Lower Household Limits Needed for 2015 Presidential Coin and Chronicles Sets

A long-standing complaint of many regular purchasers of U.S. Mint products is that household limits are typically too high.

There have been instances in which the initial limit was one per household such as for the 2009 Lincoln Coin and Chronicles set, which had a limit of five when originally announced.  But prior to the set’s release the Mint lowered the limit to one.

This also happened last year when the Mint released the gold Kennedy half dollar tribute coin that initially had an announced limit of five coins, but a week before the release the limit was lowered to one. Later on the limit was removed.

But most U.S. Mint products have initial limits of five per household, or have no limits.  

Low household limits help to enable more collectors to purchase an item that is in high demand when released.  And they are especially important because large buyers often use friends and employees to snap of most of the first tranche of sales.

If a product has a limited mintage such as the upcoming Presidential Coin and Chronicles set for Truman that will be released on June 30, and the other three sets in this series that will be released later this year, low household limits are critical to ensuring a fairer distribution of the product.

An initial limit of one of two sets for a set with a total mintage of only 17,000 (or 25,000 for the Kennedy set), and which notably includes the first reverse proof presidential dollars, would help a lot to achieve that goal.  

After a period of a week or two, the limit would be released, though there may not be any sets left at that point.

The 2015 presidential sets are almost certain to sell out very quickly, and an initial limit of one per household will put more sets in the hands of collectors, and flippers and dealers may be forced to buy sets from individual collectors for their inventories.

The Mint will earn the same revenue no matter where the sets end up, but spreading them around more evenly would further the Mint’s goal of making U.S. numismatic coins available to as many collectors as possible.  

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