March 29, 2024

Perth Mint Forecasts Jump in Silver Coin Sales

The Perth Mint is operated by Gold Corporation, which is wholly owned by the Government of Western Australia. The Perth Mint currently refines all of the gold mined in Australia, as well as gold from surrounding countries, and scrap gold from Asia. In addition, they refine substantial quantities of silver.

The latter has been favored by Sales and Marketing Director Ron Currie, who stated, “There seems to be more upside with silver than gold right now.”

The State of Silver

Currie’s statements come as the Perth Mint provided their outlook for silver coin sales to increase by more than 50% for the year. The Perth Mint sells investment gold and silver coins and bars to customers throughout the world. They recently launched a website which allows Australian customers to purchase bullion products at live prices.

Other world mints have also recently provided forecasts for higher silver bullion sales. The Royal Canadian Mint, which offers silver bullion coins like the Silver Maple Leaf, forecast an increase in silver coin sales of more than 50% for the year. For 2009, silver coin sales had reached 10,300,000 ounces.

Sales of the United States Mint’s American Silver Eagle bullion coin recently moved into record territory for the year to date. The latest figures available from their website show sales of more than 32,500,000 ounces for the current year.

Silver or Gold?

The recent move towards silver investment, comes as the price of silver has been outperforming gold. For the year to date, silver has risen by about 57%, while gold has gained about 25%.

This recent divergence has resulted in a decline in the gold/silver ratio. This ratio measures the  number of ounces of silver it takes to purchase an ounce of gold. The ratio had spiked to more than 80 in late 2008, and was above 70 as recently as February of this year. Currently, the ratio stands at about 51 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold.

During the era when gold and silver were used in circulating U.S. coins, the ratio was officially set at 15 to 16. Within the earth’s crust, gold and silver naturally occur at a ratio of about 17.

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