Easy to give up platinum

There are no more tenth-ounce gold American Eagle bullion coins available at the U.S. Mint it was announced yesterday.

There are still one-ounce and half-ounce Eagle gold coins as well as one-ounce Buffalo gold coins available.

The pattern is clear. One at a time each in their turn will eventually go off sale.

There is one set of American Eagles that hasn’t even gone on sale yet in 2015, the platinum American Eagles.

It was hoped there would be a one-ounce bullion issue as well as a one-ounce proof collector issue.

Neither one has come to market.

What has been the reaction?

All I hear are the crickets chirping, metaphorically speaking.

I have not been swamped with inquiries as to why they have not been issued.

In fact, I cannot recall even one.

Are platinum Eagles necessary?

Perhaps these are the products that we can make a stand on as a blow against the general proliferation of Mint issues.

It would be mostly symbolic, because collectors aren’t getting them anyway.

Platinum is just not something collectors are used to. Gold and silver among the precious metals they can get excited about.

Investors are supposedly more sophisticated. They are not tied to metals by emotions, or fond memories of coins obtained in the past. Investors just want something they can make money on.

I don’t see an evidence of clamor by investors for platinum Eagles, either.

Lack of platinum Eagles this year probably saved investors a good deal of money as the metal best known for its use in catalytic converters has been rapidly moving lower.

Platinum is down by 29 percent since Jan. 1. This is no small drop in a year where they are looking for a record number of automobiles (north of 18 million) to be sold in the United States.

Come Thanksgiving dinner investors might be grateful there were no platinum Eagles to buy and collectors can be grateful that we have shown we can do without them.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."

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