April 13, 2026

Demand for Physical Gold Surging

May 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There have been numerous recent reports about the surging demand for physical gold. It has been mostly concentrated in Europe, but there have also been signs of new waves of demand hitting the U.S.

This is a big shift from earlier this year. For the first two months of 2010, the Austrian Mint had reported that Gold Philharmonic sales had dropped 80% from the year ago levels. Similarly, the Royal British Mint had reported a drop in demand of about 50% through the end of the first quarter.

What a difference a crisis makes.

Recently, the Austrian Mint reported that they had sold more coins in two weeks than the entire first quarter, citing demand “exclusively from Europe.” Swiss refiner Argor-Heraeus has estimated that demand for small gold bars and refined products has jumped tenfold compared to the start of the year.

On the US front, sales have strengthened in recent weeks, but there hasn’t been the surging demand seen in 2008, which prompted repeated suspensions and bullion rationing programs.

For the month to date, the US Mint has sold 81,000 of their one ounce Gold Eagle bullion coins. This already tops the prior month total of 60,500. One ounce Silver Eagle bullion coins have sold 2,381,000 coins for the month to date, nearing last months total of 2,507,500. The newly released one ounce 24 karat Gold Buffalo has sold 54,000 coins for the month. The coins debuted on April 29, 2010, making prior month comparisons less meaningful.

Filed Under: Gold Tagged With: , , ,

2010 Proof Gold Buffalo and 2010 Fractional Gold Eagles

May 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Closely behind the release of the 2010 Gold Buffalo bullion coins, the United States Mint has two more gold products on the way. This includes the collectible proof version of the Gold Buffalo and fractional weight American Gold Eagles.

The 2010 Proof Gold Buffalo is now scheduled for release on June 3, 2010. Since this is a collector coin, it will be available for sale directly from the US Mint via their website. Each coin will contain one ounce of 24 karat gold and feature the design from James Earle Fraser’s Buffalo Nickel. Pricing for the coins won’t be known until the week of release, since it will be based on the average weekly price of gold. At the current gold price, the coins would be $1,510.

Last year, the 2009 Proof Gold Buffalo wasn’t available for sale until October 29, 2009, amidst delays and cancellations across many of the US Mint’s precious metals products. The coins remained available for sale until March 29, 2010 and sold 49,388 coins.

The US Mint has reportedly begun production of the fractional weight versions of the 2010 American Gold Eagle bullion coins. I’ve always felt that these smaller weight coins were an important part of the bullion program, as they allow for different investment levels. The US Mint has historically offered one-half ounce, one-quarter ounce, and one-tenth ounce size coins.

A release date for these coins has not been established. Once available, they will be sold via the US Mint’s network of authorized purchasers, like other bullion offerings.


Filed Under: Gold, US Mint Tagged With: , ,

Price of Gold at All Time High

May 12, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The price of gold reached an all time high in US Dollar terms in late electronic trading yesterday. Gold has continued higher this morning and is currently trading at $1,239 per ounce.

The previous all time high for gold was $1,226.10, reached in December 2009.

Gold had finished 2009 with a price of $1,087.50. This means that gold is up $151.50 or 14% for the year. During the previous year, gold had achieved an annual gain of 25.04%.

Although gold is currently in the spotlight, silver, platinum, and palladium have even larger gains so far during 2010. Compared to last year’s closing prices, silver has risen from $16.99 to $19.66 per ounce, gaining 15.71%; platinum has risen from $1,461 to $1,729, gaining 18.34%; and palladium has risen from $393 to $541, gaining 37.66%.

View the 2009 performance for gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.

Filed Under: Gold Tagged With: ,

US Mint Begins 2010 Gold Buffalo Coin Sales

April 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Today on April 29, 2010, the United States Mint began accepting orders for 2010 American Gold Buffalo coins from their network of authorized purchasers. The earlier offering of these 24 karat gold bullion coins is a signal that the US Mint is catching up with their bullion offerings after years riddled with suspensions and delay.

During 2009, the US Mint’s 22 karat Gold Eagle bullion coin was subject to rationing from the beginning of the year until June 15. The rationing was resumed on December 15, 2009 after a resurgence in demand caused a two week sales suspension. Going into the following year, the offering of 2010-dated coins was delayed by several weeks.

Last year the release of the 24 karat Gold Buffalo coins experienced even more significant delay. The coins were not available for sale to the authorized purchaser network until October 15, 2009. Throughout the preceding ten months, there were significant doubts raised as to whether the coins would be offered at all. The bullion coins only ended up being available from October 15 to December 4.

After a slow start in 2010, the situation has improved significantly. In March, the US Mint lifted the allocation program which had rationed supplies of the 22 karat Gold Eagle bullion coins. This month, they will begin selling the 24 karat Gold Buffalo bullion coins. This comes more than five months before last year’s offering began.

The next steps will be for the US Mint to begin sales of fractional weight American Gold Eagle bullion coins and the collectible 2010 Proof Gold Buffalo. This will finally clear the way for the US Mint to offer collectible proof and uncirculated versions of the 2010 Gold Eagle. These offerings were canceled last year, since the US Mint was not meeting full demand for the bullion versions of the coin.

While it would be nice to say that the progress in catching up with bullion demand is the result of increased production, it seems likely that a reduction in demand for gold bullion is responsible. So far this year, the US Mint has recorded sales of 324,500 ounces worth of gold bullion. This compares to sales of 489,500 ounces of gold in the comparable year ago period. The 34% reduction in sales has no doubt freed up some the Mint’s precious metals blank supply and production capacity.

Filed Under: Gold, US Mint Tagged With: , ,

US Mint Adjusts First Spouse Gold Coin Maximum Mintages

April 1, 2010 by 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.


Filed Under: Gold, US Mint Tagged With: , ,

Gold Philharmonic Sales Drop 80%

March 27, 2010 by 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.


Filed Under: Gold Tagged With: , , ,

US Mint Still Moving 2009 Gold Eagle Bullion Coins

February 25, 2010 by 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.


Filed Under: Other Precious Metals

Measuring Declines from the High- Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium

February 9, 2010 by 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%)

Filed Under: Gold, palladium, Platinum, Silver Tagged With: , , ,

2010 Gold Eagle and Silver Eagle Coin Sales

January 29, 2010 by 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.

Filed Under: US Mint Tagged With: ,

2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coins

January 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

The US Mint recently wrapped up sales of the 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coin. The sales officially ended on December 31, 2009 and more recently some final details about total sales became available.

The coin was authorized directly by the United States Secretary of the Treasury back when it was Hank Paulson. The 2009 Ultra High Relief Gold Coin recreates the design from Augustus Saint Gaudens on a one ounce 24 karat gold coin issued in 2009.

The program seemed like it might run into problems since it was being launched amidst an ongoing scarcity of precious metals blanks, but for the most part, the offering went as planned.

The coins were originally offered for sale on January 22, 2009 and were priced at $1,189 each. The coins were limited to just one per household, but that didn’t stop collectors from ordering more than 40,000 coins in the opening five days of sales. A few coins from the initial orders shipped in early February, with a greater number shipping later in the month.

During the course of sales, the price of the coins at the US Mint slowly ratcheted upwards, as the price of gold rose. On November 25, 2009, the coins reached their highest offering price of $1,539 each. This represented a $350 increase from the initial price level. The last price in effect when sales ended was $1,489 per coin.

The ordering limit was also changed during the course of sales. After holding at just one per household for about six months, the limit was raised to ten coins per household in late July. This led to some increased buying activity as dealers established a position in the coins. The limit was raised again to twenty five coins and then removed completely.

The final sales total for the Ultra High Relief Double Eagle Gold Coin recently became available. During the course of the year, the US Mint sold 115,178 coins. This level of sales was achieved during a year when Gold Eagle bullion coins were subject to rationing for more than six months on two separate occasions, collectible gold offerings were canceled, and fractional gold bullion coins were delayed until a brief window in December. Somehow there was a steady supply of blanks all year for this premium priced gold coin.

Filed Under: Gold, US Mint Tagged With: