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What If Only 3% of Adults Wanted To Purchase Physical Gold And Silver?
What If Only 3% of Adults Wanted To Purchase Physical Gold And Silver?
By Patrick A. Heller
Commentary on Precious Metals Prepared for CoinWeek.com
September 19, 2012
The general public probably attributes the recent strength in gold and silver prices to a huge surge in demand from a wide swath of the population. That perception is completely false.
Bron Suchecki of Australia’s Perth Mint was recently interviewed by the Financial Survival Network. By his estimation, the huge surge in demand for buying physical gold and silver in late 2008 represented less than 2% of potential buyers. Yet the demand from this small part of the public resulted in huge delays in availability of bullion coins and bars, often one to two months at the peak, and some even longer. Other coins in comparatively ready supply such as US 90% Silver Coins, reached retail premiums of more than 35% above silver value.
Suchecki further explained that this demand surge identified the main bottleneck in producing fabricated bullion-priced coins—obtaining sufficient blanks to meet demand.
Producing planchets to meet the rigorous weight and purity specifications is more involved than might appear on the surface. In order to operate efficiently in an environment where demand can and does fluctuate to a great degree, many mints do not prepare their own blanks. As former US Mint Director Moy explained to me, he didn’t want to manufacture the blanks in-house because the equipment and personnel would too often either be idle or working overtime. Most of the time, it is more efficient for the mints to purchase the blanks as needed. Read more>>
