Pausing A Vacation To Shop For Silver

After surviving most of the brutal winter of the upper midwest, I was more than ready for the warmer weather of AZ and NV. Las Vegas was our first destination for some gaming and relaxation. I made a special trip downtown to check out the GOLD To Go machine at the Golden Nugget. If you are unfamiliar with this gold dispensing ATM, you can see more details plus a picture here. The gold choices for purchase were 1 gram, 2 1/2 gram, 5 gram and 10 gram gold bars ranging in price from $87 to $517 (spot gold at the time was approximately $1330.00). Also available were a 1 oz. gold bar priced at $1525 and a 1 oz. gold eagle at $1555 (nearly a 17% premium). The last coin available for purchase was a silver eagle for the princely sum of $49. That was a bit of a shocker as spot silver was under (but flirting with) $22. If the silver eagle offered were a proof coin, the $49 would be closer to the going price but I didn't see that advertised. I decided against making any purchase.

The next vacation stop was Laughlin, NV. Whenever I am in Laughlin, I always make sure to stop in (usually more than once) at the coin shop across from the Golden Nugget Laughlin (Laughlin Jewelry and Collectibles) to discuss prices and trends. Their price for silver eagles were much better at just $26 each with silver maple leafs even less. One of my purchases was a 2014 silver panda. This is a beautiful coin and I didn't mind the $30 price. But at that price, I won't be stacking silver pandas as the silver eagles and maple leafs are cheaper and more popular in my world. Of course silver rounds can be purchased for even less than those two popular bullion coins but I tend to favor government issued, government backed coins. And unless I fall into a really good deal on silver rounds with an attractive design, I'll usually pass on these.

Here are the Silver American Eagle totals so far for March, 2014 from the U. S. Mint: 2,921,000 one-ounce silver coins which, added to January's number of 4,775,00 and February's 3,750,00, brings the number for 2014 to 11,446,000 silver eagles.

Sales of my 3 ebooks on U.S. and Canadian silver coins have been steady. It appears people like what they are reading but are not inclined to giving reviews. If you want to see short descriptions of each, you can do so at a special web site I have set up for them at Silver Investing Guru.

Thanks for reading. 

Should Physical Silver Have It's Own Spot Price?

Silver had a great start in 2011, climbing the chart steadily until the great silver price "take-down" in early May. After flirting with $50 per ounce (high of $48.48), spot silver drifted in a lower range and hit a low of $26.87 around year-end. Officially, silver lost about 9% for the year (it's first loss in three years). If only there were two prices quoted for silver, one for the paper traders and the other for the physical market, we would see quite a different story.

The physical silver market is booming and don't let anyone tell you different. Total 2011 Silver Eagles were reported at 39,868,500 (most likely they topped 40,000,000 but weren't reported that way). Here are the totals for Silver Eagles beginning in 1986 (their first year)...

1986 5,393,005, 1987 11,442,335, 1988 5,004,646,
1989 5,203,327, 1990 5,840,210, 1991 7,191,066,
1992 5,540,068, 1993 6,763,762, 1994 4,227,319,
1995 4,672,051, 1996 3,603,386, 1997 4,295,004,
1998 4,847,549, 1999 7,408,640, 2000 9,239,132
2001 9,001,711, 2002 10,539,026, 2003 8,495,008,
2004 8,882,754, 2005 8,891,025, 2006 10,676,522,
2007 9,028,036, 2008 20,583,000, 2009 30,459,000,
2010 34,764,500

On January 3, the first working day of 2012, the US Mint received orders for a whopping 3,197,000 Silver Eagles. That is about 8% of 2011's total figure. It should be noted that the Mint doesn't sell Silver Eagle coins directly to the public but rather through its network of authorized purchasers. So it isn't actual sales to the other coin dealers and investing public. But this huge number seems to indicate the Mint's authorized resellers expect strong demand.

I want to call your attention to this article "For the first time in history, Silver Eagle & Maple Leaf sales will surpass domestic silver production in the U.S. and Canada in 2011". Although it points out that silver production has fallen in both countries, the demand for Silver Eagles and Silver Maple Leafs is on the rise. This interesting article with multiple charts can be found here. Lest you fear you won't get your fair share, at the end of 2011 the U. S. Mint stated "it has enough American Eagle gold and silver bullion coins to meet demand and does not expect to allocate them in early 2012". This Reuters article can be read here.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - Mid-July Silver Eagle Numbers

Here are the numbers for Silver American Eagle sales with July half over: with the latest U.S. Mint report of 171,500 posted on 7/17/2010, the running total is 1,648,000 so far this month. Not quite the highest numbers we have seen this year but a healthy number none the less.

It seems that Silver Eagles aren't the only popular silver bullion coins much in demand. Silver Maple Leafs are reported to be somewhat scarce also with buyers having to wait for delivery. I hope you have some of each in your possession and are on the lookout for more at a (somewhat) reasonable premium.

Happy investing.