Hot Springs National Park Quarter Mintage
The United States Mint has published the preliminary production figures for the Hot Springs National Park Quarter, which suggest an extremely low final mintage for the first release of the America the Beautiful Quarters series.
The Philadelphia Mint produced 30,600,000 coins and the Denver Mint has produced 29,000,000 for a combined production of 59,600,000.
It seems that production of the Hot Springs Quarter concluded last month. Through April 2010, the US Mint had produced 77,400,000 quarters. Since this amount includes the total production of 59,600,000 Hot Springs Quarters, then the remaining 17,800,000 coins must be the start of production for the Yellowstone National Park Quarter, set to be released on June 1, 2010.
The mintage level of the Hot Springs Quarter comes in well below the least produced DC & US Territories Quarter. The Northern Mariana Islands Quarter had total circulating coin production of 72,800,000 coins. The mintage level is also ridiculously lower than the production levels for the 50 State Quarters Program, which ranged from a high of 1,594,616,000 for the 2000 Virignia Quarter to a low of 416,600,000 for the Oklahoma Quarter.
The Hot Springs Quarter now represents the lowest mintage for a quarter since 1955. Additionally, the 2010-D Hot Springs Quarter has the lowest mintage for an individual circulation issue since 1958.
While the low mintages are enticing, an important thing to remember is that the coins are readily available to collectors through the US Mint's numismatic bags and rolls. A total of 3,860,420 Hot Springs Quarters have been purchased to date through these offerings, representing more than 6% of the mintage. Also, the US Mint has indicated that they have set aside enough inventory so that the Hot Springs bags and rolls should remain available for a full year after the release date.
The value of circulation strike America the Beautiful Quarters will remain to be seen. Any premiums will likely be restrained as long as the coins continue to be available in bags and rolls from the US Mint.
A more certain impact of the low mintage will be to keep the coins out of the hands of the general public. The 50 State Quarters Program has been lauded for its success in reinvigorating the hobby of coin collecting by allowing anyone to collect the series from pocket change. Significantly fewer America the Beautiful Quarters will be reaching circulation, reducing the level of awareness and making assembling a collection from this channel much more difficult.
View latest National Park Quarter Mintages
posted by Mint News Blog @ 8:45 AM
25 Comments:
I don't see how the Mint can possibly keep the Hot Springs rolls and bags available for an entire year. Banks around here do have the coins available, so a large portion of the mintage is out there outside of the Mint if the small town banks like mine have some.
I think what the Mint really meant when they made that statement is that they don't INTEND to take the coins off-sale before one year (like their practice last year of removing the prior coin bags and roll sets as soon as the next design went on sale.) However, a real sellout is out of their control, and would make the coins unavailable sooner than one year, but not by their own arbitrary decision.
I guess we'll have to see how it plays out.
"Significantly fewer America the Beautiful Quarters will be reaching circulation, reducing the level of awareness and making assembling a collection from this channel much more difficult."
Quite honestly I don't see how they can possibly advertise these coins any less than they already are.
In addition, I am amazed that the prior poster can find them locally when my local Chase bank does not have them and claims they cannot get them.
The reason they say is they order change and they are provided whatever is in stock. Therefore it's the luck of the draw.
Because of the low mintage of the Hot Springs quarters, I may be inclined to grab a few bags if for no other reason that my bank cannot get them for me at face value.
With the low mintage and lack of advertising about the series this might be a collectors dream years down the line if interest ever picks up.
My wife has received 2 rolls of Hot Springs P's as part of her daily change order.
It looks like these are being hoarded already.
Once again we as the consumers have bought way to many bags and rolls from the mint, how can they claim they are going to keep enough for a year? No local banks are getting these coins, and the ones i have asked told me that cannot even order them, so the mint has gotten smart and realized they can make more money by holding and selling these at a LARGE Premium. If they can do this to one coin that means they can hold back dimes and nickels its nuts release the coins to the banks, thats why collcetors buy from the mint, now there worthless
The Mint will be out of these coins shortly, don't let them fool you. They will NOT be on sale for a year, NO WAY. If what I've seen around here is any indication, there are a LOT of the coins that have been released to banks, but it might seem like there isn't because some areas of the country don't get lucky enough to receive any.
The coins are available at several small banks here in Southern Illinois. If THEY have them, I know other areas of the country have to also.
I think it might have something to do with the bank's proximity to a Federal Reserve Bank. I'm fairly close to the St. Louis bank, so that might be why my banks around here always end up with the coins. These banks had all of the 2009 quarters, too.
Isn't it weird how some of the quarters have sold for higher prices in bank roll wrappers than in Mint wrappers? The premium paid for Mint packaging ends up being a total waste!
Anybody wanna buy some Guam bags I never should have bought in the first place? :)
The question is how many are interested in collecting these coins that nobody understands. I could see maybe 10 million being suckered into these sets but i doubt this will have even close to what the real state quarters brought.
just like the state and presidential coins i'm buying 2 roll p and d sets of these to give to my daughters when i kick the bucket. i just wish they would have offered the early state quarters in rolls
"The Mint will be out of these coins shortly, don't let them fool you. They will NOT be on sale for a year, NO WAY."
How long have you worked at the Mint?
Hee hee, I don't work at the Mint. I'm just using some common sense. The only way these coins will be for sale an entire year at the Mint will be if they make more.
Maybe they will, since the production figure page stresses that the figures are PRELIMINARY. When they release final numbers next January, they might go up.
No way will I pay a premium for those coins. I've been burned too many times in the past buying low-mintage coins that always get beaten out by a subsequent design, but even then no one really seems to care anymore.
The price of gold coins will go down today, but it might turn out to be a one-week reprieve. Spot it back well above $1,200, but the earlier fixes in the week were low enough to trigger a price decrease anyway. Next week, however...
Buy them thar gold coins whiles u can. Golds goin up agin next wek!
Man, the Mint sure is taking their own sweet time implementing the decrease! Here it is, almost noon Central Time, and the prices are still unchanged!
"I don't see how the Mint can possibly keep the Hot Springs rolls and bags available for an entire year."
Time will tell exactly how their plan to keep the bags and rolls available for a year plays out, but I think it is highly possible that they might be able to keep them available the whole time or close to it.
The vast majority of sales for bags and rolls take place within the first few weeks of offering, while the design is still under production. Before they stop production and move onto the next design, they should have a pretty good idea of how many to put aside to last for the remaining sales period when the products sell at a much slower pace.
Is someone at the Mint asleep at the switch? The average price of gold this past week was $1,190.39, and they still have not adjusted the prices downward! Maybe this time they actually intend to stick to the written policy and adjust prices Thursday morning.
The Mint STILL hasn't lowered the prices. It's just like the price of gas. When one station in town raises the price, it seems every station in town follows suit in just a few hours. However, when one station in town LOWERS their price, the decrease sometimes takes several DAYS to trickle down to each of the other stations!
I'll bet if prices were supposed to RISE again today, they would have done it several hours ago!
Michael,
Did your calculated gold fixes drop for this week?
Increases have come on Wednesdays....strange.
Prices should have been decreased this week, but they are not going to.... working on the story.
Sounds like we're about to find out what the "primarily" means in the Mint's pricing policy. I noted long ago that the stated policy said that the prices were based PRIMARILY on the average of London Price Fixes. Since that average was $1,190.39 this week yet prices aren't going to decrease, the Mint is going to cop out on some other factor to keep prices in the $1,200-$1,249.99 tier.
Don't you LOVE being kept guessing?
Prices should decrease but they are not going too??? Come on mint. Why do we subject ourselves to this?
I'm about ready to just give up on the whole #@%* thing!
If the mint mistakenly allows an item to be purchased, they will go and cancel the order right from under you.
Are there any bets that if you order a gold item with the higher price (on a day when the price is supposed to go down) and the price is lowered that same day (after 1pm), you will be charged the higher price anyway?
I'd say the chances of that happening are 100%.
It's pretty bad when the Mint won't even honor their own policy. I'm still dying to hear their justification of WHY the prices were not lowered this week when the average price of $1,190.39was well within the $1,150-$1,199.99 tier.
The only thing that I can think of is that the price had recovered by the time the determination was to be made, with the last fix in the period being $1,212.50. However, the overall average for the week with one fix as low as $1,179.75 during the period should override that.
I guess the Mint's pricing policy should be amended to read:
"Prices will be determined by the average of London Price Fixes from Thursday AM to Wednesday AM. If, however, the average falls in a pricing tier that is LOWER than the tier in which the final price fix for the week belongs in, we will use the higher tier. This policy will NOT apply however if the average falls in a pricing tier that is HIGHER than the tier in which the final price fix for the week belongs in. In that case, we will still use the higher tier.
Price changes (when necessary to swing prices in OUR favor) will occur on Wednesday morning, despite the fact that the written policy has ALWAYS stated that changes will occur on Thursday morning. Also, any orders that are placed on the day that prices are to rise before we've actually had a chance to do so will be cancelled. Orders that are placed on a day that we unfortunately have to lower prices before we've had a chance to do so will still be allowed to go through for the higher price.
As always, thank you for your continued support!"
An overall mintage of 59.6 million coins is still very high, compared to production numbers during previous decades.
If you look at production numbers for the S-only proof coins, recent mintages for Kennedy halves, etc., the very low numbers (below 2-3 million at least) have little impact on market values.
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