Record gold but coin spreads narrow

This article was originally printed in the latest issue of Numismatic News.
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We have a new all-time high in gold, well, sort of anyway. Gold did make a new high closing price, but has thus far failed to break the intra-day trading high, which makes me very uncomfortable with the market. This is especially true when I review the spreads between grades of U.S. double eagles. They have narrowed in the last few weeks. Either the MS-64 and up coins are a heck of a good buy, or the MS-63 and lower should be sold.

That being said, gold has impressively stayed in the $1,250-$1,260 trading range for the better part of a week. Silver is up nicely with a 3 percent gain and platinum while up a tad is basically flat on weak oil prices.

There is continuing demand for the lower grade circulated Morgan and Peace dollars and one major buyer has raised his bid by 50 cents per coin since last week. Actually that is not as impressive as it might seem because the melt values have increased by at least that amount in the last two weeks. Both Morgan and Peace dollars show some new activity in the ultra-high-grade issues, which have been mostly quiet for several months. I have noted buyers offering significantly higher prices for a select group of MS-66 and MS-67 coins and also in the DMPL arena. The most noteworthy point is that the list seems to be slowly expanding in scope.

E-mail harrymkrause@optonline.net.