The second of the four 2009 Lincoln Cent reverse designs will be released to the public tomorrow (Thursday, May 14), when the U.S. Mint will hold a launch event in Lincoln City, Indiana to celebrate the new penny. The event, scheduled to begin at 10:00 am CT, will be held in the Lincoln Amphitheater at Lincoln State Park. Attendance is expected to be very heavy, so it is strongly recommended that you arrive early for close-in parking and best seating.
Of course, many of those attending might not be interested in seats at all! They might be more interested in where the line forms to claim their rolls of the Rail Splitter (Formative Years) Lincoln Cents at face value, so they can sell them on eBay for a hefty profit. Those who attended the first 2009 Lincoln Cent event in Hodgenville, Kentucky, ended up with a bonanza when collectors soon learned that the pennies wouldn't be circulating anywhere anytime soon. (Of course, my regular readers knew this detail a week earlier, when I broke the story about the fact that, due to economic conditions, new coins were not getting to the public because there was a glut of old ones around.)
This time, though, the circumstances for the launch event are different. Everybody knows now that the 2009 coins aren't circulating well, and that due to some incredible oversight on the part of the Treasury Department, no provisions were made for the banks to have a special ordering period for the cents, like they had for the State Quarters and have now for the Presidential Dollars. Collectors can't just go to their local banks to stock up.
We all watched in amazement as those lucky few who got early rolls of the Log Cabin pennies made as much as $80 per roll off of them on eBay. (Some of us even paid these highway robbery prices, just to get a few rolls.) Then the U.S. Mint came to our rescue and offered two-roll sets on their Web site for $8.95 per set; still a high price but much lower than the eBay prices were. Unfortunately, those U.S. Mint rolls sold out long before demand for them was satisfied.
Fast-forward to today, and we have the makings of what Dave Harper at Numismatic News called a "Numismatic Woodstock." Although the U.S. Mint has made it very clear that they will be limiting quantities to six rolls per person during the coin exchange (where attendees can get the new coins at face value), prospective eBay sellers are expected to show up with all the kids in tow, and probably the neighbor's kids, too, all in a bid to gather as many rolls as possible. Then these would-be entrepreneurs will all trek over to the little Lincoln City Post Office to get their rolls stamped "First Day of Issue" to enhance their value.
The U.S. Mint will have the Rail Splitter penny up for sale on its Web site beginning at 12:00 noon ET, at the price of $8.95 for a 2-roll set, one roll with each Mint mark (Philadelphia and Denver). Customers will be limited to five sets per household, and there is a $4.95 shipping and handling charge per order, regardless of the order size. If you want to buy these, I recommend buying early, since there will be a quick sell-out if the Mint only has 100,000 sets to sell, like they did for the Log Cabin Cent.
If you buy the pennies from the Mint's Web site, don't expect delivery anytime soon. The Mint posted the following notice on its Web site recently:
Shipping Delays: Due to current fulfillment issues we are experiencing shipping delays on all orders. It is taking 4 to 5 weeks to process and ship orders to customers. For more information, please see our FAQ #218.
FAQ 218 goes on to say:
The United States Mint's policy is to ship in-stock products within 1 to 2 weeks from the date an order is placed. However, due to current fulfillment issues we are experiencing shipping delays on all orders. It is taking 4 or 5 weeks to process and ship orders to customers. The United States Mint expects to resolve these issues soon and return to our normal shipping policy of 1 to 2 weeks. We regret the inconvenience to our valued customers and appreciate their patience and understanding.
This is an improvement for the fulfillment-challenged Mint; in recent months, customers were told to expect their orders in 1 to 2 weeks, but instead they received a potpourri of emails extending and delaying the shipping date. The Mint changed fulfillment contractors in early January, and things apparently didn't go too well.
Last I heard, the Mint is taking steps to redesign its order fulfillment and tracking system, but this will be a long-term project that will take a couple of years to complete. In the mean time, hopefully the Mint will get the immediate challenges resolved and get back on their normal 1 to 2 week shipping schedule (which is already very long by modern Internet standards.)
If you're lucky enough to live in or near the Washington, D.C. area, you can buy your 6 rolls of Rail Splitter pennies at one of the 3 U.S. Mint sales outlets there. The new pennies will only be available at the first two locations on May 14 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, with a limit of 6 rolls per person. Here are those two locations:
Union Station Sales Kiosk
Main Hall (East End)
50 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.
U.S. Mint Headquarters Sales Counter
801 9th Street, N.W
The third Washington D.C. location will not have the new pennies on the 14th, but will have them on the 15th instead, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, with the same quantity limits as the first two locations.
Capitol Hill
Rayburn Building
Southwest section of the Capitol complex
Have you gotten your hands on some of the new Rail Splitter pennies? Share your news with us in the comments, and tell us where you got them!
Comments
I live in northern Arkansas and have yet to see the first cent. I think it is crap that most of the country cannot get the new cent without having to pay many times face value for them which I refuse to do. I live on disability so I am faced with adding to my collection coins bought from the bank. I think the feds could ship out the new coins instead of the old ones and hold on to the old ones til next year when it won’t matter since Lincoln’s birth bicentennial will be over. Now if there is any town in Arkansas that someone has found the new cents in circulation I wish someone would tell me. I have had better luck with the territorial quarters, so far I have found one Washington D.C. in circulation.
I think I will take the advice of a coin dealer who was a collector. Never buy till the sets are a year old and people start selling all their extra sets. He showed me how not a single set was selling for as much as mint charged.
Those lucky enough to live near Lincoln Park and can get rolls for 50 cents a roll are the ones who will make the money.
Our local banks are not receiving any of the 2009 cent issues. And, for one, I will NOT pay the ridiculous US Mint prices or those offered by dealers for them.
It appears, unless along the line I am able to obtain, for a reasonable price, the 2009 cents, that my collection will end with the 2008 cents.
What a sad ending for the cent!
This deals with a different subject altogether but is of real relevance to all coin collectors. It would be nice if you could poll your readers to see how many of them buy coins on the Home Shopping coin collector shows and what their experiences have been. I can tell you mine for starters. I have purchased coins since the 1999 Statehood quarters were offered on one of these coin collector shows and just recently sent 16 of them in just to see if the grade assigned was accurate. I found 13 of 16 to be overgraded, so it would behoove your readers to check the accuracy of the grading. The value of my coins has plummeted by over $10,000.00 due to the coins being re-graded from Perfect 70’s to 68’s and 69’s. This is a shame because I can only imagine that I am not the only one who has experienced this and these coin collectors shows continue to peddle this with their “Guaranteed for Perpetuity” brand of selling. You have some clout in this industry, so I am hoping you could gather a consensus of how wide spread this is and who are the people selling these. I imagine that people have paid these shopping networks millions of dollars over the years and are not getting what they are paying for. I will not name names or shows, but when I submit 16 coins and 13 are regraded at a lower grade and costing me large sums of money, it is time for this to be addressed by a person of your stature. Thanks!
John, never buy coins from the coin networks, especially if they’re graded buy someone other than pcgs or ngc. They are the biggest scammers on tv, even more so than the ones claiming you can lose 100 lbs in 6 weeks. I’ve noticed they usually only have icg graded coins, which are never accurate in grade, especially in ms or pf condition. I’ve bought 3 coins before, 2 of which i returned with their free shipping label which was the only reason i bought them. The one i kept was an ngc pf70 2002 silver eagle, which i got for $99 and has since tripled in price.
As for the pennies, i paid $1 for a p&d set of the log cabin pennies which is worth the price to fill the hole in my collection. I’ll probably do the same for the next one rather than buy 2 rolls that will lose value when i take one out.
I live in south central Texas and have 10 of the first issue new pennies. I just happened to get them as change from the grocery store etc.I won’t pay more than face value for any coin.I’m middle-aged,collected only what I’ve come across since I was a kid but am very,very patient.Our time to profit will come and as for home shopping networks and the like-what goes around-comes around.Alert the attorney general of your state and the state the network operates from AND let the network know you’ve done this.Tell your fellow collectors to do the same if it has happened to them.Hopefully,once you get their attention and they begin to see a pattern they will start looking at these crooks.A certain well known mail order stamp company (”L”) has been “looked at”several times.
Again, i’ll let this one go by. As i’m understanding from what i read, that is 40 million of these pennys for the entire year of 09. That’s the way i’m reading this from this article. Pretty low numbers for pennys. Only one question remains. How does a collector treat these coins, are they all key dates? As a set. Or as indiviual coins. If they are in fact key date coins.
coiny
I am send over 150 folks to buy rolls…
After looking at production figures at the mints web site, last night, and again this morning. None of their production numbers jibe. Preliminary numbes so far up to April this year. Theres a grand total of 864.40 million pennies minted. From what i’m gatering from reading this article. The two roll mint sets are in the 40 million range. The rest are for circulation. Not much of these figures are making sense, since we are having a reversal of fortune. With a back wash going in the opposite direction. The mintage figures posted at the mnt are in step with prior years mintages. I’m starting to wonder about the validity of these figures. Or can they be believed. The mints same figures for quarters in the quarter program, are not the same figure on the same page for all production figures for this year. Where can a person get figures that are correct? If not from the mint itself. Can any of the numbers be believed.
coiny
Just got 6 rolls at the US Mint location in DC; they only had Philadelphia available.
I managed to pick up 6 Philadelphia rolls at the U.S. Mint Headquarters Sales Counter, and another 6 at the Union Station kiosk. The line at the first location was only about 20 people when I got there, but the Union Station line had about 100 people waiting. I guess less people know of the 2nd location. It would have been great to get some Denver rolls, considering I got them for even exchange, I really can’t complain.
Logged onto the mint’s website at 1:00PM today figuring the rush had died down. NOT! It took 29 minutes to log in, place my order, confirm, and checkout.
On top of that the cents are on backorder until 5/29. The website says shipping is taking somewhere between 4 and 5 weeks. Based on that I guess I’ll see my coins the beginning of July – of course – that assumes I don’t get a reschedule notice, or two, or three, or four…….
The log splitter (second in the penny series)
was already on backorder at 12:11 PM. The first rolls were on backorder and that was just cancelled two days ago. Was it midnight or noon that they went on sale?
I went to the u.s mint headquarters in DC and i get 24 Rolls of the new penny “P”
I was upset because when I was standing in line to get the rail splitter penny at at the Union station location, when 10 people were in front of me, they sold out!!!!!
can you believe that!?
GRRRRRR!
I guess I will try again with the next design… does anyone know what the release date is???
I wanted in the WORST way to travel ALL DOWN THE LENGTH of INDIANA to be in Lincoln City this morning, but they kept REDUCING how many rolls you could get and I was not going to fill a van of sleeping people.
I started at 1 PM trying to order online for the highly inflated-priced rolls from the mint, but that was a joke as well as trying to CALL in an order…..Finally, between 4 and 5 pm, I got through online for 5 sets….Backordered, of course, which probably means “forget it, Schmuck !”.
I can only hope that SOMEDAY rolls will filter through the system…..I don’t understand why some ebayers in remoted Southern State locations have coins to sell !
Oh well.
Went to Union Station in DC and they ran out just before i had a chance to get a roll at 2pm….went to the other location and there was no one in line, got my two rolls and am happy with them. It is a shame they didn’t have the Denver minth though…
Hello All,
A great part of what I truly enjoy about
the pursuit of coins is the patience that
is recquired. I like taking the time to slowly
go through my coin change, I like looking for that close to perfect civil war coin at local shops and I like filling my Whitman books.
Yes, it would be better if the Mint could
ship a little sooner but time does fly.
Caroline
I do think the new lincoln penny designs are cool. Wish i had one. They are way over hyped so they are being held on to like gold.
They are not even pure copper. 9 bucks for 1 dollar of pennys on mint site is rediculous. 20 or more dollars on ebay. Maybe the usmint should make a ultra high relief lincoln cent in .9999 copper LOL. Only in America can we take something worthless and market it to people to can’t afford to throw money away. Atleast thats how I feel. I could be wrong.
I agree with you robert. That is one heck of a mark up. Guess the only way to defray the cost of minting, what costs more to mint then it’s worth. Is to join the t.v. hucksters, and take whatever the market will pay. The worse part is, your paying more for the wraper, than the pennies there wraped in. According to the mint, there are alot of pennies minted so far this year. Up till April. Only 100,000 sets of P&D mint rolled pennies. I hope it pans out for the buyers.
coiny
I was at the Lincoln City, IN release on 5/14 and got my share of rolls. I went to DC on 5/15 and Union Station was out saying it was a one day sale and they are sold out! They are the mint how can they be sold out?
The Mint actually sold 20 million of the cents (200,055 of the two-roll sets) between Thursday and Sunday.
That’s rather amazing!
I went in to work yesterday and found my cash register full of the new pennies. Knowing about how valuable they appeared to be, I bought all that we had. I am now selling them on ebay for, after shipping, $2.78 per roll. Not face value, but certainly cheaper than other sellers and even the mint.
I recieved my new lincoin cents,log cabin and railsplitter, in change at a local well known retale store after making a routine purchase. I think if you will remain patient just a little. You too will find these pennies in circulation as well. And by the way the ones I recieved in change appear to be in unciculated , unscratched or damaged condition.