Is this a repeat of 2008 for the U.S. Mint?

I checked the mint's website this morning and found many of the collector bullion coins were listed as "temporarily unavailable". What does this mean?

-True Money!

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Permalink Reply by Shiny METAL on August 22, 2011 at 12:45pm

"temporarily unavailable" ?

Fancy term for "We're re-pricing this item" Probably higher!!!

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Permalink Reply by Shiny METAL on August 22, 2011 at 12:46pm

HIGHER

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Permalink Reply by Clair Alan Hardesty on August 22, 2011 at 1:02pm

Gold is so volatile this week that the normal weekly pricing event can't come soon enough. The items will probably stay off line until the normal repricing event on Wednesday. Other items like the 2010 silver sets and the 2011 gold commems will be offline until repricing is published or for the commems until they get them into the gold grid, which is what I understand they are trying to do. With silver starting up this week as well and the unc silver Eagle due to be priced in the next week or so, we may see it go above the proof version or see that repriced as well. The platinum Eagle will most likely be bumped to $2192 (or even higher) on Wednesday also.

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Permalink Reply by True Money on August 23, 2011 at 11:38am

I can see this being an on-going problem. The only way the mint will be able to continue offering such 1oz gold and platinum coins is to price them $500 higher than the raw metal price. Only then will the coins have a sustainable amount of time to remain within the pricing window to be available for sale. The mint has also announced that 25th Anniversary products will be offered this year as well. I have to believe that some of the bullion coins will be put on hold to make thes special sets available. This could be a very interesting situation currently evolving at the mint.

-True Money!

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Permalink Reply by Indentured Servant on August 23, 2011 at 4:27pm

I have an even simpler solution but the guv MINT and Pitney Bowes Govt. Services are too inept to make it work. All the have to do is decide what their mark up needs to be in percentage terms, add that to current spot and sell the damn things exactly the same way every other dealer does it. No muss, no fuss. I know....too easy huh?

Bill

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Permalink Reply by Clair Alan Hardesty on August 25, 2011 at 9:25am

Or they could go to daily price setting and if the market is too volatile for that they could just let the under performing website regulate sales. TM, since there is only going to be one or two new coins in the anniversary sets their production should not have any noticeable impact on bullion production. With the San Francisco mint online and some of the anniversary coins coming from there I don't expect any impact on bullion production at all.