Direct Ship Program page

Native American Dollar Coin
One coin design will be released each year.
Available: Agriculture (2009)

Presidential dollar coin release schedule
Four coin designs will be released each year
Available: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson

Coins come in $250 boxes (ten rolls of $25). You can order two boxes of each design ($500) for the presidents; there is currently no apparent limit for the Sacajawea dollars. If you keep your orders small, per-item limits do not appear to be enforced for multiple orders. Shipping disappears once you complete the order.

This is charged as a purchase, not a cash advance. The Mint will initially authorize the entire amount. The final charge is usually made the day after the coins ship. A few folks have noted receiving partial orders; the amount may not be charged until the order ships complete.

The Mint may be matching order information. This was done when the offer first started, but the consensus seems to be that they don't do this with regularity. Keeping orders small (<$1000) seems to totally avoid order matching, allowing one to order more than the item limits over time. To guarantee mismatched orders of the same item, the billing and shipping addresses, and credit card numbers must be different.

All orders from the Mint of $300 or more will ship expedited (UPS Next Day Air or Priority Mail), signature required.

Many have reported long (sometimes extreme) hold periods for orders. Do not order with any expectation as to shipment and delivery dates. If you are planning on getting a large number of boxes, consider making separate orders of $500 or $1000. Orders appear to be filled on a rolling basis, one design at a time. Also, remember that there may be a hold for your order amount on your credit card for some time.

Due to the vagueries of the Internet, shipping notices are sometimes received the day of or after delivery. The tracking number is the third in the block on the shipping notices. The first two lines have no obvious meaning.

To check the status of your order if you do not have a Mint online account, call 1-800-USA-MINT and select option 2. The system will ask you to input your order # and billing zip code. The order number is in both the subject line and body of the order receipt e-mail.

If you do not know your bank or credit union's policy on deposits of large amounts of coins, contact them before going. Most do not require that the coins be unrolled; however, you do need to remove them from their shipping box. Larger banks that handle commercial deposits have coin bags to place unrolled coins in. One poster reported adverse action from Chase after making coin deposits.
gatzdon said:Don't fall for any lies about coin deposit fees. If they say there's a fee, demand to get that in writing. If they refuse, tell them refusal to disclose their fees in writing is a direct violatiof of Regulation DD - Truth in Savings Act. Specifically Depository institutions shall make the disclosures required by §§ 230.4 through 230.6 of this part, as applicable, clearly and conspicuously, in writing, and in a form the consumer may keep. Emphasis on "in a form the consumer may keep.

If you don't think that this is a profitable deal, then don't post here about it. Between interest on float and credit card rewards, plenty of people feel that they it is worth their effort. Only you can decide if it is worth yours.
staci86 said:1% straight cash is very common. If you can cycle $10k per month on that, you get a free $100 plus interest on the float for a few trips to the bank. If you're at the bank anyway or bank somewhere you drive by regularly, its 10 minutes max per visit, at one of the better banks for this deal.

If you are using Schwab's 2% cash card, that becomes $200 plus interest per month.

Someone earlier in this thread posted about the Citi Platinum AMEX giving 3TYP/dollar, redeemed at 1% on the student loan rebate. That would yield $300 per month plus interest.

If you card is tiered like AMEX Blue, this deal will help you reach the upper tier and increase earnings on other purchases. If you must spend $X as part of a promo, this is a great way to meet that requirement.

This deal allows you to do fee-free balance transfers from one card to another. This can convert a 0% purchase APR into money in your checking account.

If you have large credit lines that you don't use, this cycling shows substantial activity on the account, and can help prevent a closure for inactivity. That is intangible, but still a benefit.

If you are unfortunate enough to be carrying CC interest at a non-promotional rate, and have a card which is paid off and has a grace period, you can use this deal to float that debt and avoid high normal CC rates on the portion of the balance you can continue cycling.

There are many ways to make money from this deal. If your card only yields 0.625%, you need a new card, or you need to think of other ways to make/save money from this deal.

Besides (gasp!) spending the coins or depositing into a bank account, consider using them to pay property taxes or utility bills. This is a surreptitious way of getting these onto your card when the payee does not accept credit cards or charges a fee.

When you deposit these coins, they will not go back to the Mint. If your bank does not want them, they may eventually end up at a Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve System eventually holds all non-circulating coins and bills.

The Mint makes money on this program. It costs between ten and twenty cents to produce a single dollar coin. The Mint "makes" the difference between its cost and the dollar face value; this is called seigniorage. For each box of 250 coins, the Mint gets $200 or more beyond its production cost. This is how they can afford to spend money to market and ship the coins.

US Mint said:To encourage robust national circulation of $1 Coins (non-numismatic, circulation-grade coins), the United States Mint has introduced the Circulating $1 Coin Direct Ship Program. This program makes it easy for retailers, financial institutions, and other interested parties to obtain smaller quantities of $1 coins than can otherwise be obtained from the Federal Reserve.

Circulating Presidential Dollar Figures by Mint
			Denver		Philadelphia	Total
George Washington 	163,680,000 	176,680,000 	  340,360,000
John Adams 		112,140,000 	112,420,000 	  224,560,000
Thomas Jefferson 	102,810,000 	100,800,000 	  203,610,000
James Madison 		 87,780,000 	 84,560,000 	  172,340,000
James Monroe 		 60,230,000 	 64,260,000 	  124,490,000
John Quincy Adams 	 57,720,000 	 57,540,000 	  115,260,000
Andrew Jackson 		 61,070,000 	 61,180,000 	  122,250,000
Martin Van Buren 	 50,960,000 	 51,520,000 	  102,480,000
William Henry Harrison 	 55,160,000 	 43,260,000 	   98,420,000
  	  	  	751,550,000 	752,220,000 	1,503,770,000