The United States Mint has announced that it will begin selling silver 2020 American Eagles bullion coins that have been minted at the San Francisco facility. The bullion coins, which will not carry the “S” mint mark, will be sold only to Authorized Purchases in Monster Boxes starting today.
The unexpected announcement is the second similar sale that the Mint has had in 2020 as production and demand for silver bullion has been exceptionally high. Earlier this year, the Mint sold American Eagles that were minted in Philadelphia which were deemed “Emergency Production“. Those coins did not bare a mint mark and were sold in Monster Boxes.
The Mint stated in their Press Release that the San Francisco facility was used to augment the bullion production for the Mint given the strong demand for silver bullion. The Mint concedes they were not able to keep up with demand, thus opening up production in San Francisco.
Like all bullion coins, these American Eagles will only be sold to Authorized Purchasers in Monster Boxes. A Monster Box is a green box that is labeled, sealed, and numbered to indicate where the coins were produced. Each box contains 500 1-ounce coin. Purchasers will pay a premium of $2.65 per coin, higher than the normal $2.35 to cover the higher costs of production in San Francisco.
To date, the Mint has sold 24.5 million silver American Eagles in 2020. That is compared to the 14.8 million the Mint sold in all of 2019.
Much like the Philadelphia emergency Eagles, the general public will only be able to buy them through a dealer and likely after they have been graded. While NGC and PCGS has not indicated they will have a special designation and label for these coins, you can be sure that such an announcement will be coming in the next few days.
Below is the Press Release from the Mint
On November 2nd, one million San Francisco struck 2020 American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins will be offered to the United States Mint’s network of Authorized Purchasers via the Mint’s standard allocation model at a premium of $2.65 per coin, compared to the standard $2.35 per coin. This higher premium is necessary to cover the higher program costs associated with production costs at San Francisco. Authorized Purchasers are given the choice of either San Francisco or West Point as their pick-up facility.
This past summer, demand for the United States Mint’s American Eagle Silver Bullion Coin Program was extremely strong, and the Mint was at times unable to meet full market demand. In an effort to meet demand, the San Francisco Mint was used to augment American Silver Eagle Bullion production.
The Mint has sold 24.5 million American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins to date in calendar year 2020 compared to 14.8 million American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins sold for the entire 2019 calendar year.
For consumer reference, the outside of the San Francisco-produced Silver Bullion Coin green “monster” boxes will be labeled and numbered to allow purchasers of sealed boxes to confirm that the coins were produced at the San Francisco Mint. Each monster box contains 500 one-ounce coins. The production lot number on the green monster boxes of coins produced at San Francisco will incorporate the numbers 800,000 through 801,999.
United States Mint
How MANY Will Be Produced??????????
500 x 1999 = 999,500 or will there be more?
It is assumed that the Mint will not be designating any more than the 1,999 Monster boxes indicated in their press release. So your maths are correct and I would not expect any more.