The United States Mint has informed authorized purchasers that 2013 American Silver Eagle bullion coins are temporarily sold out. This follows intense demand for the silver bullion coins since the initial release on January 7, 2013.
On the first day of availability for 2013-dated Silver Eagles, authorized purchasers had placed orders for 3,937,000 of the one ounce coins. This seemed to mark the highest one-day sales in the entire history of the program. The strong demand has continued with sales now having reached 6,007,000 according to the latest information posted on the Mint’s website.
The frenzied pace of orders for 2013 Silver Eagles has been driven by the typical rush to acquire the most recently dated coins, as well as pent up demand following three weeks of unavailability. The US Mint had unexpectedly sold out of the 2012-dated coins on December 17, 2012 with no coins available to order until the launch of the 2013-dated coins.
The US Mint expects the temporary sell out of the 2013-dated coins to last until on or about the week of January 28, 2013. At that point, sales will be resumed under an allocation process. During previous periods of strong demand for gold and silver bullion coins, the Mint has used an allocation process to ration available supplies amongst their primary distributors.
Periodic suspensions and rationing of Silver Eagle bullion coins had become almost commonplace between the years of 2008 and 2010. This situation would led to the cancellation of collector versions of the coins in 2009 and a 2010 Congressional hearing which highlighted the inefficiencies of the Mint’s bullion coin programs. The Mint managed to work its way out of these problems by implementing process improvements at the West Point Mint, increasing the number of precious metals blank suppliers, and adding supplemental Silver Eagle production at the San Francisco Mint, while at the same time demand for silver bullion coins had lessened. For much of 2011 and 2012, the Mint had managed to keep up with demand for their bullion coins and had resumed the traditional numismatic offerings.
The past month seems to be a return to the times of old. The US Mint has not been able to keep up with higher levels of demand, and once again resorted to sales suspensions and rationing as they try to catch up.
I thought in order to “keep up with demand” is why they started minting them in SF too. Perhaps there is a shortage of “blanks”.
More silver shortages, on January 07, 2013, Patrick A. Heller wrote: “Bullion Delays Get Longer” http://numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=26340
For a week or more Provident Metals’ web site states: “Due to extremely high order volumes, some orders have been taking longer than normal to process.”
People don’t want paper promises any more. Could this be the year that silver breaks & stays above $50?
This is huge new for the precious metals and stackers such as myself. In the next few months we will se the metals take off and silvertards will ride into the sunset.
Of course its a shortage of blanks this demand is not unprecedented, they simply ran out of silver…of course their will be article about how we simply ran out of “hamburger meat” (blanks) but their are plenty of cows (silver) to be slaughtered, I don’t believe it but if true then I doubt we will hold $50 if not then $50 is easily obtainable
Let the good times role
Fosnock:
Of course when they run out of “Cows” they will start to put “Horse” in the burgers.
Hey, wait a minute…
There has been mass buying of ASE in other nations the mint is out of silver same will happen every month there is not enuff silver world wide to meet demand.
HOW many people saw the coming GOLD shortage in 1971 @ 35 US $….not many
But then there were plenty that wanted to buy at 50 – 100 -200 – 400 -800.
Looking at the numbers, where the silver sales exceed gold sales in DOLLAR terms…
it would seem, that the PEOPLE are conspiring against the silver shorts and simply buying silver coins, taking posssion long term.
I see silver as the perfect pension plan,insurance against a total Bank collapse and monetary shock.
Also a good inflation hedge, 1 oz will always buy 4-6 + gallons of petrol, at least….
There will not be enough silver @ 32 $…..but heaps of gold…so swap 1 oz of gold to 52 oz of silver…if you can. !!