Because of the overwhelming demand for silver coins suppliers have temporarily stopped accepting new orders for silver Maple Leaf and silver Eagle coins. Tuesday the US Mint announced it would not accept new orders for the next two weeks, because it ran out of inventory. The Royal Canadian Mint, producer of the Maple Leaf coins, didn’t put out an announcement, but large warehouses have confirmed to us that those coins are not available as well. The silver Maple Leaf is very popular in the Netherlands, because of the relatively low premium compared to other silver coins. The Austrian Philharmoniker silver coin is still available, but the delivery for these coins has been delayed by more than a week.
US Mint
The US Mint is not accepting any new orders for the next two weeks, after very strong demand in June and in the first days of July. Last month the US Mint sold 4.84 million troy ounce of silver Eagle coins, the largest volume since January this year. Also gold coins were favored by investors and savers, the US Mint saw demand rising from 31.000 troy ounce in May to 97.000 troy ounce in June. The US Mint sells a variety of different 22 carat Gold Eagle coins and a 1 troy ounce 24 carat Gold Buffalo coin.
We don’t have recent sales figures from the Royal Canadian Mint, but based on our own sources in the Dutch gold retail business we can tell these coins are by far the most popular and in high demand at the moment.
Greece
According to Paul Croes, trader at Hollandgold, demand for both gold and silver has risen substantially in the past couple of weeks. “Because of the uncertainty regarding Greece and the euro more people decide to buy precious metals. Because of the overwhelming demand, deliveries of coins and bars have been delayed. Not only for silver coins, but for the Umicore goldbars as well. These bars are straight from the Dutch refinery, where they melt scrap gold into new 99,99% fine gold bars. The refinery now has a lead time of up to two – three weeks now and stock as completely run out. Customers have to wait two to three weeks to get these goldbars at the moment.”
Silverprice
Demand for silver coins often rises after a price drop. The last couple of weeks the price of the white metal has been declining, most notably on Tuesday. The silver price fell by 4,5% to the lowest level since September of 2009, spurring investment demand for silver coins. The falling price possibily contributed to the US Mint’s decision to temporarily stop accepting new purchases of coins.
Silver coins temporarily sold out
