Ummm...Usually they will take your order at the current price and then fulfill the order when it arrives. I just tried to do this, and was advised that Perth Mint are not accepting orders. Shortage, anyone?
Alternatively, they could take orders and get hit with a barrage of complaints about how long they take to fill them. Sometimes no service is better than bad service. [Edit] Didn't they already state that they're shutting down production on silver products to ramp up production on gold products because there is a surge in demand for gold?
They didn't sell over the counter? or online? That gold production part might be a cover up, quite likely they aren't getting enough raw silver from mine production to cover for demand. Have you noticed how much proof coins have increased in price? Slam
They are declining customer orders, I wonder if dealers are also getting declined on orders put through? Interesting times, I'd never thought the Perth Mint would temporarily stop production on silver bars. Maybe the slim margins aren't worth it for them. Slam
Meh. If I were in their shoes, I'd rather knock back a bit of business than accept orders and then have people whinge and bitch about the delay that they were told about when they placed the order in the beginning. They'd have people saying "The Perth Mint said there would be a 4 week delay, but it's been three weeks and my silver still isn't here!" People are like that.
I just wondering what is the maximum capacity for the Perth Mint a day for 1 oz coins? The US can make around 200,000 eagles a day calculating from the January sales. The Perth Mint figures must be under 2000 1 oz coins a day, or about 6-7 coins/worker.
Don't forget the Perth Mint also knock out a lot of the blanks for overseas mints - some ASEs are minted on Perth Mint blanks (unless this has changed recently). There's a couple of posts over on their blog about measuring production capacity, and why it's an exercise in futility trying to measure it. So as a "components manufacturer" supplying other mints, they could be busting their butt just to meet ASE blank demand. No doubt various aspects of the production lines are multi-purposes - you can't be stamping out 5oz coins when the machines are running full tilt producing 1oz and kilo bars - and probably even of more importance is the human resource factor - if refinery staff are busy dealing with poured gold demand, they can't also be working on poured silver demand etc. If people are really concerned about taking delivery, I'd be inclined to be opening a Depository account, and ordering that way - I believe they're trying to prioritise delivery to Depository clients ahead of general public in light of previous criticisms that have been made. Bet the Mint finds it funny at times reading all of this conjecture on their inner workings Anyway the corporate blog isn't a bad resource to read for some feedback on reader questions along these lines. Interestingly kilo silver bars have just been reinstated for online ordering on http://www.perthmintbullion.com - they were missing last week.
I've heard elsewhere that ASEs can only by law be made from domestic silver productions. Not sure if it was Schiff or Maloney? If this is the case, how can they be using Perth Mint produced blanks? Does anyone have a reference for ASEs and US domestic silver requirements?
Here is the Mike Malony reference: http://wealthcycles.com/blog/2011/01/26/david-morgan-mining-expert-touts-physical-silver Production of Silver Eagles, the highly popular U.S. investment coins, is rapidly approaching the physical limits of their production, David and Michael agree. That's because under the U.S. Silver Eagle Act, only domestic silvermined in U.S. mines on U.S. soilcan be part of the Silver Eagle program.
Thank... It's not too clear, and I'm not sure if the following is law, or a proposal, but it seems that non-domestic silver may be permissible. Depends on what is meant by "open market" http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ201/pdf/PLAW-107publ201.pdf
Further to this... http://www.silvercoinstoday.com/us-...es-nearing-domestic-silver-production/102809/ An excellent look into the actual wording of the law for metal sourcing. Only gold is enshrined in law as being required from domestic production for coins: Silver has the ambiguous "available sources" requirement. Gold Corp also supplied planchets for the current America The Beautiful 5oz silver coins: Source: http://mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page32?oid=116400&sn=Detail&pid=102055 Still trying to find a source for Gold Corp producing ASE blanks - the one website (Coin World) I found that had an article containing this is now subscriber-only. If only we knew someone at the Mint who could confirm....
Supply issues I think best asked on our corporate blog, we are working on increasing capacity for silver bars, but yes we have many products to make for many customers and trade offs occur from time to time with scheduling production. It is public knowledge that the Perth Mint makes blanks for the US Mint, in all sizes and metals. We are but one of a few such suppliers and what we make for them varies. Anything we make we do so with metal sourced as per US Mint instructions/requirements.
Noticed the 100oz bars aren't listed on the bullion site for purchase at the moment - but kilo bars are back!
