My Experience of the European Mint

[Pete]

I decided to place an order on the European Mint in Estonia to compare with GS.be whom I have used many times.
They had coins that I needed that GS.be didn't offer so I thought give it a go.
I bulked up my order due to the delivery charge.

Buying was terrific as they showed stock quantities of each coin.
Confirmation was instant on a nice presented order form.
I made payment in Euros using Transferwise and the transaction was completed in 7 seconds with the European Mint actually receiving their payment in this time !
I had to make a separate payment to their shipping agent which went just as fast.
Absolutely brilliant so far !
Shipping would be using UPS

First issue that I was unaware of -
Considering the cost of shipping I was expecting the 2-3 day express shipping from UPS, not the road service through Lithuania, Poland etc.
Delivery took 8 days and UPS kept me updated with tracking so no fault on their part; there were no delays just that's the service purchased.
Therefore be aware that delivery is not fast, unlike GS.be

Most of the coins I received were excellent and the packaging good and security of the outer box excellent.
However I purchased an almost full tube of silver Britannias and their condition was the worst I have seen.
Every coin was badly milk stained so I query whether they were second grade.
Also, which is clearly down to handling by employees in the European Mint, were the large finger prints on many coins.
This is not good practice and sadly will make me think twice before purchasing any further bullion from them.
 

 

 

 

[Spannerman]

Wow, dont think i've seen coins that badly marked.

i've always been put off ordering from them due to having to pay in Euros and having to pay the courier separately, although i'm sure most orders probably dont have issues but its just pain when it happens to you.

I've spent over £25k with silver-to-go.com/Coininvest.com over the past 3 years, you pay in £'s (inc delivery) into their uk bank account,  usually delivered within 2-3 days, prices are as good too.

I've never had any issues with coins.. I had one heavy box that had a split in it which i rejected (as they tell you to) it went back to Germany, was opened checked, repacked and was redelivered within a week. 

I hope they sort this out for you.

 

[Keyira]

Wow, that is extremely bad. Such huge milk spots are already hideous on their own, but combined with those fingerprints it's truly abysmal. 

[silverdocket]

 I don't understand the poor quality control.  Yes it's bullion but not scrap bullion,  well it is now....

 You're paying for new you expect it to be new.

 We purchased a lot from them as a group and individuals  they need to get their act together on quality control.

 Very disappointing 

[SILVERFINGER]

Sweet baby Jesus it looks like some ghosts left over from Halloween on the coins.

[BackyardBullion]

@Pete Those are some very poor quality coins indeed!

I have fed back to the EU mint a number of times that the pre-owned coins they sell need to be more clearly advertised as "shocking" condition as I have noticed this same thing when doing the group orders. 

[silverdocket]

1 minute ago, BackyardBullion said:

@Pete Those are some very poor quality coins indeed!

I have fed back to the EU mint a number of times that the pre-owned coins they sell need to be more clearly advertised as "shocking" condition as I have noticed this same thing when doing the group orders. 

 I never knew they sold pre-owned coins....  I thought it was all new...

 I will confirm in future before making any purchases.

cheers for that

[BackyardBullion]

8 minutes ago, silverdocket said:

 I never knew they sold pre-owned coins....  I thought it was all new...

 I will confirm in future before making any purchases.

cheers for that

They label them as random dates. They are basically pre-owned.

[silverdocket]

2 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

They label them as random dates. They are basically pre-owned.

 That's another lesson learnt.

 Wow I thought that was just all stock....

 Any more hidden secrets  Lol 😂 

[sixgun]

i notice the Britannia is a 2016 coin. i see the European Mint sells the monkey privy - it is described as uncirculated, some may have spots. 

Was the tube one of the 1 oz £2 GBP UK Silver Britannia Coin (Random Years)?

Seems more likely the coins are from the latter group, that is they are second hand.

i doubt the fingermarks are from EM staff - it seems much more likely a member of the public would put full prints on coins. The coins then being traded in and recycled as 'Random Years'. i see 'Important Notes: Normally coins are BU, but some coins may be circulated (which may include spots and/or small scratches).'

If these coin were random years then it should be much clearer they are second hand and may be melting pot condition. 

My bet is the vast majority of buyers will not realise what they are actually buying. The discount over new coins is not significant.

These would be candidates for the soft rubber - they could not look worse.

[Bullionaire]

On 14/11/2019 at 22:42, BackyardBullion said:

They label them as random dates. They are basically pre-owned.

Never knew that. Thanks. Although all the random date ones I have bought have been in decent nick. Like new. Lucky me I guess!

[FunkyChicken]

Damn, and here I was complaining about the poor quality of the coin capsules they sent the coins in to me, but this actually hurts to watch. 😮 

Sorry to hear your experience with them hasn't been up to expectation. Let's hope this was a one off, but I fully understand you're not overly enthusiastic to order from them anymore. 

And lesson learned: be very careful with ordering random year coins from them. Suppose at least something good came out of this then... 

[tallyhojim]

Whether this is a case of skullduggery or not, it does highlight a potential flaw in checking goods not just coming in, but also GOING OUT.

If I were a PM business, I would test EVERYTHING coming in and also video EVERY single package as it is unboxed and tested. Same for when goods leave as well. Can't remember the US company's name, but said US company that mints their own stuff also do something similar. They have their workstations set up so as to overhead video the employee as they place tubes etc into the packaging and then sealed/wrapped. Wouldn't be too difficult to include that same set up for unboxing and testing as well.

Plenty of Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[ram64]

I just received a delivery from them and some of the coins are in less than ideal condition. Especially a 2020 Kangaroo which is supposedly new, it doesn't have a great surface finish and there are actual marks of being handled (greasy fingers probably). Some Britannias (random years) which are pretty tarnished as well (same price as new ones). Plus UPS delivery that took 9 days (not really their fault, but pretty expensive delivery).

Oh well, live and learn. Happy with everything else.

[Chronix]

But......

They have the best prices i have seen. Yes, shipping is expensive, but if you are buying larger lots it is okay. I bought from them, but i was aware Random Years, means what you get is what you get. And it is okay. I wanted BU, so I paid a bit more for it. Fine for me. 

[silenceissilver]

I have ordered a few monster boxes from them earlier this year and I had no issues but the boxes were obviously unopened since the mint put the coins inside. Before I opened them to check if the coins are real, they were still sealed.

I have to say, their prices are good and I guess this comes at the cost of risking to get such coins. A dealer can do two things: Having discussions with the seller who will argue it's silver, it's bullion, it's the specified coins ("and I will not pay you sending them back to me") - or they can argue with their buyers. Both comes at a cost in man hours that will drive the price up.

You can't have very competitive prices AND the best customer service/the most men hours they could potentially put into their business.

Having said that, every buyer on this planet would be p...ed off, receiving such coins.

The one thing they could do without considerable men hours and only one time, is stating something like "the coins you receive will be in the condition sent to us, which at times can be bad" or something like that, if they are not doing this now. In this case you just couldn't complain and should have chosen a more expensive dealer that will guarantee a minimum condition - if they haven't explicitly stated that and it seems they haven't, it's a different story, of course.

[FunkyChicken]

9 minutes ago, Chronix said:

But......

They have the best prices i have seen. Yes, shipping is expensive, but if you are buying larger lots it is okay. I bought from them, but i was aware Random Years, means what you get is what you get. And it is okay. I wanted BU, so I paid a bit more for it. Fine for me. 

In Dutch we have a saying: "Goedkoop is duurkoop". Doesn't really translate well in English, but it means that something cheap could end up being expensive. Seems to be the case with the European Mint, especially in this example. 

Beside, perhaps my own misinterpretation, but even when I'm buying coins from random years, and they aren't that much cheaper than new coins, I still expect them to be of a reasonable quality. The odd little scratch, maybe a tiny milk spot, but no more than that. 

If coins look as crappy as the Britannias above (of which I'm mostly surprised the European Mint even took them in the first place), the least you can do is specifically mention it as such on your website. A minute or two of work, but it makes all the difference. 

[Pete]

18 hours ago, sixgun said:

i notice the Britannia is a 2016 coin. i see the European Mint sells the monkey privy - it is described as uncirculated, some may have spots. 

Was the tube one of the 1 oz £2 GBP UK Silver Britannia Coin (Random Years)?

Seems more likely the coins are from the latter group, that is they are second hand.

i doubt the fingermarks are from EM staff - it seems much more likely a member of the public would put full prints on coins. The coins then being traded in and recycled as 'Random Years'. i see 'Important Notes: Normally coins are BU, but some coins may be circulated (which may include spots and/or small scratches).'

If these coin were random years then it should be much clearer they are second hand and may be melting pot condition. 

My bet is the vast majority of buyers will not realise what they are actually buying. The discount over new coins is not significant.

These would be candidates for the soft rubber - they could not look worse.

These were all the monkey privy !!

[Pete]

I decided to send a message to the European Mint expressing my views on the poor condition of these new coins and the added fingerprints.
I doubt I will receive a satisfactory response but I'll wait and see.
Since there was no facility to attach any pictures I gave them a hyperlink to this page so they can see for themselves this junk is on the worldwide web.
I also noted many comments about their prices being the lowest but this isn't always the case.
My order was split between a number of these Britannias and other coins ( in capsules ) and half of my order would have been cheaper ordering from GS.be
 

[FunkyChicken]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

I decided to send a message to the European Mint expressing my views on the poor condition of these new coins and the added fingerprints.
I doubt I will receive a satisfactory response but I'll wait and see.
Since there was no facility to attach any pictures I gave them a hyperlink to this page so they can see for themselves this junk is on the worldwide web.
I also noted many comments about their prices being the lowest but this isn't always the case.
My order was split between a number of these Britannias and other coins ( in capsules ) and half of my order would have been cheaper ordering from GS.be
 

You can also email them at info@europeanmint.com, then you can attach photos.  In the few times I have emailed them myself, they usually come with a swift, friendly, and knowledgeable reply. Fingers crossed for you it'll also be satisfactionary.

And indeed, it always pays off to compare prices. The European Mint is the cheapest on some coins, but others (such as GS.be) are on other coins. If only there was a platform like Trivago for coins, right?

[BackyardBullion]

8 minutes ago, Silverharry said:

Well thanks for warning everyone on the forum

You are welcome

[BackyardBullion]

2 minutes ago, Silverharry said:

I.e. you could of done it before a forum member became a victim of such shocking quality

How is it my responsibility exactly?

[BackyardBullion]

Just now, Silverharry said:

Isn’t it good to share poor quality issues that you experience with the forum community so people can be pre warned

I agree and I have and will continue to do so on this forum but nobody cannot be expected to mention "anything" that might affect "anyone" at some point.

I don't like the tone of your accusation that I should have shared about this to avoid someone else "becoming a victim" as you call it.

I have no doubt the EU mint will take the feedback and reply appropriately.

 

 

[Pete]

One of the key benefits of being part of an open and honest forum like the Silver Forum is sharing good and bad experiences.
The problem we all know in politics is the governing elite lie through their teeth to get elected, deflect answering direct questions and hide the truths believing it's not in the public interest to know stuff.

By sharing experiences on the Silver Forum people can be better informed and if thinking about purchasing know some ( if any ) of the pitfalls and things to look out for.
Because this forum is not censored, people can literally say whatever they like.
Pretty much all are honest and trustworthy thankfully - so a great resource indeed.

There had been a long thread about GS.be with some contributors chastising them when actually some of the faults were more local with the courier.
Again some people faulted the responses from GS as very customer unfriendly whereas some other praised them.
All good information to take into consideration especially if placing sizeable orders.

I praised the European Mint for service but was sadly let down, very badly, by the sh!t condition of 20 Britannia coins purchased as uncirculated.
I have no hesitation to report this and despite otherwise having had a good experience ( ignore the 7-8 days road delivery by UPS ) this batch of sh!t coins means I will most likely never purchase anything further from them again. How can they be trusted ?
By comparison I have placed a lot of business with GS. be and never had coins sent in this condition.
I did once however receive a new Koala with a large thumb print which means it had been handled outside its mint issued capsule.

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who has commented and good luck with your future purchases.

 

[Stu]

10 minutes ago, BackyardBullion said:

I agree and I have and will continue to do so on this forum but nobody cannot be expected to mention "anything" that might affect "anyone" at some point.

I don't like the tone of your accusation that I should have shared about this to avoid someone else "becoming a victim" as you call it.

I have no doubt the EU mint will take the feedback and reply appropriately.

 

 

Don't you just love helping folk out, especially new members? Hopefully you are aware that the majority know you go above and beyond for no personal gain ( other than personal reputation which is unquestionable as far as I can see)