U.S. Mint now suspends all one ounce gold coin sales due
to shortage of physical gold! Author: Lawrence Williams
- Posted: Monday , 07 Dec 2009
Once
again the U.S. mint has had to suspend sales of all its one-ounce
gold coins, and some fractional ones too, as its supplies
of physical gold cannot meet the demand.
"The United States Mint
has depleted its inventory of 2009 American Buffalo One Ounce
Gold Bullion Coins. ... No additional inventory will be made
available. As additional information becomes available regarding
2010-dated American Buffalo One Once Gold Bullion Coins, you
will be notified." So said a memorandum issued Friday
to authorized purchasers of U.S. Mint gold coins and reported
by Jim Sinclair..
Mineweb reported only two
weeks ago, on November 25th, the suspension of sales of American
Gold Eagle coins by the Mint - U.S. Mint suspends American
Eagle 1-ounce gold coin sales - again, which, at the time,
reckoned such sales would be resumed early this month - but
in the event, not only is the suspension of the Gold Eagle
coin sales continuing, but also now the American Buffalo one
ounce gold coin sales have also been suspended, with no new
sales now planned until some time in 2010 - although the current
sharp fall in the gold price may provide the Mint with a bit
of respite from its supply/demand woes.
But supply problems also persist
with smaller gold coins, particularly given the enormous demand
for fractional sized gold coins following the suspension of
the one ounce Gold Eagles. Thus the Mint was forced to issue
a second memo on Friday saying "the American Eagle Gold
Tenth-Ounce Coin inventory was depleted" and that "inventory
for the half-ounce and quarter-ounce coins remains very limited."
Following the sale of these remaining gold coins on Friday,
the Mint anticipated that it would again offer all fractional
sizes by mid-December, but in an allocation process.
On a more positive note for
the Mint, the resumption of American Silver Eagle bullion
sales will resume today. These silver coins were suspended
along with the one ounce gold coins a week ago - also due
to depletion.
The Mint had been trying to
control sales by not releasing the 2009 coins for sale until
late in the year - they are usually available throughout the
year, but demand has proven to be enormous. This doesn't mean
though that coins are not available to the U.S. public as
some authorized dealers will continue to hold stocks, although
these are being depleted rapidly and premiums charged on sales
are increasing.
According to a report on website
Coinupdate.com "The US Mint began sales of fractional
weight American Gold Eagle bullion coins on December 3, 2009....
These fractional Gold Eagles are typically available throughout
the year, but this year the Mint delayed the release to focus
production on the one ounce bullion coins. After only one
day of availability, the US Mint recorded sales of 56,000
of the one-half ounce coins, 58,000 of the one-quarter ounce
coins, and 260,000 of the one-tenth ounce coins. They have
indicated that the inventory for one-tenth ounce coins has
already been depleted and the inventory for one-half and one-quarter
ounce coins is limited. The remaining limited inventory will
be offered via the US Mint's standard allocation process and
additional inventory is expected to be available in mid-December."
While the shortage of U.S.
Mint offerings due to demand exceeding supply is, in reality,
not that significant in terms of global gold sales it does
demonstrate the extent to which demand for easily available
physical gold has increased over the past two years. Some
of this has been the ever increasing interest by the U.S.
public in gold in general and also a certain amount of distrust
generated by some commentators as to whether the various ‘paper
gold' offerings were secure.