America the Beautiful 5 oz Silver Bullion Coins
One of the hottest issues of United States coins came in 2010 with the release of the 2010 America the Beautiful 5 oz silver bullion coins, which was the start of the first five silver bullion coins released in the America is Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008.
These America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins were to be released along with the circulating commemorative America the Beautiiful Quarters Program as an investment product of silver bullion.
Public Law 110-456 authorized that the America the Beautiful Silver Bullion have a .999 fine silver composition, along with a weight of 5 ounces, and a diameter of 3 inches. That's almost twice the size of the American Silver Eagle Coin.
Here's a video from the U.S. Mint, which shows how these beautiful coins are created.
When the law was enacted to make these silver bullion coins at a weight of 5 ounces and 3 inches in diameter, there was a problem. The United States Mint didn't have a coin press that would create a 3 inch coin. Through one of many technical upgrades at the Mint in the last 15 years, the Philadelphia Mint now has one of six coin presses in the world that will create these type of silver bullion coins. The new coin press, purchased from Gräbener Pressensysteme GmbH & Co. KG of Germany, can stamp out multiple strikes up to 40 coins a minute, and up to 1000 tons on single strike coins. These silver bullion coins were being struck twice at about 430 tons.
A special team of press operators and die setters start with a silver blank supplied by Sunshine Minting. The blank is then set onto a conveyor which takes it into the coin press. Images are then struck on the obverse and reverse sides of the blank to create the coin.
The America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins come in two versions.
The first version is the bullion version. These silver bullion coins are only available through bullion purchasers authorized by the United States Mint. The public then can buy these bullion coins from those authorized dealers.
The second version of the 5 ounce coin is the numismatic version, which has a P Mint mark for Philadelphia on the obverse side of the coin. The numismatic version comes in a frost finish, and is originally available for purchase from the United States Mint.
These unique coins are then checked for imperfections, weighed, wrapped, and prepared for shipping.
The America of the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coin Program is set to issue five new coins each year until 2021. In all, 56 national parks and sites will be honored.
