Go ahead, admit it. You are turning into a American Buffalo gold junky. It is nothing to be ashamed of. We all are. It is new. It is summer. What else would you be thinking about?
Drum roll, please. The latest sales number for the one-ounce proof Buffalo coin is 112,000 as of July 11. This is an increase of just 12,000 from the number reported last week. We are getting into a pattern where each successive sales number is half the prior one. Were that to continue, only 6,000 will be sold for the next set of weekly statistics. So check back here next week and see if the pattern breaks.
Whether the pattern holds or not, it is clear that by the middle of the month of July, the rate of sales of the proof gold Buffalo coin had fallen off by quite a bit. All eager buyers are getting quick delivery.
Some question the quickness with which coin dealers obtain supplies of the new proof given the fact that there is a limitation of 10 coins per person. Remember, if you have a staff of 10 persons and each one orders the maximum, you have a supply of 100 to sell. Dealers also have regular suppliers who in turn can do the same. Some readers may order 10, see the coin is not a sellout and decide to dump them quick in order not to take a loss. A dealer buys them and thereby gets additional inventory.
At some point, the Mint could lift the order limitation when it sees that all reasonable demand has been met, but that is a topic for a future column.
The Mint shipped out 26,000 of the uncirculated Buffalo coins to its Authorized Purchasers so far in July. What is interesting is the shipment of uncirculated American Eagles actually exceeds that number. The ?old? bullion coin design registered sales of 27,500 one-ounce coins. How long these nearly identical sales will last is anyone?s guess, but we can?t imagine it will continue long.
At the very least, we would expect to see Buffalo shipments run at a high level early as the novelty factor plays out through the commercial sector. If sales slow down, the American Eagle might jump further ahead. Let?s watch and see what happens.
The June American Eagle uncs and Buffalo uncs showed no change from the numbers we ran last week, so check last week?s column for the final June numbers.
As we suggested last week, the numbers for proof American Eagle gold coin sales hardly budged this week because of the sales freeze imposed June 30 for repricing. The new prices went up on the Mint Web site on July 10. The gold numbers were unchanged except for an increase of 14 in the four-coin set category.
Next week we should see what kind of demand the repriced gold proofs generate. Platinum and silver proof Eagles showed modest increases in their sales numbers.
Enough with gold. Silver five-quarter proof sets saw sales of an additional 12,232, while the silver 10-coin proof set rose 26,653. Clad sets beat them, up 15,880 and 56,049, respectively.
