New Coins Released by the Mint- Luck or Skill?!?

[Recyclersteve]

Today (9/6/18) the U.S. Mint released a one ounce palladium coin where the obverse resembles a Mercury dime. It is a beautiful coin and was opened up to potential buyers at noon EST. Only 15,000 such coins were available to buy at $1,387.50 a coin- limit one coin per family. That formality out of the way, it appears to have been a real crapshoot as to who was among those fortunate enough to get one or more coins. Some people enabled the assistance of friends and relatives to get more than one coin.

Thanks to highroller4321 (Adam Youngs in Portland, OR) I was notified about the deal and able to get 1 coin, but was really wanting to get 2 and have to admit I had a sour taste in my mouth since the second coin was in the Shopping Cart, yet when I went to checkout I got an error message saying "Coin Not Available". We can complain all we want about all the things that went wrong. It appears that a big part of the issue is that the mint website just couldn't handle all the traffic it got. My not available error message came at 12:07pm EST, so this deal was completely sold out in NO MORE THAN 7 MINUTES!

But, let's look to the future instead of getting angry about what happened. Along those lines- what can be done to increase our chances of getting coins in the future? Do people who sign onto the mint's site 20 minutes before the sale opening have an advantage over those that sign on 10 minutes ahead of time? Do people with high speed internet connections (maybe part of a corporate connection with a T1 line) have an advantage over those that use something like Netzero? Do those with multiple browsers open have an advantage? Was anyone able to order one with an iPhone or Samsung phone?

I am especially looking forward to feedback from those who have done multiple transactions over the years and have had a decent success rate. We don't need to hear from someone with a credit card that has a $1,000 limit on it- the answer there is too obvious. Also, it would be nice to hear from those who have been able to procure multiple coins? What do you think can be done to increase the chances of being successful on hot offerings from the mint such as the 1 ounce palladium coin today? Is it luck or is it skill?

[Recyclersteve]

At the risk of straying off topic a bit, it would be VERY INTERESTING to see what would happen if the mint released a limited edition 5 ounce coin made of gold, platinum or palladium. Let's just say there were 5,000 of these made available. These could sell for perhaps $6,000 to $12,000 each. Even though there are a lot of people who wouldn't have a high enough limit on their credit cards to buy even one, I still say that there would be some ultra-wealthy people who would be very interested in getting perhaps 100 or more of these. So, let's say, a commitment of a million dollars or so.

Now if I got an email saying "Would you like to make an easy $100?", my response would be that they would have to up the stakes big time. #imnotafool

[Mercuryman]

Just never use paypal for these... never. I learned the hard way.

[Recyclersteve]

An article in Coin World is saying the mint may have sold out in just 4 1/2 minutes (270 seconds).