US Mint Sales: Bullion Coins Soar, Quarters Proof Set Ends

There is little excitement in glancing over the latest round of United States Mint sales figures for collector coins and sets, but the pulse quickens when watching how fast gold and silver bullions coins fly out of Mint doors.

Nearly all numismatic products slowed. Several were actually trimmed to significantly lower levels than previously reported, as if the Mint reconciled a few weeks of returns and cancellations.

The most recognized decliner was the uncirculated Boy Scouts Silver Dollar. The commemorative, which sold out more than two weeks ago, was taken down by 1,375. Sales of the silver dollars are now at 97% of their maximum — which is an increase of less than half of a one percent over last week. (For further details, read the CoinNews article Boy Scouts Silver Dollar Sales: Proof 3% from Sellout.)

Also cut were uncirculated Tyler First Spouse Gold Coins. Letitia dropped by 69 and Julia by 28. Last week’s $25 per coin price increase was not helpful. The series registered one of their worst weeks, climbing as a group by only 133. Just the week before they had nearly doubled their previous gain, rising 785. Record high gold prices pushed the 24-karat gold prices up once again Wednesday, which may pressure sales even further.

One of the few shining products to talk about is the 2010 Presidential $1 Coin Proof Set. They advanced 7,357 versus 4,341, and are now at 368,818 — not bad for less than three months of availability.

The new 5-coin 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters Proof Set launches at noon Eastern Time today, which means the 6-coin 2009 DC & US Territories Quarters Proof Set will go off sale. Recent weekly increases have been sub 600, with the latest at 360. Their total currently stands at 608,830. The 2010 quarters honor national parks in Arkansas, Wyoming, California, and Arizona as well as a national forest in Oregon. Tens of thousands will be sold by next week. The annual quarter sets are one of the more popular US Mint offerings.

As mentioned, bullion American coins are on fire, driven by all-time record gold prices and the highest silver prices since March 2008. Compared to last week’s report, the:

• 24-karat bullion American Gold Buffalos are up 20,000, rising to 33,500 in May
• 22-karat bullion American Gold Eagles jumped 39,500, reaching 57,000 in May
• Bullion American Silver Eagles soared more than 1.1 million, hitting 1,508,500 for May and impressively topping 13 million for the year

With precious metals prices not showing signs of a pullback, the Mint’s bullion coins should have another solid week.

The following tables contain the latest coin sales figures:

US Mint Collector Coin Sales

(Data compare previous to current Mint sales reports)

NLA – No Longer Available.

Notable links for sales related articles from sister CoinNews’ sites follow:

• First Spouse Gold Coin Sales Tumble, Prices Increase Again – FirstSpouseCoins.us
  It’s quite possible higher prices provoked a major blow to First Spouse Gold Coin sales after last week’s figures had almost doubled. In fact, sales hadn’t declined this much in over a month. How bad was it? The latest US Mint stats have the total at only …

• US Mint Silver Coin Sales: Eagles Soar, Collector Coins Drop – SilverCoinsToday.com
  Sales of American Silver Eagle bullion coins picked up momentum last week, while numismatic silver coins continued to slow. None of the sets nor individual silver dollars beat their prior numbers, according to the latest United States Mint sales report …

The collector coin sales figures above have an "as of date" of May 9, 2010.