The Got Gold Report informs:
There are few better barometers to gauge demand for bullion products
on the street than the dealer to dealer premiums on those products. For
old U.S. silver coins in moldy canvas bags premiums are on the rise as
the price of silver has been doing the opposite.
Premiums are the amount over the current spot or cash price paid or
collected in a bullion transaction. The opposite is, predictably,
called a discount.
Witness then, in the chart just below, the reported premium over the
spot or cash price which has developed for “90% silver bags” (circulated
pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters and half dollars in cloth bags of $1,000
face value, each containing about 715 ounces of pure silver)*.
For much of the past decade “90%” has traded at “par” or at a small
discount to spot silver. Over the past three months, as silver has
corrected from the $31.50 level to the $27s, CDN reports that dealers
have been willing to up what they pay in dealer-to-dealer arm’s length
transactions from a tiny discount of $0.08 per ounce in January to a
$1.28** per ounce premium over spot the first week of April.
Obviously retail customers would pay slightly more than the dealer prices on average for a straight up trade.
Clearly as silver prices have fallen demand for some silver products
has increased, not decreased in the very efficient public market for
physical silver metal.
The last time we witnessed premiums of this size for “junk silver,”
as it is inappropriately called in the trade, was during the 2008-2009
crash in silver prices. During the height of the panic then, as silver
collapsed from roughly $18 to about $9, premiums spiked briefly as high
as $4 over spot.
The recent rise in premiums absolutely reflects the fact that with
silver under $30 fewer owners are willing to part with the popular
silver product at the same time as investors want to purchase more of
it.
Independent dealers locally report that “90%” is available, at a
price, but they also report very steady, even robust demand for all
legacy U.S. gold and silver coinage at the moment.
*Legacy U.S. silver coins contain 90% silver and 10% copper. The
coins are traded based on just the silver content. The market assumes
no value for the copper, but the copper is assumed to partially defray
refining costs in the event the coins were to be melted and reprocessed
into bullion. The vast majority of legacy U.S. silver coins are not
actually melted, however, although the terminology in the bullion trade
often refers to "melt" as another reference for the spot price of
silver.
I wanted to buy some silver yesterday and went to apmex. Couldn't get on the site in the morning but got on in the afternoon. Junk silver was not available but I managed to get some scruffy America the Beautiful 5 ounce quarters around a 10% premium
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