Collector American Eagles might be likely in 2010

Collectors are still complaining about the lack of uncirculated “W” mintmarked and proof American Eagle silver coins this year due to the planchet shortage that has plagued the U.S. Mint since the middle of 2007.

Next year looks like a far easier time will be had by the U.S. Mint if an Austrian Mint forecast about 2010 is borne out.

I was reading Jon Nadler’s posting on the Kitco Web site yesterday. http://www.kitco.com/ind/nadler/oct292009.html#at

There he quoted the President of the Austrian Mint, Kurt Meyer, on the topic of how many one-ounce Philharmonic gold bullion coins his institution will produce.

Meyer’s forecast is a decline of 32 percent.

Since gold does not exist in a vacuum, such a significant decline would likely also be accompanied by a decline in demand for silver American Eagles.

Anything approaching a 32 percent decline would free up some 8 million silver planchets, a number large enough to accommodate any likely demand for the collector version of the silver American Eagle.

Will it happen?

Business forecasts are just that. But a forecast from an institution with the experienced staff of the Austrian Mint certainly has a far higher probability of being correct than those made by many other prognosticators one finds active today.

So, the one-year gap in the American Eagle series will be the focus of questions that will be sent to Coin Clinic by newcomers for the next 50 years much as they ask why there is a much longer gap in Morgan dollar production that stretched from the years after 1904 until production resumed in 1921.