Interesting Article About The US Mints - Specifically "S" And "W"

Thanks for sharing. New "varieties" for collectors to chase after.

Thank You for Sharing !!!

Well that is convoluted! I knew some of that but not the extent of it all.

Thanks for the article, dsking. Yeah I don't understand why it takes FOIA requests to get this info; all I can think is the Mint doesn't deem where the coins are minted important information to disseminate to collectors since they are bullion.

Cool Article DSKING. Yes the United States Mint doesn't issue the bullion Silver Eagles with a mint mark, meaning collectors have no idea where their coins were struck (normally) unlike the special editions released to collectors like the proofs and uncirculated versions. As homogenous coins, these coins don't bear the tell-tale mint mark but boxes containing these coins are indicated by labeling and handwritten markings so they can give it away. According to Mint officials, their goal is to "ensure that the American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins struck at any of its facilities are identical and indistinguishable from one another."

So NGC started certifying bullion silver eagles that did not include mint marks with labels that identified them as being struck at a particular mint like the West Point Mint, but these are just 'verified' to be from that specific mint and graded bullion otherwise. Still they will have no mint mark on the coin so its just mainly a label difference to potentially collect, although the idea of having certain ones like in 2020 when philadelphia struck only a few might appeal to some collectors even though its got no mint mark only the label verifying its birthstrike location. Until recently some of us didnt know this was going on with the labeling of what mint its from besides the latest 2022/2023 releases, the article helps clarify that.

Looks like a proofreading error in the article, the 240,000 is from philadelphia in 2020 and a million more in san francisco.
"we know that in 2020 an emergency run of 240,000 coins were made in San Francisco (error) when the West Point Mint was closed due to COVID-19, and a million were made in San Francisco in April." See from the treasury direct: https://www.usmint.gov/wordpress/wp...-27-2020.pdf

This reminds me of silver eagles slabbed as recovered from the World Trade Center.
You just have to take the "word" of the slabber.

I'm putting a "complete" set of ASEs together...howerver it is my definition of complete, which doesn't involve a grader's label.

I might consider buying only those that have low mintages which differentiate quite a bit from other bullion minted at other mints of that year (and most other years). For example 2020 Philadelphia and San Francisco because so few were struck there. I'm not sure for example if say a 2023 would have low mintage overall as another example and so variation like being minted at west point might be ok as being a further sub set of that. Second to that would be anything interesting like the 2021 design changes before and after might be a good one for variations (demand wise over time).

ultimately if demand goes up over time there is room for numismatic value increase as there are a lot of collectors but most it appears either do not know about these or think they are lumped into just label variations. There is a low supply which is unlikely to increase since it had to be in a monster box that was sealed and then identified to be from a mint and sent to ngc, and as with any coin survivability over time. I wouldnt spent alot to speculate for a value increase as there are better options but those collecting anyway might not want to totally dismiss certain ones for that reason compared to say getting an eagle label vs a star label version of a coin that otherwise has no reason for increased demand of the coin itself is not ever really a good one to speculate on and is clearly not the same thing.