Not sure whether there is anything politically significant to this news but the director of the U.S. Mint, which produces the nation’s coins, has abruptly resigned, effective Oct. 1.
David Ryder was appointed in 2018 during the Trump Administration. He was also Mint director briefly at the end of the George H.W. Bush Administration. His tenure has been controversial within the numismatic (coin collecting) community recently for his practice of severely restricting mintages of certain collectible coins, resulting in massive website crashes as coin dealers and collectors rush to try to buy them.
From his Wikipedia page:
During Ryder's second tenure as Mint director, the Mint has generated substantial controversy among coin collectors for its creation and selling of "artificial rarity" coins, or coins created with strict mintage limits. In November 2019, the Mint sold an Enhanced Reverse Proof 2019-S Silver Eagle, which sold out within 20 minutes of release.[6] In November 2020, the Mint sold special 75th Anniversary of World War II Silver Eagle and Gold Eagle proof coins, with mintage limits of 75,000 and 1,945 coins, respectively.
The Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s office had recently announced that it might be looking into the mint’s sales programs.
And Coin World magazine, which caters to collectors, had recently filed an FOI Act request for information about which coin dealers belong to a Mint program that gives dealers special access to purchase coins. The Mint recently denied that FOIA request.
The ABPP (Authorized Bulk Purchase Program) program allows participants to place orders for select numismatic products before the public on-sale date. Ten percent of the maximum mintage of those products is set aside, from which ABPP orders may be placed. The ABPP dealers pay a 5% premium over the Mint’s retail price to the public. The ABPP dealers can pick up their orders from the Mint’s contracted order fulfillment center in Memphis, Tenn.
The new interim director of the Mint will be Alison Doone, the Mint’s chief administrative officer.