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Curtain coming down on First Spouse coin program

How
popular the issues will be depicting Mrs. Reagan, who died March 6 at the age
94 before the coins were put into production at the West Point Mint, remains to
be seen.
Her
husband, Ronald Reagan, was one of the most popular American presidents.
Production
of the Nancy Reagan First Spouse gold coins will be executed to order,
according to West Point Mint officials. There has been no set authorized
maximum mintage announced.
When the
series was launched in 2007 with the Martha Washington and Abigail Adams coins,
the maximum mintage across all products was 40,000 for each First Spouse.
The
distribution between Proof and Uncirculated coins was to be determined by the
orders received. That did not happen.
After sufficient
orders were received to fill the maximum authorizations for the Washington and
Adams coins, U.S. Mint Sales and Marketing officials decided to limit the
distribution to 20,000 coins per version per First Spouse.
Since
then, annual maximum mintages have been steadily reduced. Some recent issues
have recorded sales below 2,000.
How many
First Spouse coins since their release have been melted on the secondary market
is unknown. One may only speculate.
As the
series comes to a close, it will be interesting to see how the values of
previous issues performed, especially if new collectors decide to take up pursuing
a complete collection of Proof and/or Uncirculated versions.