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Comment by valarauko | Hacker News Reader

> 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).

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> What I don't get is why the US Mint would care one way or the other for the concerns of credit card companies.

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.

> The usual way to eliminate manufactured spend would be to add a credit card specific transaction fee that cancels out the spend points.

Before 2013, this likely would have violated their credit card processing agreement.

And also, it would be illegal in some states.

That seems ... odd. I can pay my apartment rent with a debit card with a fixed transaction fee (eg, $999.99 and up to $1,999.99 the service fee is $4.95), while covering it with a credit card has a different fee structure of a flat 2.95%. This is with Rent Cafe in NYC, and from what I can tell, it's a very widespread platform across the country. The 2.95% fee specific to credit cards will wipe out the points earned for a credit card under almost all circumstances.

Platforms like RentCafe are highly configurable to support local laws, because the nature of landlord/tenant law is that it is highly variable by state.

Going though that same effort is a waste of time and implementation budget for something like selling novelty bills.

Fair enough - in which case the Mint just needs to pad the sale price a bit to cover interchange fees, and make a little extra on top, and shipping can be extra. 10% on top of the face value should be more than enough, and would have the side effect of sapping any would be manufactured spend. Yet the prices on the Mint are way above that - it looks like more than 50%. Sure, if the novelty or collector market values it at that premium, great. What I struggle to understand is that this is primarily to combat manufactured spend. I still don't see why manufactured spend is a problem for the Mint to solve, rather than the credit card companies.

> What I struggle to understand is that this is primarily to combat manufactured spend.

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.

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