Don’t be Scrooge at Christmas to buy Apollo 11 coins
I had a brief conversation yesterday with a greeter at Wal-mart. I had stopped by to pick up a list of miscellaneous things that I needed. I told the greeter…
I had a brief conversation yesterday with a greeter at Wal-mart.
I had stopped by to pick up a list of miscellaneous things that I needed.
I told the greeter I was there because I did not want to be around for the huge crowds of Black Friday.
“Black Friday?” he exclaimed. “It will all be over on Thanksgiving.”
Little did I know that the huge shopping push was going to be happening as I share a family Thanksgiving dinner.
Our own ShopNumismaster website special offers begin Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
But you can order these from the comfort of your own home. You won’t be jostled by the crowds I am trying to avoid.
The a ShopNumismaster specials begin Wednesday and continue one each day through Tuesday, Nov. 27.
There is no way I can know what you need, but I do know your personal finances are going to come under pressure this holiday season.
Most people will want to take a financial breather in January, but the United States Mint won't let collectors.
The Mint will offer up more products for you to spend money on before you recover financially from Christmas.
The ever-popular proof silver American Eagle will go on sale on the Mint’s website Jan. 10.
You can count on an online scramble occurring that day at noon Eastern Time as collectors buy the 2019-W coin.
Getting that new date fast is a strong collector desire.
This will be followed two weeks later on Jan. 24 with the commemoratives for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
It is not just a full set of commemorative proof and uncirculated gold $5s, silver dollars, and clad half dollars.
There will also be a 5-ounce proof silver dollar.
It will be minted at Philadelphia. Mintage will be limited to 100,000. No price is yet posted.
The 5-ounce uncirculated America the Beautiful quarters are $154.95 each. You know that the 5-ounce proof Apollo 11 will be more expensive, but that won’t stop a likely instantaneous sellout based on mintage alone.
You should remember that all four of these commemorative denominations will be struck curved just like the 2014 baseball coins for the Hall of Fame.
Even that is not all. The Mint has more.
The Mint will simultaneously offer a special two-piece half dollar set on the same date as the other coins.
This set will contain a regular 2019-S Apollo 11 half dollar along with a special reverse proof 2019-S John F. Kennedy half dollar.
Maximum mintage for this two-coin set will be 100,000.
You can smell a sellout coming for this set, too, can’t you?
Talk about budget strain.
Get your post-holiday finances in order by planning ahead now.
The proof and uncirculated gold $5s will be struck at West Point and carry the “W” mintmark.
The proof and uncirculated standard silver dollar commemoratives will both be struck at Philadelphia and have a “P” mintmark on them.
Production of the clad halves will be divided.
The proof version will be produced at San Francisco and have an “S” mintmark.
The uncirculated commemorative half dollar will be made in Denver and have a “D” mintmark.
I'll bet collectors will want to be sure they have purchased what they want before they even begin to pay attention to the mintmarks on the coins.
They probably also won’t notice that the mintages of the gold $5s will be capped at 50,000, the standard commemorative silver dollars at 400,000, and the commemorative clad halves at 750,000.
But then again, they just might think the gold and silver mintages are low, too.
Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017. He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."
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