We are only 1 week into the month of August, but the US Mint has updated their August sales totals for gold and silver to indicate the Mint has sold 4,000 ounces of gold, vs. 765,000 ounces of silver month-to-date.
This is a sales ratio of an unthinkable 191.25 to 1 for silver vs. gold!
Granted this data is merely for the first week of August, but this is an unprecedented and astronomical ratio of physical silver vs. gold for the Mint. Over the past few years the ratio has typically hovered in the range of 50 to 1, which our friend Eric Sprott continually stresses is completely unsustainable!
August’s sales data is nearly 4 times the already astronomical 50:1 sales rates seen over the past 2 years!
We will continue to closely monitor the US Mint’s total silver vs. gold sales, as clearly selling 191 times as much physical silver vs. gold is unsustainable over the long term when the natural in-ground ratio is approximately 10 to 1!
| Month | One ( oz. / #coins ) |
Half ( oz. / #coins ) |
Quarter ( oz. / #coins ) |
Tenth ( oz. / #coins ) |
Total ( oz. / #coins ) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 84,500 84,500 |
24,500 49,000 |
9,500 38,000 |
8,500 85,000 |
127,000 256,500 |
| February | 20,000 20,000 |
0 0 |
500 2,000 |
500 5,000 |
21,000 27,000 |
| March | 57,500 57,500 |
1,000 2,000 |
0 0 |
4,000 40,000 |
62,500 99,500 |
| April | 19,000 19,000 |
0 0 |
500 2,000 |
500 5,000 |
20,000 26,000 |
| May | 49,000 49,000 |
1,500 3,000 |
1,000 4,000 |
1,500 15,000 |
53,000 71,000 |
| June | 55,000 55,000 |
1,000 2,000 |
1,500 6,000 |
2,500 25,000 |
60,000 88,000 |
| July | 28,500 28,500 |
0 0 |
500 2,000 |
1,500 15,000 |
30,500 45,500 |
| August | 3,500 3,500 |
0 0 |
0 0 |
500 5,000 |
4,000 8,500 |
| Total | 317,000 317,000 |
28,000 56,000 |
13,500 54,000 |
19,500 195,000 |
378,000 622,000 |
| Month | One ( oz. / #coins ) |
|---|---|
| January | 6,107,000 6,107,000 |
| February | 1,490,000 1,490,000 |
| March | 2,542,000 2,542,000 |
| April | 1,520,000 1,520,000 |
| May | 2,875,000 2,875,000 |
| June | 2,858,000 2,858,000 |
| July | 2,278,000 2,278,000 |
| August | 765,000 765,000 |
| Total | 20,435,000 20,435,000 |
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/live/s_silv.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/live/s_gold.gif)
I wonder if Eric Sprott had something to do with that fat phyzz withdrawal
Silver- the Achilles’ Heel of the fiat system. They have silver so cheap it is flying off the shelves. These guys are going nuts. To discourage ownership of any other thing you raise it’s price.
Trouble with that idea is, every time silver breaks upwards, investors go wild and buy even more..
Trapped. It must be aggravating to them, people won’t give up on silver.
WOW!! last year it was 1 to 1. Now nearly 200 to 1. With a market ratio of nearly 58 to 1. And a phyzz ratio of 1 to 5. I think it is now safe to say that when the two metals go parabolic, The most reflective one will outshine by multables!! Ag just stack and sit back and enjoy our coaster ride
Buy silver & tell a skanker banker …….to FO
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” —Benjamin
Franklin
Ugly- we might be seeing something indicating just that today. Silver’s chart is up while gold is under tight control, and will probably finish the day flat.
These are two different metals, the fundamentals of silver are much more bullish than gold, which has always been the money of the elite. We outnumber them a thousand to one, sooooo…
Check out the walking eagle on my half dollar there. He’s not ready to fly but his wings are spread in preparation for takeoff. He walks uphill, a symbol of our slow slog to the rightful place- as the most startling and profitable investment in the history of the world.
Wait for it– I hear the rumbling..
adding up the whole year (which is better) the ratio becomes 54.06:1
More context: In dollar value terms, silver outsold gold 3.23 times per dollar, assuming $1600/oz gold and $27/oz silver. That’s darn impressive. For example, Eric Sprott reported that Sprott Money, his bullion operation, was consistently selling gold and silver in roughly equal dollar amounts over the last year or so. Also, the previous PSLV offering (not the offering currently being filled) sold in comparable dollar terms to the previous gold fund offering. Previous US Mint sales were not too far off the 1-to-1 dollar value ratio too.
The current jump is significant, and it matches the stronger technical pattern of silver bullion’s trading over the last week. For example, just look at today’s trade. Silver hit $28, scared shorts and it popped to over $28.20 quickly, when the cartel finally came in put a stop to the action. But unlike gold, which was successfully smashed down, silver simply traded sideways, demonstrating consistent strong demand. The acceleration in silver matchs exactly what I was writing about yesterday (see this thread). As I said yesterday, we’re seeing the start of a break-out.
There’s one caveat that must be kept in mind when looking at these US Mint numbers. Any new release of specific silver collectable coins can spike silver unit sales higher. That appears to account for part of the jump — but probably no more than 10% of the spike. For example, the Mint just released a West Point mint (“W”) uncirculated 2012 Silver Eagle after the uncirculated production had been suspended for a while. Click here http://www.silvercoinstoday.com/us-mint-to-release-three-more-coin-products-with-silver-eagles/107035/ for a background story. The doors opened August 2nd for those sales.
Bottom-line: These numbers are very impressive and confirm many other datapoints that we’re hearing a giant sucking sound across the silver market – vacuum-stack, vacuum and stack…
silver psycho: As you proabably know, Sprott isn’t buying US Mint silver. He’s buying directly from the main exchanges, bullion banks and maybe even miners this time around — and in large bar increments of 1,000/oz bars. But with Sprott in the market again, people are starting to get more excited about silver so there is indeed a link to a boost in retail market demand so your hunch is right. We can only guess as to just how much of the demand spike is inspired by Sprott. I tend to think his action accounts for probably something like 15% of the overall reawakening “flow” in silver — again, just an unsubstantiated, educated guess, nothing more. There are a lot of forces coming together in favor of silver and Sprott is just part of the party.
Another factor could be that a lot of average folks have a few extra dollars to buy an ASE or two at the end of the month while very few have the jingle in their jeans for an AGE or two.
Am I crazy, or do the figures just tell me that it was a slow gold week, causing the spike in the ratio?