The numbers ramped up as the month went on. Sept finished at 4,460,500. The price drop in silver seems to have brought out a lot of buying. October should see 2010 total sales passed comfortably.
Advertised as .9993 fine silver alloyed with .0007 copper for durability. Below is info copied from the US Mint website related to premiums on American Eagle products. The United States Mint charges a modest premium above the current market price of platinum, gold, and silver to cover minting, distribution and marketing costs. For the Silver Eagle, we charge the United States Mint's Authorized Purchasers the price of silver plus $2.00 per coin premium. Minimum ordering requirement is 25,000 coins. For the Gold Eagles, we charge 3%, 5%, 7% and 9% premiums for the one, one-half, one-quarter and one-tenth ounce coins respectively. Minimum ordering requirements are 1000 ounces. For the Platinum Eagles, we charge 4%, 6%, 10% and 15% premiums for the one, one-half, one-quarter and one-tenth ounces coins respectively. Minimum ordering requirements are 1000 ounces. For further information, call the United States Mint Bullion Program at (202) 354-6829.
reason is you can buy monster boxes (500 coins) for as little as $1.79-2.00 over spot. every tv station and radio station telling people to "buy gold" or "buy silver" is pushing ASE. its the standard. over here bars don't bring much over spot. ASE aren't "collectible" but then they are. look at the price of MS70 coins on ebay.... over $100 for current year. So most people are in it for the bullion value, but the numeristic value is a freebie. Maybe a 10 yr old ASE coin has a $3-4 premium, well thats just a bonus... but if you're buying next to spot its more leverage... buying @ $30/coin, spot increases to $40, if there's a $3 premium for "age" after a few years you have a $13 return on $30 coin thats a 43% increase in value. Not to mention that many of the ASE buyers are buying just metal and many of them handle them, show them to their friends, and they look terrible after a couple of years. Whereas for the lunars people paying 3x spot for a current model coin is crazy... the ONLY value is for numeristic... you would not expect a dragon to show up at a scrap dealer. whereas you do find ASE at scrap value at local pawn shops. For a lunar to appreciate 43% it would have to increase to $143/coin... there's no way its tied to spot, only numeristic value. Same reason that when spot dropped 30% the dragon coins didn't flinch.
Went past last years total. Seems like a better start than last month, from memory. The drop in price has been met with strong physical demand.
Made a chart to see the growth of sales more easily. And here a couple of silver charts I saw posted elsewhere. Investment demand growth.
I am going to be adding some ASEs to my core stack. They are a low premium legal tender coin which is well recognized around the world. Good to stack along side a few bars
I like them and own some, but one has to ask the question, "How does one single manufacturer of silver coins/medallions consistently get their handson 3.5m oz per month when there is supposed to be a physical shortage, at current rate they will be turning out around 44m oz per annum?"Just one manufacturer!!
In Bron's responses to questions he is always very clear to point out that there is no physical shortage of silver and is always joking about why us stackers don't just buy at the 1000oz size. The Perth Mint has no problem in getting 1000oz bars it's the refining of smaller bars and coins that is the bottleneck. I don't think there is currently a shortage of physical silver on the wholesale market - whether that remains to be the case is another discussion entirely.
Thanks for that. But on further investigations via "the silver institute" another question comes to the fore, according to them (2011 surveys) 101.3 m oz went to coins/medallions. This means that the ASE on its own is over 43% 0f worldwide coins/ medallions??? I dont think so. Looking further also suggests that ASE's account for approx 17% of all mined silver in the world annually?? again I dont think so! Can anyone enlighten me, cos if the silver institute cant get it right ... who can?
I'm only interested in physical investment demand. Its growing as is industrial demand. Growing demand often leads to higher prices. ASE sales seems to me to most timely and accurate indicator of current demand.
Looks like the canadian mint releases regular figures via pdf. http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/precious-metals-reconciliation-3800004
Yep figures are 2010 but at the bottom of supply demand page it states Source- world silver survey 2011
November's numbers haven't changed for days. Wonder what that's about? No one buying or the mint hit the wall on production? http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/american_eagles/index.cfm?action=sales&year=2011#SilverTotals
For a while I thought 40,000,000 would be reached easily but it's only slowly getting there. Gone passed November figures now. 1,406,000 so far this month.
Somewhere on this site I recall reading that the USA was running out of silver mined at a competitive price so ASEs were about to become scarcer since they had to be minted from domestic sources. That suggested higher prices with time so naturally I maxed out my fiat to buy ASEs. Now entering the holy sh*t mode reading all your comments and that's before factoring in the recent plunge in spot price. Takes the gloss off sacking doesn't it !!
