The U.S. Mint recently announced that it will not buy back bent or partial coins, many of which previously were sold by shredders, heavy media plants and other recyclers who recovered the coins during the recycling process, until November 2, 2016.
ISRI needs to know just how much the Mint’s suspension of its buyback program is affecting our domestic and foreign members so that we can determine what ISRI’s level of involvement should be.
In response to suspicions raised in 2009 by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and a subsequent investigation by the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010, as well as the seizure of a shipment of coins in 2014 and the Justice Department’s institution of litigation regarding the seized coins the Mint originally announced a six-month suspension of its buyback program on November 2, 2015. In the April 29, 2016 edition of the Federal Register the Mint extended the suspension of the buyback program through November 2, 2016.
The investigation thus far has focused upon coins being repatriated from China. At least two scrap brokers who have regularly sold mutilated U.S. coins to the Mint have been the subject of allegations of fraud. The U.S. Justice Department alleges that some of their shipments contained counterfeit coins. Nonetheless, the suspension of the mutilated coin buyback program has been applied to all sellers, domestic or foreign, and to coins originating from U.S. recyclers as well as foreign recyclers.
If you are being affected by the Mint’s suspension of its mutilated coin buyback program please let us know by clicking on one of the following links:
I am a domestic U.S. recycler that has regularly sold coins in the past to the U.S. Mint and am unable to do so now.
I am a foreign recycler (not in the U.S.) that has regularly sold coins in the past to the U.S. Mint and am unable to do so now.