Today, the United States Mint officially launched and began accepting orders for the highly anticipated 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coins.
The program includes proof and uncirculated versions of $5 gold coins, silver dollars, and clad half dollars issued to recognize and celebrate the National Baseball Hall of Fame as it marks its 75th anniversary. The coins share a common design featuring a depiction of a glove on the concave obverse and baseball on the convex reverse, representing two basic elements of the national pastime. These coins represent the first “curved coins” ever produced by the United States Mint.
Baseball Hall of Fame Launch Ceremony in Washington, D.C.
An official launch ceremony was held at the Main Hearing Room of the Senate Agricultural Committee in Washington, D.C. Attendees at the ceremony included Jeff Idelson, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; Jane Forbes Clark, Chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum; Rosie Rios, Treasurer of the United States; and Baseball Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Brooks Robinson.
Baseball Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Brooks Robinson
“Today’s release of the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin is a significant milestone in celebrating the history and legacy of our country’s favorite pastime. The spirit of baseball is captured in this coin,” said Jeff Idelson, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “We are appreciative to the House, the Senate and the President for signing the commemorative coin into law, and are excited to introduce the gold, silver and clad coins to a baseball-adoring public and an excited numismatic community.”
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Representative Richard Hanna who co-sponsored the authorizing legislation were also present at the ceremony.
Treasurer Rosie Rios presents Cassie MacFarland’s glove to Baseball HOF Chairman Jane Forbes Clark
The ceremony concluded with Treasurer Rosie Rios presenting a well-worn and well-loved glove to Baseball Hall of Fame Chairman Jane Forbes Clark. This glove had served as the inspiration for Cassie MacFarland of San Luis Obispo, California, who created the contest-winning obverse design of the coins.
The United States Mint started accepting orders for the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coins at 12:00 Noon ET. In anticipation of extremely strong demand for the coins, household ordering limits have been imposed and an online “waiting room” is being used to handle the influx of incoming web traffic.
The $5 gold coins of the program are struck in 90% gold and 10% alloy with a diameter of 0.85 inches and weight of 8.359 grams. The maximum mintage is 50,000 pieces, with the ratio of proof to uncirculated coins to be determined based on customer demand. The household ordering limit is 50 of each version.
For the start of sales, the gold coins will be priced at $419.75 for the uncirculated version and $424.75 for the proof version. Prices may be subject to potential weekly change based on the market price of gold.
The silver dollars are struck in 90% silver and 10% copper with a diameter of 1.500 inches and weight of 26.73 grams. Across proof and uncirculated versions, the coins are subject to a maximum mintage of 400,000 pieces.
Initial pricing for the coins is $47.95 for the uncirculated version and $52.95 for the proof version. The household ordering limit is 100 coins per version.
The clad half dollars are struck in a composition of 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. The coins have a diameter of 30.61 mm and weight of 11.34 grams. A maximum mintage of 750,000 pieces is established across proof and uncirculated versions.
During the introductory period, the uncirculated version of the half dollar will be priced at $18.95 and the proof version will be priced at $19.95. The household ordering limit is 100 coins per version.
Introductory pricing levels for all coins will remain in effect until April 28, 2014 at 5:00 PM ET. Ordering limits will be evaluated on a regular basis and potentially removed or adjusted.
The prices for the commemorative coins include a surcharge of $35 per gold coin, $10 per silver dollar, and $5 per half dollar, which is distributable to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to help finance its operations.
Orders for all coins may be placed online at http://www.usmint.gov/catalog or by phone at 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468).
I entered the website at 11:50 ET and started with almost a 15 minute wait. The website was seriously slow and took several attempts to check out. After approx 45 minutes I finally received my order confirmation. After I closed the site out I returned and checked and wait times. They were almost three hours!
I ordered 1 $5 gold proof and 1 each of the silver coins…. Took over an hour to get in and complete the order. Completed the order at 1:15pm. It’s now 1:45 and it says the wait to get into the site is 2 hrs 5 mins. The site says shipping 3/28/14 however the estimate on my completed order says shipping 4/10/14 for the silver coins and 6/15/14 for the $5 gold one. If anyone wants these they might want to buy soon…. escepecially the gold ones. These might actually sell out quickly which is something that hasn’t happened in a while with the commemorative coins they issue.
The release was a farce to the general public. Twice after being in the waiting room and it was time to be redirected nothing happened. Once it was still trying to redirect to the bogus mint website and never connected. The other computer I waited until the time was up and then it waited for a few minutes and asked if I wanted to join the waiting room. Am I the only person this happened to?
What a waste! I waited 90 min in the “waiting room” and once allowed entry to the Mint’s website I found I could only order the proof $1coin when I wanted to order the $1 and the 50¢ coins in both proof and unc versions. I don’t want to pay multiple shipping fees.
I tried different site links, but they seemed to have disabled all of them for the sake of ordering the proof $1 coin.
Very disappointed…
The catalog home page is only showing the proof silver dollar. To see all options click on the navigation for commemoratives, or try this: http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&identifier=4000
I had the same thing happen… Once my wait time was up it redirected me to the waiting room again to start the waiting time all over again. However when I clicked to join the waiting room again it sent me into the site where I could order. It was VERY SLOW and crashed several times and was a pain but eventually I got the order through. I don’t understand why the gold coin isn’t shipping for almost 3 months! Why release them now if they aren’t even ready? It takes a lot of the excitement away when they do that.
Thanks for the URL. It took quite a while for the website to move between pages, but I finally got the order placed.
Given the Mint’s ordering problem history, It would have taken much less time if the first page I came to would have shown all order options with quantity counters to select order amounts. That way I could have selected how many of each type, and then quickly checked-out.
I’ve never had this problem ordering first day issues from the RCM. I wonder how they manage it?
I had no problem with the waiting room. Then once my time came it went to the mint web site i place my order in the shopping cart then check out took all of 5 min. for me to complete
I was in the waiting room at 11:50AM. I had to wait two minutes and was able to place my order by 12:03PM. No issues here.
I had no problem with the waiting room. Then at 12:15 pm est. once my time came it went to the mint web site i place my order in the shopping cart then check out took all of 5 min. for me to complete
Maddening, absolutely maddening. Same morons must have designed the Obamacare/Unaffordable Health Care website. Called repeatedly, receiving busy signal &/or recording – ‘You have been selected to participate in a survey!” As I was at web site ‘waiting room’ my time kept backing up. Started with a waiting time of 32 min.(@approx.12:05p) within a few min. I was @ 1 hour 3 min.- ‘Waiting time’.Then as above…glacial grid lock with the ever so slow movement within web site. Also, only way I could order the gold BB coins was to enter the U.S. Mint inventory#s B31, B32 & B34. Took me forever to get off B33 screen that automatically came up once I made it into the website. I took up coin collecting to reduce stress. Any system as this, I wonder as to the viability of their security system that could be corrupted as the ‘Target’ credit card. Also, the gold ordering limits seem suspiciously large to favor the late night coin television sales…50 coins per household @$400.00+ ea = approx.$20K per household… On a 50K total mintage?..Give me a break & Lord grant me strength.
Aaugh, this was another near disaster. I was on the web site at 11:55 and couldn’t complete my order until 1:27. The website continued to reset to the silver proof version. I couldn’t find the page that had all the coins in one place until after I navigated several times via other means. Honestly, I hope that this coin sells out and has immediate collector’s value because I put in a lot of effort to get this coin…better pay off. Btw, did the US Mint forget to place a “sold counter”? I’d like to know what the numbers are at the end of the day…
Another thing…”Backordered”!!!??? Really, what’s funny is the United States Mint Reusable Bag is “In stock and reserved”…
What a great coin. That gold proof coin will sell out very quickly. Jump on it. Sure to be worth the investment.
The US Mint has only used the sales counter for products available during an ordering window- and even then it was only updated once a day.
I should be able to get some opening day sales figures from the US Mint tomorrow morning, which will be reported here and/or on http://mintnewsblog.com/ as soon as available.
FYI the gold coin when on wait list at about 6:24 PM EST
Better experience than when ordering Eagle sets a couple years back, but still needs improvement. Went into waiting room 7 minutes prior to start time, and after a couple hiccups had order placed within 10 minutes of release. Don’t know what sort of numbers the mint was anticipating, but nearly 3 month backorder delay in excessive. Sell out soon on gold wouldn’t surprise me. Where was the counter?
The U.S. Mint needs to take example from the Canadian, the Australian, the U.K. and virtually every other country that has a mint. They all put us to shame. What happened to our technology ? ? ?
I believe that in all fairness to everyone, if the US Mint states that an item is available to be ordered at 12 noon EDT, no one should be allowed to sign in to the website or be placed in a waiting room until 12 noon EDT. Fair is fair. I attempted to enter the website at 12:02 PM EDT and was directed to the waiting room. The first wait time was 111 minutes; followed by 147 minutes and then 156 minutes. I was able to enter the website at 1:28 PM EDT after two attempts to make the connection. The first webpage did not display fully and an error message displayed. After several attempts to refresh the page, I clicked the My Account link to sign in. That link worked. The system was very slow and I had to click links multiple times to progress forward. The first order that I processed was completed at 2:03 PM EDT and a second order was completed at 2:34 PM EDT. There were 3,413 orders processed during that time. I received confirmation emails at 2:03 PM EDT and 2:35 PM EDT. The second order was not posted to my order history as my account webpage displayed the last order in a box with the message ‘sold out’. The US Mint has since resolved that issue and the order now shows in my order history.
I’m for one,was happy with my US Mint experience.
I don’t give Obama all the credit.
But I waited for 11 minutes, got as many coins as I could possibly afford.
Got a verification via the email fairly soon.
What more can you ask for?
These coins are going o be priceless collectors items for generations to come.
If that generation cares to collect coins…..
and that’s a big if.
I called was on hold for 5 min or so I ordered my coins and was done ??? no problems here
I was hoping the laces on the silver proof coin were mirrored.
They just sold out. All done.
I entered the waiting room as soon as it was available, got into the site at about 12:05 and I completed my order at 12:12 EST. So far, so good. My order confirmation showed that all coins were “Backordered 03/28/14.” Cool? Nope. The next day the order status said “1 unit backordered. Expected to ship on 03/29/2014” for each item. Still not bad. The next day, status was “1 unit backordered. Expected to ship on 03/30/2014.” Now, it says “1 unit backordered. Expected to ship on 04/02/2014.” When I called the mint I was told that they haven’t received them in the warehouse yet. Something smells fishy.
Why is the mint and MLB still creating new varieties? This is causing the price for the over all commemoratives to continue to go down. You don’t add coins to existing varieties but you just create new varieties.