America the Beautiful Quarters Are Flies On the Wall

Stranger than fiction these days, can anyone imagine what it's like to be the modern collector that often steps over pre-1965 silver to find America the Beautiful quarters?  Following on the heels of an exhaustive campaign for value driven Americana, speaking in terms to the state quarters fiasco, the ATB series comes with little to no fanfare as a mere followup with the hopes that it will succeed like it's predecessor did.  And it's with good reason, ATB quarters rival the state editions with a fraction of the mintage, making their existance in circulation null and void.

A long suppressed coin roll hunter found a scant few in his $1000 box run, as scarce as finding pre-1965 90% silver and probably long overlooked as a possible collector piece 100 years from now.  And if you think this is remotely relevant, then how about the massive five ounce hockey pucks the mint has decided to produce at miniscule rates to shadow the ATB series?  It's a clear and deepening trend toward, what's a fad/trend today that we can take advantage of tomorrow and be profitable?  Or how can we capitalize on a hot precious metals market?  But you know what, I think what it really comes to is...so when are we expecting the release of the five ounce gold and palladium variety of the ATB?  Yeah right...and now we know why collectors and bullion stackers are a dwindling breed every day.  The existing releases of five ounce silver bullions are selling as slow as the final run of new Pontiac Azteks while they have no problem charging a knife wielding premium in relation to the actual bullion value.

The ATB is longing to be what the two and three cent pieces are in it's day, a low mintage fly on the wall.  And it's also awaiting another 7+ years of agonizing releases with even lower mintages.  In conclusion, it's with this careless and ungratifying gimmick driven marketing that might one day turn the coin collecting hobby into stamp collectors obscurity.