Gold Investing - What Happened to November's Gold Eagles?

I like to check on the U.S. Mint's Gold Eagle program a few times each month to see what the numbers are. So far in November, with the month half over, the numbers are dismal. Thru 11/15 those numbers are...

one-ounce gold eagles - 11,500, half-ounce gold eagles - 0,
quarter-ounce gold eagles - 2,000, tenth-ounce gold eagles - 5,000.

This is by far the slowest start of any month this year. October was the next slowest production month with 50,000 ounces of gold used for all Gold Eagles produced in that month. So far in November only 12,500 ounces of gold have been used. You always have to wonder if they are again having trouble getting the blanks (planchets) to make the coins. Just a few days ago, it was announced the U.S. Mint purchased (or agreed to purchase) $1.25 billion in gold and silver bullion from Sunshine Minting Inc. (Coeur d’Alene, Idaho). The article states Sunshine Minting "supplies raw silver and silver and gold blanks to the U.S. Mint and 13 other government mints around the world." You can see the article here.

The current bull market in gold will turn 11 years old in February of 2012. Gold has gained each year since 2001 including the very rough year of 2008. This year looks to be more of the same as gold is up approximately 30% in the last year. This after gold reached a high of $1,920.30 an ounce in September then dropping to $1,534 an ounce later in the month. Spot gold currently is at $1769.10.

There are many savvy financial professionals who are predicting gold will go much higher, not the least of which is the respected Stephen Leeb. He was recently quoted in two separate entries appearing on King World News Blog which you might find of interest. You can read them at This Will Drive Silver to $100 Rapidly and at You Have to Love Gold Here.

One last blurb for those who hold silver coins - I just published an article on Cleaning Silver Coins on my Silver Investing Simplified site. Before you even think about cleaning any of your silver coins, you may want to to review this article. It is at Cleaning Silver Coins.

Thanks for reading.