US Coins

Mint walks back statement on silver American Eagles

Mintages released by the U.S. Mint for 2015 American Eagle silver bullion coins are correct, but some information officials disclosed, and that certifiers used to identify which facility produced a coin, is erroneous.

U.S. Mint officials expect to provide additional information by June 30.


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Mint officials admitted in a statement provided May 25 to Coin World that details issued March 20 pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests filed independently by Coin World and Numismatic Guaranty Corp. in February involve confusion over the internal manufacturing tracking numbers on the 500-coin shipping boxes.

“It has come to the Mint’s attention that some of the information that was released on March 20 was erroneous,” according to the U.S. Mint’s May 25 statement. That information, according to the Mint’s statement, “has resulted in a mistaken belief that some of these coins are rarities.” 

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According to U.S. Mint officials, the mintage of 79,640 2015 American Eagle silver bullion coins at the Philadelphia Mint is correct. That number is a mere fraction of the nearly 47 million coins struck at the West Point Mint.

2015 (P) American Eagle silver bullion coins certified Mint State 70 by some third-party grading services are being sold on the secondary market for thousands of dollars, each based on the assumption the coins are Philadelphia Mint strikes. The silver bullion coins bear no Mint mark referencing the Mint facility where they were struck, but grading services have been using information the Mint provided in March to identify coins taken from sealed Mint boxes that still bore their Mint seals. 

Mint officials consider the bullion issues, regardless of where struck in a given year, to be “homogenous,” adding, “The Mint’s goal is to ensure that the American Eagle silver bullion coins struck at any of these three facilities [West Point, Philadelphia and San Francisco] are identical and indistinguishable from one another,” according to the Mint’s May 25 statement. 


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