Gold moves on high wire

Congratulations to the Royal Canadian Mint for its public relations coup in unveiling its $1 million value gold coin that weighs 100 kilograms, or approximately 3,200 troy ounces of gold, worth $2.2 million.

It reminds me of the play on the old saying, “nothing succeeds like excess.” But from a PR vantage point, it should be kudos all around.

Where gold is concerned, though, I feel like I am at the circus watching the high wire act. There is a hush in the crowd. Step by step the performer goes out onto the wire.

What I am watching is the price of gold. Step by step it gets closer to the point of no return. Will it wow us with more exciting aerial stunts as it heads to new highs, or will it disappoint?

If you read my blog Friday, you know that gold is staying just ahead of where it was this time last year. Any day now it might record a closing price that is lower than last year’s price level. Silver has been negative for some days now. Even platinum could briefly go negative in the next few days depending on market movements.

And as I wrote Friday, what will a close that makes the one-year trend negative mean? It might be just an aberration. Surely with the strength shown by copper, nickel and other metals, the factors that make gold go up must still be operative.

I keep telling myself that, but I don’t see many readers clamoring to buy gold lately. Gold bugs seem to have gone quiet. I just talked to the U.S. Mint and they are scrapping plans to sell First Spouse half-ounce gold proof coins in sets of four. Perhaps readers are more concerned with scraping up the money to fill their gasoline tanks.

Could the four-coin set price of $1,675.95 deter too many potential First Spouse buyers? Selling half-ounce coins one at a time for $425 or so will be easier than selling four-coin sets. Not everyone can spring for more than $1,000 at the drop of a hat. Then, of course, there are still one-ounce Buffalo gold proofs to come and gold American Eagles currently on sale. There is a good reason gold was used for centuries as a way of carrying around a large amount of money in small, concealable bits. It is expensive. Average collectors just can’t participate in the gold coin of the week plan. They have to pick one or two and save up for them.

It is too bad I can’t put a drum roll sound effect on this blog, but until gold breaks decisively one way or the other, the sound is rolling in my mind.

And by the way, the $425 number is not an officially announced price, it is just a ballpark guess on my part. The First Spouse coins aren’t due out until June 19.

Looking for another interesting opinion on the Canada $1 million coin? Check out Tom Michael's blog at www.numismaticnews.net/ideas