Gold Drops Further

Gold in Free Fall

Like an elevator with snapped cables, gold continued it's fast, steady decline this morning, dropping below $750 and ounce. As of this posting gold is down to about $740, silver down to $10.45, platinum is at about $1135 and palladium is down to about $225. Check The Bullion Deskfor current prices.

Bloggers are reaching out to all avenues to try and explain the drops. I've read about dropping car sales effecting the price of platinum, dropping oil pricesbouying the U.S. Dollar, the evaporation of inflation fears and much more. In essence, through these and many other valid factors have effect, I would have to consider this a reasonable correction to some seriously over-infalted spot prices for precious metals.

How does this effect the coin market? Well, for dealers, I would expect that initially they will have to deal with a decrease in demand for bullion issues and one ounce and larger commemoratives. Over time, if precious metals stay this low or continue to drop, they will have to lower prices and move these coins along. The larger their stock of these items, the quicker they will have to react to maintain cash flow for a healthy business. For dealers who did not amass quantities of gold and silver coins, it will most likely be business as usual and if they have a wise clientele, perhaps better than usual.

For U.S. coin dealerswho had been selling much of their best material to European dealers, a strengthening dollar and declining silver and gold should bring them opportunities to buy some of that good stuff back. So U.S. collectors, many of whom have been buying overseas and paying the higher prices and shipping costs, will want to keep in touch with their favorite U.S. dealersand perhaps provide a want list.

Clearly it's a good time to buy coins.