World
Mints Report Soaring Demand For Gold Coins Mar 13, 2009 8:33
pm ET Reuters
Worker at the Austrian Mint packs gold Vienna
Philharmonic Bullion gold coins in the company's headquarters
… LONDON (Reuters) – Mints around the world say demand for
Gold Coins has risen sharply as interest in the precious metal
soars on the back of financial instability and concerns over
the inflation outlook.Gold coins are considered a safe haven
in troubled economic times.
The Royal Canadian Mint, which produces Maple
Leaf gold bullion coins, said it quadrupled its production
capacity late last year as demand for gold coins and silver
bullion products leapt.
Gold was one of the few commodities to rise
last year as turmoil in the financial sector sharpened investors'
appetite for assets seen as a safe store of value, such as
bullion.
Spot gold rallied to an 11-month high of $1,005.40
on February 20 as a slide in equity markets increased interest
in the precious metal. Demand for physical gold products such
as coins and bars has been particularly strong, traders say.
The United States Mint said sales of its one-ounce
American Eagle gold bullion coins rocketed to 710,000 ounces
in 2008, from 140,000 ounces a year before.
"The demand for gold coins and silver
has been unprecedented," a spokesman for the Mint told
Reuters.
The chairman of the French Mint, Christophe
Beaux, said sales roughly doubled last year in value terms
and are expected to rise by another 50 percent this year.
The 2009 catalog the mint had produced was
almost entirely pre-sold, he said. The French Mint produces
100 euro gold coins, and plans to mint 10-ounce and 1-kilo
gold coins this year.
In South Africa -- the world's second-largest
gold producer -- Natanya van Niekerk, deputy general manager
for numismatics at the South African Mint Company, said she
had seen a big increase in demand for gold and especially
gold coins.
"I think we will see this same trend
in this and the next quarter," she said. "Gold surely
has been resilient in these times."
Michael O'Kane, head bullion trader at the
New Zealand Mint, said many overseas buyers had come into
the New Zealand market. "We're seen as a safe-haven market,"
he said.
He said buying had been strong since the collapse
of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in September, as investors
moved money from banks into hard assets like gold, gold coins.
The mint was averaging "a month's transactions
in a day," he said, adding he saw demand continuing to
rise.