US Mint Sees Record Gold Demand

…and Continues to Experience Silver Shortages!

Thanks to double-digit inflation, the policy confusion of the monetary authorities, and political chaos, not to mention a war in Europe, the US mint reports record-setting demand for its gold coins in March.

American Eagle gold coins sales for March soared 73.7 percent over February, from 89,000 ounces to 155,500 ounces.  Sales were up sharply, 136 percent, from their March 2021 total of 66,000 ounces as well.

It was the US Mint’s highest March sales performance since 1999.  

For the first quarter 2022 the Mint’s American bullion demand reached 426,500 total ounces, up 3.5 percent from 2021’s first quarter.

Silver demand was down somewhat for the quarter. The American Silver Eagle sales total of 7,581,500 ounces was 37 percent lower than experienced with the unprecedented demand in the first three months of 2021.

Silver shortages at the US Mint acted to repress silver sales.  Due to an inadequate supply of silver planchets, the Mint announced in March that it would not strike 2022 Morgan and Peace silver dollars.  

Conditions have driven premiums for silver products up, according to Numismatic News, which writes, “The wholesale and retail prices of the bullion issue U.S. silver Eagle dollars have also increased relative to the commodity market silver spot prices…. So long as the market price for physical silver remains consistently higher than the paper commodity contract price, the U.S. Mint is going to continue experiencing difficulty in obtaining sufficient silver.”

In a subsequent piece, Numismatic News pointed to difficulties getting physical silver delivered on commodity exchange contracts.  “In addition to there being difficulties of the U.S. Mint obtaining sufficient silver Eagle dollar planchets from their suppliers, there is also the difficulty of actually obtaining physical silver upon maturity of commodity contracts.”