Last week, the U.S. Mint’s authorized purchasers (APs) bought 150,000 American Eagle silver bullion coins, down from 900,000 pieces sold during the previous period. Even with that drop, sales of ASE coins for the month of October (Mint reporting period 10/3–10/30) totaled 3,825,000 pieces—well up from the monthly totals for July through September, which averaged around 1.5 million each.
So far this year, one-ounce Silver Eagles have sold 34,400,500 pieces. We are currently 84% of the way through 2016, and sales for these issues are at 73% of last year’s total of 47 million ounces. To have a chance of approaching that total, Silver Eagle sales for 2016 would need to average around 1.4 million each week for the remaining 9 weeks of the year. Sales at that level seem highly unlikely, but next week’s election could have a significant effect.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park 5-ounce silver bullion coins have now sold 32,900 pieces, an increase of 300 since last week’s Mint report. Combined sales for 2016’s four 5-ounce bullion coins are at 249,400 units, for a total of 1,247,000 ounces of silver. Total production of 2016’s ATB issues has officially surpassed the total for all of 2015, which wrapped up at 212,000 units. 2016 now has the second-largest annual mintage ever for 5-ounce America the Beautiful bullion coins (2011 ranks first, with the extremely high total of 465,100).
Total figures for all silver bullion (ASE and ATB) sold by the Mint—
- last week: 151,500 ounces.
- in 2016: 35,647,500 ounces.
The value of an ounce of silver increased just a bit from this time last week; it’s up by 33 cents an ounce, to $18.24. Last week’s average for silver was $17.66 per ounce, up from the previous week’s average of $17.57. (Charts of the six-week averages for all precious metals—a new feature of Coin Update’s precious metals report—are located at the bottom of the page.)
American Eagle gold bullion coin sales have reached a total of 808,000 ounces across 1-ounce, 1/2-ounce, 1/4-ounce, and 1/10-ounce options. Last week saw 116,000 ounces of bullion Gold Eagles sold, up from 28,500 ounces sold the previous week. (These figures do not include 1/4-ounce AGE sales, which show no change on the current report. Presumably at least a few were sold; over the past month, roughly 4,000 to 6,000 quarter-ounce coins have sold each week.)
American Buffalo 1-ounce gold bullion coin sales have reached 177,500 pieces; 4,500 sales were recorded during this period compared to 10,000 the previous week. In 2015, the Mint sold 801,500 ounces of Gold Eagles and 220,500 ounces of Gold Buffalo bullion coins.
Curiously, the Mint is reporting a few figures for October 31–November 1, ahead of the normal weekly reporting pattern: 220,000 Silver Eagles, 1,000 one-ounce Gold Eagles, and 1,000 Gold Buffalo coins. These figures are not included with the weekly totals in this post.
Total amount of all gold bullion (AGE and AGB) sold by the Mint—
- last week: 120,500 ounces.
- in 2016: 985,500 ounces.
Gold’s value is up just a bit, by $19.15 an ounce from this time last week. Gold is now appraised at $1,288.45, according to the London Bullion Market Association. Last week’s gold average was $1,268.94, slightly up from the previous week’s average of $1,263.95.
The sales total for the 2016 American Eagle one-ounce platinum bullion coins is 20,000 units. Platinum is up a bit in value by $48.00 per ounce over this time last week, bringing its current price to $995.00. Last week’s platinum average was $961.60, compared to the previous week’s $935.20.
Bullion issues are sold by the U.S. Mint to a network of authorized buyers, who then make the coins available to the public. This year marks the 30th anniversary of American Eagle bullion coins, which were introduced in 1986.
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