Infinite Unknown

There’s a new gold rush.

The financial crisis is prompting people to look for safer forms of investment than stocks and shares.

Both international speculators and ordinary Austrians want to get their hands on gold

The interest in gold coins is so great that many of the world’s major mints are struggling to keep up with demand, including the Austrian Mint, which produces the Vienna Philharmonic – one of the best-selling bullion coins worldwide.

Sales of Vienna Philharmonic gold coins have gone up by more than 230% since last year.

Kerry Tattersall, the director of marketing at the mint, says production has gone into overdrive.

“We are running at present something like three shifts on all of the machines, on the presses, producing both gold and the silver bullion coins.

How gold coins are made

“We’ve actually got delays in delivering orders in silver. With gold, we are just about keeping pace, but it is a bit of a struggle.”

In September alone, the mint sold 100,000 ounces in gold coins – in normal times it would take three to four months to sell that much.

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Tags: Austria, Economy, Financial Crisis, Gold, Mint, Silver

Central banks have all but stopped lending gold to commercial and investment banks and other participants in the precious metals market, in a move that on Tuesday sent the cost of borrowing bullion for one-month to more than twenty times its usual level.

The one-month gold lease rate rocketed to 2.649 per cent, its highest level since May 2001 and significantly above its five-year average of 0.12 per cent, according to data from the London Bullion Market Association.

Gold lease rates for two, three and six months and for a year also jumped to levels not seen in the last seven years.

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Tags: Banking, Central Bank, Economy, Gold, Mint

NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Unprecedented demand for precious metals and volatile markets forced the U.S. Mint to cease production for the half-ounce and quarter-ounce popular American Eagle gold coins for the rest of this year and to supply other bullion coins on an allocation basis.

“Due to the extreme fluctuating market conditions for 2008, as well as current market conditions, gold and silver demand is unprecedented and the demand for platinum is unusually high,” the U.S. Mint said in a Monday memorandum to its authorized coin dealers.

Related article: Financial Crisis: Rush for gold as savers queue for bullion

“The U.S. Mint has worked diligently to attempt to meet demand, however, blank supplies are very limited and it is necessary for the U.S. Mint to focus remaining bullion production primarily on American Eagle Gold One Ounce and Silver One Ounce Coins,” the Mint said.

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Tags: Economy, Gold, Mint, U.S.

Physical demand for gold is surging but the price keeps taking serious knocks. What’s happening.

LONDON - Gold market manipulation conspiracy theorists should be having a field day.  The past few weeks have seen solid evidence that physical gold demand from individuals is soaring. We have seen the U.S. Mint having to suspend one ounce Gold Eagle coin sales because of what it terms ‘unprecedented demand’, Indian gold sales have picked up enormously in the past few weeks leading to purchasers having to wait several days for deliveries as the traditional sellers are short of gold, while yesterday we hear that Abu Dhabi, a major trading centre for precious metals, has seen gold sales rise by 300 percent in volume and 250 percent in value in August compared with a year ago.

According to a Reuters report quoting Abu Dhabi Gold and Jewellery Group Chairman Tushar Patni “It was the best month the market has seen in almost 30 years and it compensated for any drops we have seen earlier this year.  We had never expected that if gold fell below $800 an ounce we would see a 300 percent increase in volume and 250 percent in value, especially as many buyers are abroad on holiday.”

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Tags: Abu Dhabi, Economy, Gold, India, Inflation, manipulation, market manipulation, Mint, Oil, U.S., U.S. Mint, UBS

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) — Rand Refinery Ltd., the world’s largest gold refinery, ran out of South African Krugerrands after an “unusually large” order from a buyer in Switzerland.

The order was for 5,000 ounces and it will take until Sept. 3 for inventories to be replenished, said Johan Botha, a spokesman for Rand Refinery in Germiston, east of Johannesburg. He declined to identify the buyer.

Coins and bars of precious metals are attracting investors as a haven against a sliding dollar and conflict between Russia and its neighbor Georgia. The U.S. Mint suspended sales of one- ounce “American Eagle” gold coins, Johnson Matthey Plc stopped taking orders for 100-ounce silver bars at its Salt Lake City refinery and Heraeus Holding GmbH has a delivery waiting list of as long as two weeks for orders of gold bars in Europe.

“A lot of people are worried about the dollar, they’re worried about inflation and now we have geopolitical risk with what’s happening in Russia,” said Mark O’Byrne, managing director of brokerage Gold and Silver Investments Ltd. in Dublin. O’Byrne said his company’s sales are up fourfold this year, heading for a record since its founding in 2003.

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Tags: Economy, Georgia, Gold, Krugerrand, Mint, Russia, Silver, South Africa, Switzerland, U.S. Mint

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Mint said it must allocate the American Eagle bullion coins among dealers to cope with overwhelming demand as it resumed taking orders for the popular coins on Monday.

“The unprecedented demand for American Eagle gold one-ounce bullion coins necessitates our allocating these coins among the authorized purchasers on a weekly basis until we are able to meet demand,” the U.S. Mint told its authorized American Eagle dealers in a memo dated August 22.

Last week, soaring demand forced the U.S. Mint to suspend temporarily sales of the American Eagles, creating a shortage in the one-ounce version of the coins, which are also available in other weights and denominations.

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Tags: Economy, Gold, Mint, U.S., U.S. Mint

By Bob Chapman

The plan for an economic takedown, the results of rampant market speculations, insiders picking up assets for pennies on the dollar, the coming hyperinflation, the credit crunch, collapse of the dollar carry trade, suppression of metals prices, American meddling in Georgia

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Tags: Bailout, Bonds, China, Commodities, Crash, Credit Crisis, Credit Crunch, Depression, Dollar, ECB, Economy, Euro, Fannie Mae, Fed, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Foreclosures, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Freddie Mac, GDP, Georgia, Gold, Government, Great Depression, Hyperinflation, Illuminati, Inflation, M3 money, Meltdown, Military, Mint, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, NATO, New World Order, Oil, OPEC, Politics, Recession, Silver, Stock Market, Taxpayers, U.S., U.S. Mint

As gold prices tumbled from their highest level ever, investors and collectors loaded up on one-ounce “American eagle” gold-bullion coins. The buying spree came to an abrupt halt this week after the U.S. Mint stopped selling the coins for the first time since production began 20 years ago.

David Gothard

“Due to the unprecedented demand…our inventories have been depleted,” the Mint — part of the U.S. Treasury Department — told its dealers Friday. “We are therefore temporarily suspending all sales of these coins.”

The move shocked sellers and collectors of the coins, which are the most widely traded in the U.S. Suppliers became angry as they turned away customers. Theories about the decision’s underlying cause ran rampant — from investors in gold futures to Russia’s invasion of Georgia.

“This whole thing started about the time the Ruskies made their move,” a collector noted in an Internet chat room called goldismoney.info. “It may very well be that the USGovt is preparing for the real financial meltdown by hoarding all remaining gold flows.”

The Mint says it simply was wiped out. It has sold 311,000 ounces of the coins this year — about 50% more than in all of 2007. In the first few weeks of August alone, buyers snapped up 63,500 ounces.

“We are working diligently to build up our inventory and hope to resume sales shortly,” the Mint wrote in a memo to dealers.

The United States Mint
The U.S. Mint has stopped selling American eagle gold-bullion coins.

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Tags: Economy, Gold, Government, Meltdown, Mint, Silver, U.S., U.S. Mint

There is a huge demand for both gold and silver right now in India and North America. North American shops are completely bare of silver.  Indian shops are empty of both silver and gold. Even the Indian banks don’t have any gold or silver.  The big western bullion banks, based in New York and London, control both the gold and silver trade.  Reports from India are that they are refusing to extend Indian bank lines of credit, forcing the small banks to deliver to clients, collect money, and pay down lines of credit, before being allowed to take delivery of another gold or silver shipment. This is very abnormal. Normally, if a banker’s bank knows that its customer-bank has firm orders, it would extend the smaller bank a bigger line of credit.  Not now.

By refusing to extend lines of credit, the big bullion banks are essentially rationing a very thin supply.  Most physical silver, for example, is being reserved for industrial and fabrication use, and investors are simply not able to get any, without waiting for months.  Investor oriented shops are bare, and the U.S. Mint has suspended coin production.  All available supply seems to be reserved for industrial users.  You cannot substitute paper claims for real silver, in industrial use, because paper doesn’t have the physical properties of silver.  So, it seems that all available supply is being diverted to industrial users, and, to a lesser extent, aside from the squeeze on lines of credit, also to jewelry fabricators.  But, investors are left out in the cold.  They can accept paper claims, or nothing.  The most interesting mistake that the manipulators have made is in not supplying the U.S. Mint, which has run out of silver, proving that there is a severe shortage.

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Tags: 1984, Bank of England, Banking, ECB, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, George Orwell, Gold, Mint, Morgan Stanley, New World Order, NYSE, Silver, U.S., Wall Street

This is very important news. There is a massive manipulation going on and as I have said before that when the financial markets collapse you will not be able to buy Gold and Silver anymore and even if you could it would be too late. Related article: U.S. Dollar Intervention Protect yourself.
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Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The U.S. Mint has suspended sales of American eagle gold coins and is refusing orders from dealers, two coin and bullion dealers confirmed Thursday.

The mint’s suspension of gold coin sales follows its tight rationing of sales of silver eagle coins, begun in May, when sales to the public were terminated and sales to the mint’s 13 authorized dealers were tightly limited.

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Tags: Dollar, Economy, Gold, Mint, Silver, U.S. Mint