It's not free for the Mint. Also, credit card companies aggressively shut down manufactured spending when they notice it.
I'm familiar with the concept of manufactured spend, and why credit card companies would try to clamp down on it. What I don't get is why the US Mint would care one way or the other for the concerns of credit card companies. The usual way to eliminate manufactured spend would be to add a credit card specific transaction fee that cancels out the spend points. By the Mint increasing the base price for everybody, this affects even people who might be paying with a debit card, or an ACH transaction (not sure if they're options, just positing).
Hard to say what their reasoning is. It could be pressure from the credit card companies. Or it could be that someone at the mint decided they don't like the idea of people gaming the system.
At the end of the day, it's not a positive-value economic activity. And if enough folks started buying coins for face value just to churn credit card points, there would be financial losses for the mint/and-or the credit card company.
Before 2013, this likely would have violated their credit card processing agreement.
And also, it would be illegal in some states.
Going though that same effort is a waste of time and implementation budget for something like selling novelty bills.
I agree with you, it is well known that these collector products are intended to generate revenue.
Also, they literally have their pricing rationale in their FAQs:
https://www.usmint.gov/help-center/most-popular-questions.ht...
> We cannot use any tax dollars to fund our numismatic operations.
> The United States Mint’s numismatic programs are self-sustaining and operate at no cost to the taxpayer. Any excess funds are returned to the Treasury General Fund to reduce the annual budget deficit of the federal government.