Dead: Northwest Territory Mint

No longer in business

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white&yellow999

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http://nwtmint.com/

A few months ago I made a purchase from Northwest Territory Mint and was more than satisfied with the order. I was in the market for a wedding gift for my cousin, I wanted to give him something that meant something to me but he would be able to get something out of, but was also unique. People in my family typically give money for a wedding present but I decided to get him and his wife a bar of silver. Most of the larger bars from this company have an option for a blank back that you can have engraved. So I got them a 5 oz engraved bar of silver. Nothing fancy, it just had their names on it and the wedding date, but the price was good so I got a regular (not engraved) bar for myself as well. They gave me a three week estimated delivery date and that was satisfactory b/c the wedding wasn't for another month. Well, the very next day silver fell a few dollars per oz, so I called them up and told the women who answered I wanted to add on my original order. I ordered another of the same bar I got for myself so in total I had 3 bars coming to me. She said that she would be able to place the order but wasn't sure if she could "add on" to the order to have it all shipped together b/c the orders were placed at different times. I told her either way it didn't matter as long as it all got to me.

So about a week passes and my doorbell rings. Sure enough it was my mailman with a package from NWT Mint. The packaging was extremely secure. In fact, I remember getting frustrated not being able to open the package without a knife. Finally, I cut the package open and sure enough all three bars were there. No extra shipping charges or anything. The two bars I bought for myself, were not factory sealed but did come with awesome vynal slips. The engraved bar came with a very nice leatherette display box which was I was not expecting. All three items were bubble wrapped very tightly and taped to ensure the bubble wrap would not come off.

My cousin said he liked my gift out of all the gifts he got because of the originality and that it is a "legitimate highly liquid investment." Those were his words. He was not exposed to precious metals before this gift but now he is interested and plans on buying some more.

Overall, I had a great experience, very quick shipping, good packaging, great products and pretty low shipping charges (it was 15 bucks for all 3 bars). Also when you order they give you an option to receive a free PM investor pack which has a bunch of great information on why to buy PM's for investment. They also give you an option to receive a monthly newsletter which gives the latest updates in the PM market. The investor pack came within a week of the delivery of the physical silver. In closing, I was very pleased and would do business again with this company.

EDIT: I should also mention, they have one feature that I haven't seen many other dealers offer, which is bullion conversion. You can ship them your big silver bars and they will melt down your bar into your choice of smaller bars/rounds of any product they mint. Pan Am, NWT, and Stagecoach. Mix and match is available from what they advertise. I personally haven't used this service, yet.
 
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I've seen other recommendations for NWT Mint. For example, it is advertised on survivalblog, which I read often.

Pretty cool story, man. Thanks for sharing.
 
http://nwtmint.com/
this company.

EDIT: I should also mention, they have one feature that I haven't seen many other dealers offer, which is bullion conversion. You can ship them your big silver bars and they will melt down your bar into your choice of smaller bars/rounds of any product they mint. Pan Am, NWT, and Stagecoach. Mix and match is available from what they advertise. I personally haven't used this service, yet.

These will.
Quality Silver Bullion
Golden State Mint
Monarch Precious Metals

Ordered from in NWT 2008. First and last time it was. Waiting 2 -3 weeks is not recommended as it allows YOUR money and YOUR silver possession to be NWT simultaneous, thus "possibly" gambled. MFGlobal anyone? My wait for delivery was 14weeks in 2008. 10 weeks past agreement. Multiple calls and a letter was needed, to facilitate a delivery. The package arrived poorly packed and obviously not all newly minted as advertised. Items were received. Happy to have made the purchase. Waiting for possession of investment, while investment money was also removed from possession, for 14 WEEKS or even 3 weeks, not advisable. Do not loan liquidity to another party.

A small gift or collection addition, plausible.
Your gift, was a GREAT gift indeed.
 
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I don't have any direct experience ordering from NWT, but I did take a chance on a 1/2 oz "Silver Keiser" a while back. They were being minted by NWT and it took forever for the coin to arrive. I'm not sure if that was entirely NWT's fault however.

The coin itself turned out well and I hope in the years to come will remind me of what went down at this point in history.
 
These will.
Quality Silver Bullion
Golden State Mint
Monarch Precious Metals

Thanks for the info, and that does really suck that you had a bad experience with NWT. I haven't heard any other complaints about the company until now, but if my order was the exception to how they normally do business, let me know. I don't want to recommend a shoddy company for others to use. I have seen a few places offer bullion conversion but it's definitely not the industry norm from what I have seen.
 
Took me four months to get my 50 ozzies of Stagecoach silver this summer from NWT. The product was great but the delay discouraged me from buying regularly
 
Just got an Email from NWT Mint. They are running a special.

Proof Gold Buffaloes are on sale for $150 over spot. From what the email said it ships with a wooden or velet display box and COA.
 
Placed a small order this morning (3 Sept) and the expected ship & delivery dates they sent me.

Estimated Ship Date: 10/01/13
Estimated Delivery Date: 10/07/13

Not real impressed. I guess if it gets here on or before the date promised I won't complain too much.
 
NWT traditionally has long delivery times. At least they are up front about it.
 
Placed a small order this morning (3 Sept) and the expected ship & delivery dates they sent me.

Estimated Ship Date: 10/01/13
Estimated Delivery Date: 10/07/13

Not real impressed. I guess if it gets here on or before the date promised I won't complain too much.

Got an email today with a tracking number and expected delivery date of Sept. 16th. Much sooner than promised.
 
NWT Mint recently [per a conversation with a guy who lives close enough to walk in the actual building] has undergone some changes that will help to stop some of the ridiculous backlogs. You may notice premiums have risen a bit, and that's because they are trying to have a deeper inventory, allowing them to process orders better when there is a "lunch rush" of buyers. It won't eliminate the sometimes quite slow deliveries, but it should help.
 
Placed a small order this morning (3 Sept) and the expected ship & delivery dates they sent me.

Estimated Ship Date: 10/01/13
Estimated Delivery Date: 10/07/13

Not real impressed. I guess if it gets here on or before the date promised I won't complain too much.

Got an email today (11th) with a tracking number and expected delivery date of Sept. 16th. Much sooner than promised.

Got the package bright and early this AM (16th). Very nice. I'd much prefer a company that says you probably won't get until 4-6 weeks and delivers in 2 weeks VS. one that says you'll get it in 1 week and instead you get it in 2. Although it's the same amount of time for delivery, I just like a company that can keep it's word. :judge:
 
Placed my order on the 16th of Jan. Got it today (31st). Only one problem, the sheet of stagecoach silver bars I ordered wasn't stagecoach silver, it was some plain NWT silver. Now I looked at the sheet and it says on the sheet NWT, but I've never even clicked on those bars. I clicked on the NWT stagecoach, so I don't know if it's a problem on the website that when I added it that it put just plain bars in or somewhere in between. The stagecoach rounds I ordered showed up fine, but the bars, not so much. I've sent them an email and see what they say. I really hate having to ship stuff back.
 
So this is the last E-mail I got from them on Jan. 31st.

"Hmmm. That is strange….. let me get in touch with my vault manager and see if we can get this taken care of for you quickly.

Samantha"


Haven't heard so much as a tough luck sucker back from them. I guess I'm done buying there.
 
NWT Mint recently [per a conversation with a guy who lives close enough to walk in the actual building] has undergone some changes that will help to stop some of the ridiculous backlogs. You may notice premiums have risen a bit, and that's because they are trying to have a deeper inventory, allowing them to process orders better when there is a "lunch rush" of buyers. It won't eliminate the sometimes quite slow deliveries, but it should help.

I decided to give them another try after their last screw up. I placed an order from them over 5 weeks ago, still have not received a tracking #. I emailed them yesterday and they said it will probably be at least another month before it ships. I told them if I don't get either a tracking # or a full refund by the close of business today I will report it to my card company as theft. It's just ridiculous that other companies can ship within a day or two others can't get it shipped within a month or two.
 
So, Last week after waiting almost 6 weeks for delivery of my shipment that they originally promised to go out in 30 and after telling them that if they did not ship my product or give me a full refund, I did just that. I went in and turned in the paperwork to the bank end of last week. A few days later I get an email from fedex saying their is a package on the way. It shows the shipper as

NWTM \ MACO
Dayton, NV 89403
US

I can only assume that is them, as the only other package I am expecting is coming from the east coast. Funny how they told me it would be at LEAST another month before they could get the stuff I ordered back in stock, but all of a sudden here comes a package. I am wondering if it will once again be the WRONG stuff. If they really are out of an item how hard would it be to put "unavailable" as so many sites do? Maybe add a date when they will expect to get re-stocked or an email alert when they are. Awful company to work with.
 
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AHHHhhh, NWT Mint, such memories.

Sounds my 2008 similar. Less wait time, sssgood.

See spot below $12 will be super NWT deals.

Catch... shipping is optional this time.

Silver below $10 spot... delivery not availabe.

This mint runs on the edge, and not on weakness of Mexican supply.

Quieter than SOLA Chris Duanes mint partner, con, condo, credit junky

cheddar head. But not different, just more cheddar.
 
First silver I ever bought was from NWTs "online store". This was back in mid 2012. I paid with credit card and product arrived about 5 days later. Alls good. In late 2012 I placed a much larger order over the phone and paid with bank check. They said it would be about a month wait for delivery. It took 6.5 months. During one of the many phone conversations they told me non online store orders where not only not in stock, but weren't even minted until they had a certain amount of orders.
Their rounds are really nice looking and I got what I ordered, but because of the wait time I have not ordered from them since.
 
Finally got here today. Nice to know that my bank can lean on guys and make them deliver what they promise. I could only guess on how long I would have had to wait otherwise. 2 months is too long, especially when they initially promised 1 month, which by itself is really crazy. If you don't have a product ready to ship, don't sell it, or at least say the item will ship AFTER you are restocked and that could take months or years.
 
Yeah, it's too bad cause they make a lot of nice stuff that I was willing to pay more than I should for it.
 
They need to do like I did to finally get my silver. Report it to your CC company as fraud. Once I did that, they shipped it in less than a week. The shipping method they used took another week+, but at least I could see it was in route to me, even if it was ever so slow.
 
There have been a bunch of commercials lately for these guys, of course talking about how "real" investors trust them for their purchases, blah blah blah. Every time one comes on, I'm afraid one of my eyeballs is going to come out from rolling so far back in my head. What a joke that place is.
 
Northwest Territorial Mint, a Federal Way company that sells precious metals and produces medals and medallions, filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday, a month after the company and its owner were hit with large jury verdicts in a defamation case.
...
The company’s filing says it has more than 200 unsecured creditors, and its assets and liabilities both exceed $10 million. Its biggest listed debts are a $7 million judgment in favor of the businessman, Bradley Steven Cohen, and a $5.5 million judgment in favor of his firm, Cohen Asset Management, both classified as disputed.

The defamation suit claimed Northwest Territorial Mint and Hansen created anonymous websites that compared Cohen to Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street broker convicted of a massive Ponzi scheme. The lawsuit claimed the animosity stemmed from litigation by an affiliate of Cohen’s firm, which had been the mint’s landlord at an Auburn warehouse.

The federal judge’s order in the defamation case indicates the judgments against Northwest Territorial Mint and Hansen total $37 million.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/nw-territorial-mint-seeks-bankruptcy-protection/
 
Northwest Territorial’s former owner, Ross Hansen, seems to be blaming the bankruptcy on a defamation lawsuit that he and his firm recently lost.

The judgment was $38.3 million in total and the court ordered Hansen to pay $12.5 million promptly. He filed for bankruptcy protection instead.

The libel damages stem from a website Hansen created apparently to wage a campaign comparing a former landlord to infamous Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff. He and the former landlord apparently had some disagreements.

Ironically, it appears Hansen is the one who may have something in common with Madoff. At a creditor’s meeting last week, trustee Calvert said, “Based on our analysis to date, the bullion sale of operations have attributes of a Ponzi scheme."

https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2016/05/23/northwest-territorial-mint-scandal-000870
 
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  • #26
They are dead. Not much else to say.
 
They made a decent product but took forever to get an order. I was lucky and got some nice bars from them a couple years before they went belly up.
 
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