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.