Silver Investing - March 2011 Totals For Silver Eagles

Production of Silver American Eagles is down again from the previous month. The March total comes in at 2,767,000 while the February total (28 days) was 3,240,000. Neither came close to January's 6,422,000! The demand remains high but the problem could be a shortage of blank silver planchets from which these silver bullion coins are made. But relief may be in sight...

An article titled "Ron Paul to Probe U.S. Mint Coin Shortage" talks about an upcoming meeting this week (April 7th) to address this very problem. It appears that he has identified another source for providing blank planchets to the U.S. Mint so this hopefully becomes a non-issue. The article also mentions: 1)The Coin Modernization, Oversight and Continuity Act of 2010 which gives the U.S. Mint more flexibility in meeting the bullion coin demand (and the demand for gold and silver numismatic pieces); and 2) The Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011 whose purpose is to repeal legal tender laws in order to prohibit taxation on gold, silver and a few other precious metals. You can read the entire article here.

Another possible cause of Silver Eagle production not keeping up with demand is not enough of the existing Mints are involved in its production. On March 23rd, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint announced that trial strikes are currently being produced at the San Francisco Mint, with full-scale, temporary production to begin sometime in May. The West Point Mint has been the sole producer of Silver American Eagles since 2001. The article can be found here.

As of this post, spot silver stands at $37.97 which amounts to a gain of $2.31 in the last 30 days and a one-year change of $20.10 (+112.42%).

Thanks for reading.