U.S. MINT REPORTS ON SILVER EAGLES: Huge Demand & Weekly Rationing
After the huge take-down in the price of silver on October 31st, demand for Silver Eagles skyrocketed. Then on Nov. 5th after silver was knocked down another 5%, the U.S. Mint suspended sales of Silver Eagles.
It was reported that the U.S. Mint sold 2 million Silver Eagles on Nov. 5th before they suspended sales. However, we didn’t see a huge increase in sales on their website for that day. So, I decided to contact Michael White, Public Affairs person for the U.S Mint and ask him about this issue as well as some other questions.
Mr. White provided me that actual sales figures from Oct 31st to Nov. 18th. These sales figures can be seen in the chart below:
On Halloween, Oct. 31st when Zombies knocked the price of silver down 4%, the U.S Mint sold 1,425,000 Silver Eagles that day. After the weekend, Silver Eagle sales on Monday, Nov 3rd were a hefty 625,000. As the price of silver trended lower on Tuesday, the U.S. Mint sold another 430,000 on Nov. 4th.
And then on Nov 5th, with the paper price of silver down 5%, demand for Silver Eagles increased to a level that totally wiped out all remaining Silver Eagle inventories at the U.S. Mint. We must remember, there are Authorized Dealers who purchase Silver Eagles directly from the U.S. Mint to sell as retail or to wholesale dealers.
Even though reports on the internet stated that the U.S. Mint sold 2 million on Nov 5th, it was only 205,000 before sales were suspended. Possibly the U.S. Mint had orders for 2 million, but there wasn’t any inventory remaining after the 205,000 was sold that day.
The U.S. Mint put out a press release to their Authorized Dealers that Silver Eagle sales would resume on Nov. 17th. On Monday this week, the U.S. Mint sold 1,012,000 Silver Eagles and another 298,500 on Tuesday. The total for November is 2,570,500.
Mr White also told me that the Silver Eagles were now on a “Weekly Allocation.” He stated that the allocation to the Authorized Dealers this week was 1,525,000. So far this week, the U.S. Mint sold 1,310,500 Silver Eagles with only 214,500 left for the remainder of the week.
I asked him if they would continue allocating Silver Eagles for the rest of the year, and he told that he only knew what they were going to do on a week-to-week basis. I also asked him when they were going to shut down production in December of the 2014 Silver Eagles and start the 2015’s. He also stated that he did not have that information but told me he would add me to their email list and send me updates.
If the U.S. Mint continues allocating Silver Eagles, I would imagine they will provide about 1.5 million a week to their Authorized Dealers. Which means, we could easily see approximately 4 million sold for November. This would put the total Silver Eagles sold for the year at over 42 million.
If the U.S. Mint continues to produce and sell Silver Eagles in December (for at least a week or two), 2014 will be another RECORD YEAR of sales at over 43 million, surpassing the 42.7 million sold last year.
I will continue to provide updates and articles on sales of Silver Eagles as well as the Q3 2014 sales of Canadian Silver Maples when the data is released at the end of this month.
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Another great article. Thanks. If you get more information on that 2 million number from Nov. 5 please update us. Yet another mystery in the silver world to unravel.
Mike,
By the way, I asked about the Serial Number issue and Mr. White told me that this subject had come up before. He said, that problem stems from the manufacturers of the Monster Boxes. The U.S. Mint does not manufacture those Monster Boxes and receives them from a company. The serial numbers are not sequential.
That’s all he could tell me.
steve
The serial numbers are not manufactured into the boxes. It is a sticker placed on the outside of the box after manufacture. For them to indicate that they do not apply serial numbers to the items coming out of the US mint is very hard to believe. I think this simply puts us further down the rabbit hole! If the serial numbers are not assigned sequentially, then the obvious question is “which sequences have been skipped?” My suspicion is that the mint will be unable to answer that question.
Background: I have seen current monster boxes of 2014 Silver Eagles with serial numbers that indicate the US mint is producing roughly three times more Silver Eagles in 2014 than they report at their website. This assumes that the serial numbers are assigned sequentially, which is what most dealers I spoke to believe to be the case. This would lead to nearly 100 million ounces of additional silver demand than is currently believed.
If anyone has evidence that the U.S. mint applies serial numbers sequentially then please let us know.
I think Chase is buying silver in bulk–wherever they can get it from, while they have lowered their short position to the lowest in history.
Makes you wonder, is the silver rocket about to be launched?
No they do not buy silver but gold becaus eof VAT. Because of duty import in india, I think they are buying more silver than before.
there is NO way TPTB will let silver Eagles hit a record this year. I suspect they will not sell any in December because “putting in new dies takes 4 weeks”…
So the US Mint has bought their inventory at a higher prices and doesn’t want to process and let go of it at these firesale prices…..
gh
The German Market is well supplyed up to now all major dealers have American Silver Eagles available. After reading about the Mint suspended selling Eagles i didn’t expect this to happen. There is no shortage visible here.
On top of my message below, I think the europeans are completely lost with gold/silver, even morse than north americans because we do not have mines, mining companies and much geologists anymore.
Since, germany raised VAT on some silver coins, no surprise that there is no shortgage, the dealers have probably made some stocks with the sub 16 USD price and it will take time to sell them.
RD,
demand for gold and silver rose strong in the last week’s, some Dealers like Westgold warning about delays on there homepage. I made a purchase of Maples to weeks ago and my dealer let me wait much longer than usual.
About the VAT, there had not been much change in price because of the use of differential taxation. The opposite is true selling and buying prices came closer together here. If you buy and sell back immediately to a dealer you loose less money than before. This should make silver coins more attractive than before.
If you have problems getting Silver Eagles there are plenty on Philhamonics avalible over hear in Europe. What ever happened to the Shanghai Silver stock withdrawl story, can anybody help as I’m unable to find the most recent figures.
there will be no real lenghty shortgage for retail silver/gold unless the final complete Financial system explosion, visible even from the moon !
A shortage we maybe have in our pocket, since we bought Gold and Silver to those prices?
SAE Monster box should have been designed to hold 20/ tube of 5 rows & 5 columns.
It shows the disconnect. People are buying up silver coins from anywhere, not just Eagles. Old coins are going at record premiums to bullion coins. There are some simple reasons. Government and mainstream media have no credibility. They say get rid of the barbaric relics (gold and silver). People buy more contrary recognizing that they always get screwed following advice from those sources. They’ve heard from truly knowledgeable sources that they need to put their money in physical metal, not in infinitely leveraged paper derivatives in manipulated markets. As the manipulators push “paper silver” prices down, people buy more physical metal. They’ve gotten smarter. Now physical demand is the highest level in history. Something has to give.
Is it better to buy silver eagle coins directly from the US Mint or from somewhere else? Is there somewhere that there is a reliable article that explains to someone who is not familiar with metals on how to buy silver, how you would be able to sell silver if something happened to paper money, etc.?? For someone just learning could you point me in the right direction… Thanks so much!
Annette,
Actually, the public can’t purchase Silver Eagles directly from the U.S. Mint. There are about 11 Authorized purchasers that buy Silver Eagles and they either sell them as retail or to other wholesale dealers who sell to Online or to other retail shops.
Buying silver is just like buying something on Amazon.com. However, there are things to consider as in paying tax on capital gains. Also, if you buy locally.. you may have to pay tax. Here is a good place to start that would answer a lot of your questions:
http://www.jmbullion.com/guide/buying-online-vs-locally/
and here is an infographic on reporting requirements for gold and silver:
http://www.jmbullion.com/reportable-bullion-transactions-infographic/
Just to be clear, I don’t have a monetary referral relationship with JM Bullion. They just happen to provide some good information that educates the public on gold and silver buying. Good Luck and if you have any more questions, please contact me directly through my contact page on the site.
steve