Wednesday, June 24, 2009


Today, the US Mint announced that they will extend their subscription program to include the remaining 2009 Lincoln Cent Two Roll Set offerings. The subscription would cover the two remaining roll sets for the "Professional Life" and "Presidency" designs. It would not cover the first two releases for the "Birthplace" and "Formative Years" designs.

Under the subscription program, customers enroll in the program for a specified number of sets and the US Mint charges the credit card on file and ships the coins when they become available. The US Mint has offered subscriptions for certain annual or recurring products like Proof Sets, Mint Sets, Coin Covers, Presidential Dollar rolls, and the collectible Silver Eagles.

The main benefit of the subscription program is that products are ordered automatically, and you don't have to worry about fighting through potential bottlenecks on the US Mint's website on product release days.

There has always been discussion about whether products ordered under the subscription program ship earlier than orders placed on the first day. This was recently the subject of an experiment conducted by a member of Coin Network. Orders for the 2009 Proof Set were placed via subscription, within the first few minutes of sales, and later in the day. The result of the experiment was that the set ordered through the subscription was shipped and received more or less within the same time frame as orders placed on the first day.

Shipping for the 2009 Proof Sets in general seems to have been handled much more smoothly than prior 2009 products. For other products, I have seen reports of orders placed through subscriptions being shipped weeks after orders placed on the first day. Whether the results of the experiment are the exception or the rule is unknown.

The US Mint's subscriptions page can be found here. The option for 2009 Lincoln Cent Two Roll Sets does not appear yet. The option for the 2009 Lincoln Cent Two Roll Sets now appears in the subscription section.

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