US Mint Adjusts First Spouse Gold Coin Maximum Mintages
April 1, 2010 | Filed Under Gold, US Mint | Leave a Comment
The United States Mint recently lowered the maximum mintages for their First Spouse Gold Coins. This series of gold coins features the spouses of each President with the coins struck in one-half ounce of 24 karat gold.
For the first three years of the series, each coin carried a maximum mintage of 40,000 coins. For 2010, three of the coins will have the maximum set at 15,000, and the Mary Todd Lincoln Coin, which is expected to be more popular, has the mintage set at 20,000.
The lowered maximum levels is somewhat of an admission that the popularity of the series has fizzled. After the first three coins of the series sold out in one day, buyers moved on as secondary market prices for the sold out coins peaked and declined. Recent issues have been selling less than 10,000 coins per issue.
Under law, the First Spouse Gold Coins are actually bullion coins. However, since the beginning of the series, the US Mint has sold them in the same way that they sell numismatic products. (Other bullion coins are distributed through the US Mint's network of authorized dealers at small mark ups to the spot price of gold. Numismatic products are sold directly by the US Mint at much higher premiums.)
The First Spouse Gold Coins are currently priced at $729.00 for the proof versions and $716.00 for the uncirculated versions. The price of the uncirculated coins represents a premium of about $162.00 above gold value or 14.6%. These amounts fluctuate with the price of gold and adjustments to the prices of the coins.
Some of the prior releases have held onto these premiums (or have risen in price). The low mintages have added to numismatic premium to the coins which some collectors are willing to pay for.
Gold Philharmonic Sales Drop 80%
March 27, 2010 | Filed Under Gold | Leave a Comment
Recent reports indicate that sales of gold bullion coins from the Austrian Mint have dropped a shocking 80% from year ago levels. The Austrian Mint produces the Gold Philharmonic, which has for some quarters been the world's best selling gold bullion coin.
According to the article, the Marketing Director of the Austrian Mint indicating that they had returned to "business as usual" rather than "hectic, panic demand" experienced over the past few years.
Gold Philharmonic sales fell to 53,930 ounces for January and February 2010 compared to 267,091 ounces for the same period in the prior year.
For comparison, I checked the sales figures for the American Gold Eagle bullion coins, which I follow more closely. According to the US Mint provided figures, there were sales of 169,000 ounces of gold in January and February 2010, compared to 205,500. While this does represent a drop of about 18%, its not of the magnitude shown at the Austrian Mint.
While demand for physical gold does seem to have pulled back from the extreme levels of recent years, the magnitude is not as huge as suggested by the Gold Philharmonic numbers.
US Mint Still Moving 2009 Gold Eagle Bullion Coins
February 25, 2010 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
It's nearly the end of February, and the United States Mint is still trying to push the remaining inventory of 2009-dated gold bullion coins out the door.
Sales of this year's 2010 American Gold Eagles began on January 19, 2010. This was later than typical because the United States Mint made the decision to continue producing the 2009-dated coins into the end of the year. This in turn, delayed the start of production for the newly dated coins and the first available sales date.
When sales of the 2010 Gold Eagles finally began, the US Mint had a remaining inventory of 51,000 of the 2009 Gold Eagles.
Once the calendar turns over, most buyers prefer the newly dated coins. In order to make sure they could get rid of the left over inventory, the US Mint required authorized purchasers to take one 2009-dated coin for every three 2010-dated coins that they ordered.
Sales data indicates that the US Mint has probably now moved through about 40,000 of the old dated coins, leaving about 10,000 more to go. Rather than force feeding these bullion coins to authorized purchasers, the precious metals blanks could have served much better use making some of the canceled 2009 offerings that collectors were clamoring for.
Measuring Declines from the High- Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium
February 9, 2010 | Filed Under Gold, Platinum, Silver, palladium | 3 Comments
For the past few weeks, precious metals have undergone significant, rapid declines. This follows a year of banner performance during 2009. I wanted to take a post to briefly examine the extent of the declines for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.
Roughly two months ago, gold had reached a new all time high and silver had reached its highest level going back about twenty months. Less than three weeks ago, platinum and palladium had reached their highest levels in about sixteen months.
The figures below show the recent high compared to the recent low and the extent of the decline. All figures are London PM Fix.
Gold
Recent High: $1,212.50 (December 2, 2009)
Recent Low: $1,058.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$154.50 (-12.74%)
Silver
Recent High: $19.18 (December 2, 2009)
Recent Low: $15.14 (February 8, 2010)
Decline: -$4.04 (-21.06%)
Platinum
Recent High: $1,627.00 (January 20, 2010)
Recent Low: $1,475.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$152.00 (-9.34%)
Palladium
Recent High: $462.00 (January 21, 2010)
Recent Low: $395.00 (February 5, 2010)
Decline: -$67.00 (-14.50%)
2010 Gold Eagle and Silver Eagle Coin Sales
January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Bullion Sales, US Mint | 1 Comment
Sales of the United States Mint's 2010 Gold and Silver Eagle bullion coins are off to a fast start. Sales levels for the one ounce silver coins have already eclipsed the levels achieved in the year ago period. The one ounce gold coin sales were also strong.
After going on sale January 19, the 2010 Silver Eagles recorded sales of 2.44 million coins on the first day of availability. Earlier in the month, the US Mint had sold 367,500 coins, representing the remnants of the inventory of 2009-dated coins.
The month to date total for Silver Eagle bullion coin sales has now reached 3,592,500. By comparison, in January 2009, the US Mint had sold 1,900,000 coins. The high monthly sales total is made even more impressive by the fact that the one ounce silver bullion coins were completely unavailable for six days during the month between the sell out of 2009 coins and the start of sales for 2010 coins.
The 2010 Gold Eagles, which also went on sale January 19, recorded sales of 30,500 on the first day of availability. The US Mint additionally sold 18,500 of the 2009-dated coins on the same day, since authorized purchasers were required to take a certain amount of the old dated coins for each 2010-dated coins ordered.
For the month to date, gold eagle sales have reached 85,000 of the one ounce coins. This compares to 92,000 sold in the year ago period.
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