest mintage of the series. The hawaii, Acadia and Denali are now sold out at the Mint and we're waiting on the final mintage numbers for Acadia and Denali. It is believed Chaco will end up with a final mintage north of 15,000 so it's not a player at the moment. Meanwhile, the Denali collector version prices are starting to spike. They were going for $230 direct from the mint on the 25th and are tickling $400 on the bay. Apmex has bumped their price to $450. These may be the lowest mintage numbers for any silver coin produced by the US Mint. I'll check. Interesting times. AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL 5 OZ UNC COINS 2012-P El Yunque National Forest 16,462 2012-P Chaco Culture National Historical Park 14,093 2012-P Acadia National Park 14,978 2012-P Hawaii Volcanoes 14,863* 2012-P Denali National Park & Preserve 14,552
Having difficulty figuring out why there is a huge premium on only the Denali and Hawaii coins. Mintages of the others in the 2012 series are not that disimilar.
