US Mint Sales: Bullion Silver Eagles Rally, Buchanan Dollars Debut

Collectors have been busier, purchasing greater amounts of United States Mint numismatic products which translated into nearly across-the-board weekly coin sales improvements. U.S. Mint bullion coins were also scooped up quicker after several weeks of lazy numbers.

James Buchanan Presidential Dollars launched into circulation last Thursday and Mint sold rolls of the coins entered the sales board for the first time this week. Debuting figures show 46,096 of the 25-coin rolls from Denver and Philadelphia were ordered, which is 2,024 lower than the prior opening Franklin Pierce numbers. While way too early to judge, it is still a bit unexpected considering the recent revelation that the Buchanan $1 mintage is the lowest of all the Presidential $1 coins.

Most interested platinum coin collectors already know that the 2010 Platinum Eagles sold out. While more details may be gleaned by following the link, the snapshot view follows:

• The Platinum Eagles went on sale Thursday, August 12
• Sales through to Sunday, August 15, debuted at 8,268
• The 10,000 limit was reached on Tuesday, August 19
• The Mint officially added the coins to their sold out / no longer available list on Monday, August 23

The 2010 Proof Platinum Eagles went quicker than the 2009s — their 8,000 mintage was gone in just over one week.

Gold coins were in higher demand. Last week’s report had First Spouse Gold Coins advancing 159 as a group and 2010 Buffalo Gold proof coins with a weekly gain of 689. Respective numbers reported by the Mint this round are 568 and 890. Bullion gold moved quicker as well. One ounce Gold Eagles added 11,500 versus 500 and Buffalo Gold coins advanced 6,000 over 500.

Bullion American Silver Eagle coins are showing some life after several weeks of sluggish sales, as compared to how they’ve been on fire most 2010 weeks. Their numbers grew 700,000 to just over 1.8 million for August. With silver topping $19 an ounce on Wednesday and maintaining the level as of this writing, the final days of this month could again get interesting for the bullion eagles. They have to make up lost ground — 1,175,000 — to catch the 2,981,000 sold in July.

Returning to numismatic products, U.S. Mint annual sets spiked after falling asleep the prior week. The biggest unit gainers were the 2010 Proof Set, jumping 30,699 versus 10,078, and the 2010 Mint Set which surged 19,981 compared to a stunted 67. At noon ET on Thursday, the Mint launches the 2010 Silver Proof Set. That should lift sales for other sets this week as well.

The following sales tables provide a breakout of the most recent U.S. Mint coin sales figures.

US Mint Collector Coin Sales

(Data compare previous to current Mint sales reports)

*NLA – No Longer Available.

The collector coin sales figures above have an "as of date" of August 22, 2010.