The American Eagle 25th Anniversary Silver Coin Set went on sale Thursday, October 27, at noon ET and quickly sold out with buyers grabbing all 100,000 by around 4:30 p.m. At a price of $299.95 each, plus $4.95 for shipping and handling, that means the United States Mint pulled in more than $30 million in just a few hours.
In order to maximize sales in the event of cancellations or problem orders, the United States Mint implemented its "waiting list" option, enabling customers to continue to place orders for the sold out sets with the knowledge that, and in the Mint's own words:
"If a product becomes available due to an order cancellation, we will fulfill orders from the waiting list on a first-in, first-served basis. We cannot provide information about your position on the waiting list."
Most collectors who purchased the 25th Anniversary Silver Coin Set had their work cut out for them while doing so. The United States Mint's website was up and down for hours and its phone systems constantly busy. The Mint indicated that they had processed some 25,000 orders in the first hour alone, and also apologized to customers for the difficulties they experienced.
"We apologize to those of you having difficulty getting through to place orders for the 2011 American Eagle 25th Anniversary Silver Coin Set. Our ordering system has been running at capacity -- in fact, orders were placed for approximately 25,000 sets during the first hour of sales," the United States Mint said on Facebook.
"We are committed to improving your online ordering experience and have recently awarded a contract that will result in a new, state of art order management system. We appreciate your continued patience and understanding as we work toward implementing this new system in 2012."
As described in a previous article, the 25th Anniversary Silver Coin Set includes the following five items:
- American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin -- mint mark of "W" for West Point
- American Eagle Silver Proof Coin -- mint mark of "W" for West Point
- American Eagle Silver Reverse Proof Coin -- mint mark of "P" for Philadelphia
- American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin -- no mint mark
- American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coin -- mint mark of "S" for San Francisco
To get on the 25th Anniversary Silver Coin Set waiting list, visit the Mint's online ordering page at: http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=16626&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=31238.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
In regards to the sale day, the Mint’s performance was horrible! We tried and tried to get in thru the website, along with dialing the 800 number, only to be either kicked off the website repeatedly, or get constant busy signals on the 800 number. I finally got thru about 2 hours into the situation on the 800 number and got mine ordered. A friend of mind got thru on the 800 number, only to be hung up on in the middle of the order, and good luck finding the operator that you were talking to in order to continue the order process! Do you think that operator called back? Well, you can guess that one – my friend was totally disgusted and gave up. Another friend finally got an order placed on the web AFTER 4 hours of trying, and only after trying over 100+ times to get the catalog to load, and perservering thru multiple “webpage cannot be found” and “website doesn’t exist” messages, along with cart freezes, and the website just simply going offline. Upon comparing notes, we’re all even wondering if we’ll even get the coins, because our orders all say “BACKORDERED” – does that mean we will, or are we now on that infamous, non-existant “waiting list” because all 100,000 were snatched up in the first couple of hours – we don’t know. I went through this exact same mess with the Lincoln Chronicles set, and some other “low-mintage-only available-on-release-day-for-a-couple-of-hours” purchases. You’d think that the Mint would strap on more webservers and telephone operators to take on this burst of traffic. And in terms of webservers, if their web stuff is done right, scaling up should not be an issue. Oh, yeah, I forgot, we’re dealing with a government entity…. – LOL. And BTW, what about the dealers that strapped on more than the alloted “5-per-household” – do they have a magic priority number to call to get their orders placed, outside of the common-man’s order stream? Betcha you’ll see dealers on ebay in the next few weeks with 25-100 of them to sell. Inquiring minds would like to know….
Amangi – Frankly speaking, even I have inquiring minds I don’t want to know. Those silver coins only worth $30-$40 per piece. If money is no problem, you can buy 5-25 sets on ebay now. The exciting part is trying to get it online from US Mint, which means fighting with every buyer in a global scale. If you live in the States, you already have few advantages: Online, 800 number, low shipping cost. Imagine when you are buying from the other side of the earth… To me, this was real time fun, excitement and far better than any online game. “Sold Out” = “Game Over” and the reward is the ebay profit (now that’s real money). Nice game, see you all in another 5 years.
As a subscriber to the other silver eagle offerings, (1 each), does it not make sense to allow me, and others in the program, to order these special items ? It is not an unsurmountable technical problem to eliminate shipments to large buyers. Is the mint interested in the everyday collector or interested in mass sales, and listening to the jingle in the cash register ?
I can NOT believe that these 5 coins per order allowed. Only a few years ago – The LINCOLN four cents and a DOLLAR were ONE set allowed and they sold out in a few hours at only 50,000 sets.
Boy this was a worse FUBAR then the original bullion 5 ounce hockey pucks last year.
Who do they hire at US Mint for management?
FOULED
UP
BEYOND
ALL
BELIEF
F.U.B.A.R.
I agree. this was a total let down. I have 1 of every American Silver Eagles made, even the errors. I did get to the order part, added a set to my cart, crashed, could not get back in and didn’t get the order. By the time the site was working they were sold out. They should have placed a limit to 1 per…………… I will find one on ebay and end up paying 2x, 3x the price. This is not the 1st time the mint has done this either.
This was ten times worse then the RIP-OFF selected merchants of the US Mint (I’m not a crook Nixon) when they sold the 5 oz. PUCKS at twice the price of bullion. And the MINT wised up and scuttled the entire FUBAR management mess.
Right NOW you can buy these sets for $1,000 in Coin World from the selected merchants of the mint.
I sure wish they would hire mint executives with morals, ethics, and values. I guess honesty is something America has lost!
I spent all morning on the phone and never got through. Prices are ridiculously high now.
The best price I found to date is $699.95 @ ESNCOINNETWORK.COM
I was able to get through to the mint on-line within 90 mninutes and got my 5 sets allowed. Persistence and patience is what it took. Think I will sell any? No way. Maybe in 20 to 25 years depending on market value.