It’s been 15 years since I bought anything directly from the mint. I think the last purchase I made was a 2001 proof set. Granted, I had to stop collecting for awhile, but haven’t seen anything recently to buy from them. Let’s see what they have released in the past few years.
Centennial Coins
In 2016, the mint released gold Mercury Dimes
, Standing Liberty Quarters
and Walking Liberty Half Dollars
to commemorate the 100th anniversary of when they were first minted. The Mercury Dimes sold out quickly. The Standing Liberty Quarter and Walking Liberty Half Dollar were not as fortunate as they are still listed on the US mint’s web site.
It would have nice if they had also released silver coins as well. After all, the original coins were silver. More collectors would had bought silver sets of these coins, don’t you think?
US Commemoratives
This year’s US Commemoratives
include the Lion’s Club and Boys Town coins. Are you thinking about purchasing these coins? I’m not at this moment. The last commemorative that interested me was the Baseball Hall of Fame commemoratives in 2014. What made them unique was that they were curved like a baseball. Other countries have made commemoratives different shapes to get people to buy them. Congress has approved a commemorative honoring the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon to be released in 2019. It should be similar to the Hall of Fame coins as they will release a clad half dollar, silver dollar and gold $5 piece. They will also be curved coins. Check it out in 2019!
Reverse Proofs
I wrote a post about reverse proofs. These proofs have the clear mirrored portion on the detail of the coin and the background is frosted. When I first saw one, I said, “Wow! This is great!”. I have two of them, the 2013-P American Eagle Dollar
and the 2014-W Kennedy Half Dollar
. I think there are around 15 different reverse proofs that had been released in the United States. Other countries had minted them as well. I hope the mint does more of these. It makes collecting proofs more interesting.
There are probably more things the Mint could do to Produce More Interest
It has been said that children today are not as interested in coin collecting as in the past. One thing that the mint did that got kids interested was the Statehood Quarters
from 1999 to 2008. I purchased the map from the top of this post from the US Mint to collect a quarter from each state. I thought this was a good idea. Unfortunately, other ideas like the National Park Quarters, Native American Dollars and Presidential Dollars
have not peaked interest. Is there anything you can think of to get kids and adults interested in collecting coins again?
Interesting article. I’ve been looking into collecting coins myself recently if only for the sake of owning something tangible, like gold and silver. I think it’s a good idea to have. Perhaps if people would teach their children about the importance of having tangible investments and then have a fun collection that they might like then it could be fun for them too?
Thanks for the comment Emmally! I hope you do consider coin collecting and more children consider it in the future. There’s much to learn from US coins. Gold and silver have a lot to do with American history.
Thanks for the post. I’ve collected coins since I was a kid. The question you pose at the end made me think. I think one way to help get people more interested with collecting coins again is to teach them where they came from and their make up. For instance, I can pick up a penny and tell my wife when it was made (obvious with the year on it), where it was minted (not so obvious letter on it), what it’s made of and even why it was made with those materials. The real old pennies I can tell about the wheat pictures on the back. And she asks, “How do you know all that?” It’s far more interesting to find the story behind the penny than to just get the penny … or any other coin for that matter.
Thanks for the comment Trent! You can learn something from the coins you collect. I’m glad you are collecting coins and hope you continue to do so. Unfortunately, the coins that have been minted recently are not making people interested in collecting coins, especially kids.