By Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker for CoinWeek Notes …..
With a mintage of 47 million coins, the 2015 American Silver Eagle set a record for the highest mintage in the series. This fact would have been sufficient in most circumstances to render the issue generic silver bullion as far as the collector market is concerned but a 2017 communication from the United States Mint concerning a limited production run of bullion strikes at the Philadelphia Mint (a series first) drew intense interest from Coin World and Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC).
NGC reached out to Coin World to inquire about any information it might have regarding the production of American Silver Eagle bullion coins at the various mints, and the two organizations, independent of one another, filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking information from the Mint regarding the production of the Philadelphia Mint coins and their shipment records.
NGC, a market leader in the certification of American Silver Eagles, stood to gain from the release of information that would help identify sealed Monster Boxes of 2015 American Silver Eagles struck at and shipped from Philadelphia. If it could identify these boxes, it could authenticate and grade the coins within, thus giving NGC’s bulk submitters a novel product to hype and sell at great profit to the series’ growing collector base.
As the coins carry no mintmark and are identical in appearance to those struck at the West Point Mint, the grading service needed a means by which to differentiate boxes of West Point-made coins from pieces struck in Philadelphia. NGC focused its attention on the Mint’s labeling system and began to take notice of characteristics that it believed tied certain boxes to the Philadelphia Mint.
Does “Struck at the Philadelphia Mint” Matter?
From a rational stand point, no. But collectors and markets do not necessarily behave in rational ways and you, as an informed collector, may decide that there is merit in owning American Silver Eagle bullion coins struck at the different mints even if there’s no intrinsic way to differentiate them. Certainly, enough collectors have demonstrated a willingness to support the “Struck at the Philadelphia Mint” coins to the point where they sell for significantly more than generic 2015 American Silver Eagles. Do those willing to pay these premiums have the full picture? Let’s discuss.
To get a better understanding of the 2015 (P) American Silver Eagle, let’s get the official position of the United States Mint. The following is an excerpt from a Mint statement issued on June 30, 2017, responding to the earlier publication of erroneous information regarding serial numbers of Monster Boxes.
[The] Mint offers bullion coins through Authorized Purchasers to provide investors the opportunity to acquire precious metal coins at a slight premium to spot market prices. As such, all American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins are, by nature, homogeneous. None of these coins bears a mint mark designating the facility where it was produced. The Mint’s goal is to ensure that the American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins struck at any of these three facilities are identical and indistinguishable from one another.
A plain text reading indicates that the Mint purposefully omits the mintmark so that they have the flexibility to utilize all of their available production capacity to meet the needs of its authorized purchasers and their customers, precious metals coin investors.
If the Mint identifies bullion coins by mint with mintmarks, that could potentially disrupt this successful business model.
One of the items disclosed in the Mint’s March 20 response was that from 2011 to 2017 the Mint had produced American Silver Eagle bullion coins at the Philadelphia, San Francisco, and West Point mints, and that boxes from each of these facilities could be identified using information that the Mint was forced to disclose in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.
Armed with this information, NGC published submission guidelines for these “Struck at” coins on March 31, creating a new angle to market and collect bullion strike American Silver Eagles.
In their statement, NGC wrote:
NGC will label these coins with a mintmark in parentheses and expressly state the mint facility that struck the coin. The mintmark is in parentheses to indicate that it is not actually present on the coin. For example, a coin struck at the San Francisco Mint in 2017 will be described as a “2017(S) EAGLE S$1” with the text “Struck at San Francisco Mint” above.
Within days, PCGS followed suit. Coin dealers began to market coins pulled from the newly authenticate-able Monster Boxes, calling them the “Rarest Bullion Strikes Silver Eagles of All Time!”
This was a situation that the United States Mint never intended to happen and could have been avoided had the Mint blended the coins or tubes of coins with the West Point Mint product.
As for the rarity proposition of the 2015 (P) coins, consider this: the Mint’s stated mintage of 79,640 bullion strikes “Struck at Philadelphia” in 2015 represents less than 0.2% of the overall 2015 American Silver Eagle mintage. And since the individual coins can only be authenticated if unopened boxes with the appropriate signifiers are submitted, the number of 2015 (P) American Silver Eagles that could be certified would likely fall far short of that. 79,640 coins works out to 159 500-coin Monster Boxes with 140 loose coins left over (these were condemned and not shipped).
As of August 2024, the total number of coins certified is just over 5,000 – 10 monster boxes’ worth. This total came about only after months of intense searching of thousands of sealed boxes accessible to wholesalers, retailers, investors, and collectors.
The Mint Acknowledges a Slight Mistake…
NGC and PCGS began to receive and certify “Struck at” coins by early April. By the end of the month, many of them had entered the market and commanded significant premiums. Unbeknownst to the two grading services, the Mint had made a critical mistake in its earlier correspondence regarding the identification of 2015 (P) and 2015 (W) coins.
On June 30, the United States Mint issued a correction, stating that some ambiguity existed with the use of certain serial numbers on Monster Boxes produced at the Philadelphia and West Point mints:
For 2015 American Silver Eagle Bullion Coins Struck at West Point:
2015 American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins minted in West Point were packaged in one of two ways: manually, or by one of the West Point Mint’s two Auto-tuber machines.
All monster boxes of 2015 American Eagle Silver Bullion coins minted in West Point bore a computer-generated label that included “WPM.” Labels on manually packaged (or “hand-tubed”) boxes included “WPM,” but were not numbered. The box tracking numbers were handwritten on the boxes of hand-tubed coins. Labels on boxes packaged by Auto-tuber #1 and Auto-tuber #2 bore “WPM” followed by a five- or six-digit number. The box tracking numbers were also handwritten on the boxes.
A monster box with its original computer-generated label containing “WPM” followed by: no number, a five-digit tracking number (including 10001-10159), or a six-digit tracking number would indicate that the coins were struck at West Point.
For 2015 American Silver Eagle Bullion Coins Struck at Philadelphia:
2015 American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins minted in Philadelphia were all packaged manually and assigned box numbers 10001-10159 for internal tracking purposes. These same numbers were used for coins struck at West Point as well.
Monster boxes of 2015 American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins minted in Philadelphia did not have a computer-generated tracking number label, instead labels were handwritten. Data on labels did not include box numbers or any sort of Mint identifier. Banding would have read “West Point Mint.”
The Mint was not confident that the labels affixed to the boxes were alone sufficient to denote where they were struck. They then concluded with this warning (bold red text from the original).
Because of duplication of box tracking numbers at Philadelphia and West Point, as well as any mistakes in labeling or the possibility that labels on the boxes could have been removed or altered at any time after shipping, the Mint will make no attempt to “verify” the origin of any boxes using techniques related to tracking numbers, labels, or otherwise.
Clearly, if the Mint had their druthers, collectors and dealers would drop the issue entirely. Seven years onward, collectors still seem to hold the 2015 (P) American Silver Eagles in high regard despite the Mint’s pleadings. For its part, Whitman has yet to list these coins in the Guide Book.
How Much is a 2015 American Silver Eagle Worth?
Upon release, NGC and PCGS MS70 examples of the 2015 American Silver Eagle sold for an average of $86 each. Adjusted for inflation, in August 2024 dollars, this works out to about $116 each. Based on the current average price of $55, the MS70 2015 American Silver Eagles have shed 52% of their value since the coin’s release. This is a structural issue with MS70 recent date American Silver Eagles and not an issue with the intrinsic value of silver as the metal is up over 47% since the coin’s release.
More than 130,000 MS70 2015 American Silver Eagles have been certified by the leading grading services, nearly all of which were certified within a year of release. A nearly equal have been certified at the notionally inferior grade of MS69 that trades at about a 20% discount. Raw examples sell for a $8 to $10 premium over the prevailing spot price.
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Market Data and Noteworthy Specimens
2015 (W) or 2015 American Silver Eagle
Top Population: PCGS MS70 (32,655, 10/2024), NGC MS70 (97,855, 10/2024), and CAC MS70 (205, 10/2024).
- NGC MS70 #3982499-056: eBay, October 14, 2024 – $54. Early Releases.
- NGC MS70 #4651208-020: eBay, October 13, 2024 – $219. John Mercanti signed label.
- NGC MS70 #3982102-386: eBay, October 13, 2024 – $54.99. First Day of Issue.
- NGC MS70 #6034562-036: eBay, October 13, 2024 – $54.99.
- NGC MS70 #3984891-477: eBay, October 13, 2024 – $65. First Releases.
- PCGS MS70 #31921911: eBay, October 11, 2024 – $51. (W) Struck at West Point label.
- PCGS MS70 #31673189: eBay, October 10, 2024 – $79. (W) Struck at West Point label.
- NGC MS70 #3982214-455: eBay, July 28, 2024 – $52.95.
- NGC MS70 #3982837-049: eBay, July 27, 2024 – $65.
- NGC MS70 #3984728-295: eBay, July 26, 2024 – $51.
- PCGS MS70 #31787208: eBay, July 26, 2024 – $72.
- PCGS MS70 #31674839: eBay, July 26, 2024 – $46. (W) attribution. First Strike holder.
- PCGS MS70 #31673302: eBay, July 25, 2024 – $69. (W) attribution. First Strike holder.
- NGC MS70 #3982837-179: eBay, July 25, 2024 – $46.02. First Releases holder.
2015 (P) American Silver Eagle
While CAC (which has to date graded no coins) and NGC (which has certified just over 2,500 or five Monster Boxes’ worth) present their population data for the 2015 (P) American Silver Eagle straightforwardly, PCGS’ population data is buried inside the main 2015 entry and broken out into 12 different line items (one for each novelty label program).
After tabulating the certification numbers for each of these insert options, we arrive at a total number of coins graded being 2,667. The combined certification population represents 6.48% of the total mintage from the Philadelphia facility–assuming all of the boxes from which these coins were pulled were correctly identified.
PCGS MS70 totals are five times higher than NGC.
To repeat our earlier statement, the coins struck at Philadelphia and West Point are identical in every way.
Top Population: PCGS MS70 (527, 7/2024), NGC MS70 (104, 7/2024), and CAC None Graded (0, 7/2024).
- PCGS MS70 #84068703: Heritage Auctions, April 29, 2024, Lot 52424 – $3,480.
- PCGS MS70 #84068679: Heritage Auctions, March 18, 2024, Lot 50500 – $4,080.
- PCGS MS70 #83955985: Heritage Auctions, March 18, 2024, Lot 50501 – $3,840.
- PCGS MS70 #84068678: Heritage Auctions, January 31, 2024, Lot 29578 – $3,720. John Mercanti signature label.
- NGC MS70 #4541054-010: Heritage Auctions, July 10, 2023, Lot 51683 – $3,840. John Mercanti signature label.
- PCGS MS70 #84068624: Heritage Auctions, July 10, 2023, Lot 51682 – $3,600.
- PCGS MS70 #84742699: Heritage Auctions, April 11, 2022, Lot 91314 – $3,600. John Mercanti signature label.
- PCGS MS70 #38550801: Heritage Auctions, December 9, 2020, Lot 23848 – $3,360. John Mercanti signature label.
- PCGS MS70 #83956012: Heritage Auctions, May 16, 2018, Lot 26133 – $5,520. Ed Moy signature label.
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Design
Obverse:
Artist Adolph A. Weinman’s Lady Liberty is depicted mid-stride. She is seen as a full-body figure, dressed in a flowing gown and draped with a large billowing American flag. She holds laurel and oak branches in her left hand that symbolize the civil and military glories of America, respectively. As Liberty strides confidently towards the rising sun, she reaches out and presents a welcoming and open hand. So large is Lady Liberty that she is superimposed over the obverse legend LIBERTY ringing the obverse – in fact, she obscures half of the “BE” and almost the entire “R”. Above Liberty’s outstretched rear foot is the motto IN GOD WE TRUST, and below her is the date 2015.
The design bears a notable resemblance to sculptor Oscar Roty’s The Sower, a common image on French coins. It quickly became one of America’s most iconic numismatic images and would be used with minor modifications on the American Silver Eagle bullion coin starting in 1986.
Reverse:
United States Mint Chief Engraver John Mercanti’s Heraldic eagle is positioned at the center of the reverse. Clutched in its beak is a ribbon bearing the motto E PLURIBUS UNUM. Above its head is a constellation of 13 stars configured in an upside-down pyramid formation. The legend (top) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is wrapped around the design and the fineness and denomination (bottom) 1 OZ. FINE SILVER. ONE DOLLAR.
Edge:
The edge of the 2015 American Silver Eagle bullion coin is reeded.
Coin Specifications
| American Silver Eagle Bullion Coin | |
| Year of Issue: | 2015 |
| Mintage: | 47,000,000 |
| Alloy: | 99.9% silver |
| Weight: | 31.1 g |
| Diameter: | 40.6 mm |
| Edge: | Reeded |
| OBV Designer: | Adolph A. Weinman |
| REV Designer: | John M. Mercanti |
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