Collectors and dealers will have multiple ways to buy the 10-coin 2017-S 225th Anniversary Enhanced Uncirculated Coin set when it goes on sale Aug. 1. Those in Denver for the year’s biggest coin convention will find the set available at two locations, though sales will begin at different times.

The first venue in Denver at which customers will be able to purchase the sets and walk away with the physical product in hand won’t be the American Numismatic Association World Fair of Money at the Colorado Convention Center.

The set will be priced at $29.95.

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Instead, the contracted sales center at the Denver Mint will be the first place in the city where the set will become available, since sales there will start before the ANA convention opens to the public.

There was a time when the Morgan dollar was actually a half dollar: Another column in the July 31 issue of Coin World explains how collectors can create their own archival-quality holders for oversized paper money.

The sets, limited to a maximum release of 225,000 sets, will be offered for sale beginning at noon Eastern Time, which is 10 a.m. by Denver’s Mountain Time. The noon ET starting time applies as well to in-person sales at the contracted sales center at the Philadelphia Mint and the sales center at U.S. Mint headquarters in the District of Columbia, and for sales by telephone and on the U.S. Mint’s website.

Sales won’t open at the ANA convention until 1 p.m. MT (3 p.m. ET) when the bourse floor opens to the public.

When does the line open?

U.S. Mint officials in Washington said July 19 that Mint officials at the show will not allow a line to form for the sets until 1 p.m. MT when the bourse opens to the public.

As of July 20, the U.S. Mint had not disclosed whether any ordering limit would be in place for those trying to acquire the coin sets at the four in-person locations.

The launch of sales for a limited-edition set in concert with the opening of an ANA convention and at Mint sales facilities has occurred before, and officials of both the Mint and the ANA are probably hoping not to repeat one past experience. The annual ANA World’s Fair of Money and the Denver Mint were both sites of the release of a new and in-demand U.S. Mint product in 2014, and disruptive situations ensued. The Mint’s release then included various versions of the 2014 Kennedy, 50th Anniversary half dollars, including a gold version.

Lines that formed at both venues well before sales began caused problems for police at the Rosemont, Illinois, site of that year’s ANA convention, and at the Denver Mint. Some people waiting in line were collectors wanting coins for their collections, but others were noncollectors who had been hired by coin dealers to buy the coins. The dealers promised to pay the line holders for their coins plus a premium; in many cases, the dealers then had the coins encapsulated by major grading services, with special labels. These specially encapsulated pieces were then offered for sale at the dealers’ venues at many times the initial cost.

While Mint officials had planned to offer the coins over a five-day period, sales at all Mint venues and the ANA show were halted after three days. On the opening of sales at the Denver Mint in 2014, a waiting crowd rushed across the street to the sales center entrance, and some people fell to the ground in the rush. At the Rosemont location, dealers on the bourse were among those complaining that the long line of people waiting to buy the coins was disruptive. 

This article was updated at 10:59 a.m. July 21 with the price of the set.