The United States Mint began accepting orders from authorized purchasers for the first two designs of the 2011 America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins on April 25, 2011.
On the first day of availability, authorized purchasers ordered 153,400 coins, representing for 767,000 troy ounces of silver bullion. This amount has nearly reached the total mintage of the all 2010-dated ATB Silver Bullion Coins. The US Mint only produced 33,000 for each of the five designs, for a total of 165,000 coins.
As required by the authorizing legislation, the US Mint distributes the America the Beautiful Silver Bullion coins through their network of authorized purchasers (AP’s). These primary distributors are able to purchase the coins based on the market value of the silver content plus a mark up of $9.75 per coin. The market value of the silver is set based on the London Fix price on the first business day following the day of the order. Minimum order quantities for AP’s are 2,000 coins or 10,000 troy ounces of silver.
The US Mint previously indicated that a total of 126,500 coins each for the first two designs of the year featuring Gettysburg National Military Park and Glacier National Park would be available.
Although not specifically required to do so, several authorized purchasers will be making the 2011 America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins available for sale directly to the public. Typically, most AP’s resell the coins in larger quantities to other bullion dealers and coin dealers, who in turn sell these coins to the general public.
The ATB Silver Bullion Coins are packaged by the US Mint in semi-clear plastic tubes containing ten coins, with a bullion weight of 50 troy ounces. A total of ten tubes are placed into blue plastic shipping containers with vacuum-formed inserts. Each sealed blue box contains 500 troy ounces of silver.
WOW… THERE GOES THE AP’S ABILITY TO PRICE GOUGE THE 2011 ATB’S!
hahhaha…
2010 ATB = Collectible masterpieces
2011 ATB = bullion
Oh, they’ll try and gouge. We’ll have to see how many takers they get. I think I’ll sit back and wait this initial release out a bit and see where the dust settles.
A-Mark just emailed me that I can buy the first 2 2011 issues slabbed for $629.99. Why would I want my bullion slabbed? They take up enough room already. And I collect bullion, not plastic.