Because when they crushed the price of metals last week, people that had been waiting for a good pullback bought it all. Its not just tulving. All the dealers phone lines went nuts. Gold is gold, and paper is just empty promises.
I found the requirements to become an authorized purchaser. It looks like they sell directly in bulk to very large authorized wholesalers who then deal to secondary retailers like Tulving. http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/index.cfm?action=AmericanEagles from the page: * For the Silver Eagle, we charge the United States Mint's Authorized Purchasers the price of silver plus $1.25 per coin premium. Minimum ordering requirement is 25,000 coins. * For the Gold Eagles, we charge 3%, 5%, 7% and 9% premiums for the one, one-half, one-quarter and one-tenth ounce coins respectively. Minimum ordering requirements are 1000 ounces.
basically it looks like an eagle is marked up from the mint's 3% to 4-7% or more depending on quantity and volatility next question would be why the US Mint's premium is so high for a piece of legal tender. are they intentionally limiting the liquidity of this market?
They don't have any coins to sell. When they do they charge whatever they want, and you buy or you don't. You can always buy coins from other countries or old coins. Gold is gold.
i think you misinterpreted my post. i was just trying to find out the retail markup and get a general sense of who has access to wholesale sprds, but you're right thriftybob - the US Treasury doesn't sell regular eagles to ordinary cats... thx they do sell proof sets tho if anyone wants to hit that
Here you go: http://www.centralfund.com/ founded in 1961, 1.5 billion in assets 90% in physical gold/silver, balance in cash. Listed on AMEX and TSE
CEF has a premium over its metal value usually. Better just to own the metal because then you don't get shaken out.
This may have already been mentioned, but you should buy your coins in < $10k transactions to avoid a paper trail.