One way to run a mint into the ditch..

[Maxorin]

I would like to shear a little something that is really bothering me, I have a bad feeling.. But to get to the end, I have to start far away from the norwegian mint, with a little company that started many many years ago, they started selling coins and notes to collectors. The company grew and as they got bigger, the quality of their stuff went down. Alot of glossy pictures, info and plastic, but the coins themselves were overpriced. Their target group was (and is) people who know little about coins and collecting, of course. They have been doing this for many years, and are today one of norways biggest in that area. So far, no big deal, just stay away from them.
Recently they have got a lot of bad publicity in the papers, a lot of people
feel they have been cheated, so they should be loosing customers.

But some time ago now, something happened that really made things go downhill, in a hurry.

Suddenly the bank that owns the mint, (goverment owns the bank) say that they are willing to sell the whole minting process.. Because they dont make a profit on it. And now it gets nasty, they got two phonecalls from someone who was interested. One from the mint in finland, and one from the above mentioned company.. And guess what, they buy it! 50% to the mint in finland and 50% to this company.. Historical buildings and everything, except a collection of coins and other things the bank kept.

After this happened, I noticed that this company are advertising more than ever, a lot of replicas and things, and why not, they own the norwgian mint with all its equipment. :eek:

And here comes there big scary point for me; the mint error interest here is un the way up, and I know that this company have noticed this. I really hope they dont start picking out, or worse, making error coins and selling them in the same manner as the other stuff they have, but this is not completly impossible. Just have to wait and see. I have no doubt they will do this if they see a market to make money on.. Scary thought. One day I open my mailbox and find some glossy papers with "an amazing offer, hurry up and buy" followed by pictures of errors.. I might actually shed a tear if that happens.

How I wish they never sold the mint.. What a stupid idea!

[wavysteps]

That is more than an interesting story and should make us all, variety and error collectors, a bit more wary of potential buys in the world market.

BJ Neff

[Maxorin]

I assume that the bank and goverment, have reserved some rights to have a say in the production of the coins we use every day. It sounds riddicolus to to just sell something like that.

I just hope they keep up the rules and guidelines as they have been, and dont allow anything like that i worried about. If it were to happen, i guess it would destroy the market for coins made after the mint was sold. Still think its amazing that it was sold.. 100%.. Come to think of it, I think I will do some checking to see if there are other countries that have done something similar. Maybe its not that unusual, but to me the mint is something the goverment should own and operate.

[Rhubarb]

That is a sad story. It would make me wonder what the future for coins will be. There more hand's in the till so to speak.

Rhubarb