U.S. MINT REPORTS ON SILVER EAGLES: Huge Demand & Weekly Rationing
SRSrocco
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.