This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
US mint halts sales of gold and silver eagles
US mint halts sales of gold and silver eagles
by Project Mayhem
US mint halts sales of gold eagles, gold once again hits all-time highs, Tungsten comes back in fashion, Council on Foreign Relations propaganda rag asserts total dollar collapse "well before 2030".
The Council on Foreign Relations propaganda rag Foreign Affairs latest issue states:
At the same time, increasing U.S. demands on foreign investors would probably become unsustainable and produce a severe drop in the value of the dollar well before 2030, possibly bringing on a hard landing.
-Foreign Affairs, Volume 88, No. 6, November / December 2009, p22.
In another case of "color me unsurprised" the US mint has halted sales of gold and silver eagles citing "depleted inventories of the metals". As can be seen by our wonderful colored charts, sales have skyrocketed indicating public non-confidence in the US dollar. Or better yet, public non-confidence in hallucinated ETF computer-pixels.
For those wishing to look beneath the surface, this is simply another confirmation of supply tightness in the gold market. Though officially the US mint has run out of blanks, it would make more sense that the Western oligarchs have simply decided is enough is enough and do not wish to further feed the fire of gold price appreciation until 2010. Perhaps it is simply not 'that time' yet, which would make sense considering the leaked information out of Bilderberg 2009 that the world is not yet ripe for the much-anticipated global currency crisis. But it's coming. We even have idiots on CNBC proclaiming global currency destruction , remember? Something has to give and the easiest failure will be in the multi-trillion FOREX markets.
But good luck getting your gold coins at spot. Or silver coins for that matter, (which as we all know are poised for explosive gains sometime in the next five years). In the meantime, we have the brewing scandal in the LBMA 'good delivery' markets, which may or may not be related the the suspension in production of gold and silver eagles. For those not aware, there is a possible scandal in the "highly liquid" international gold market, after gold bars were discovered in Hong Kong which were actually technically advanced fakes with tungsten metal inside. This is possible because tungsten has almost identical mass as gold. With the addition of transition metal alloys, such fakes can be indistinguishible from the real deal except with drilling the bars or conducting assays with ultrasound (h/t Gunther).
Of course, the various funds around the world will be quick to assure you that you have not been duped, because it IS after all the LBMA market, and such a market could never have possibly been contaminated with fake bars. Something is to be said for this since retail customers have not complained, and you'd expect jewelery manufacturers to be pissed if they were delivered tungsten , no? But the international fraudsters in the banking system are both clever and arrogant. It is certainly possible there is systemic fraud confined to the ETFs where generally the "bars" stay in the vault, rarely delivered, and the paper claims are what trade. Perhaps this gradual erosion of confidence is part of the reason gold and silver coin sales are skyrocketing.
Regardless of the tungsten scandal, entities such as BullionVault are definitely more trustworthy than JP Morgan's hallucinated gold ETF, but there are a few questions. Trust is only as good as the weakest counterparty in the chain. Through published correspondence by Bullionvault clients, we know ZERO assays of gold bars were conducting during last years' fund audit. That is, no bars were drilled. Bars were precisely weighed -- but as we all know now, tungsten metal alloys can be constructed to milligram tolarances which would be undetectable without assay. Hopefully these technically advanced gold bar fakes were confined to China.
As for the mint suspension of coins, the move may backfire and drive prices up even further, perhaps even with Butler's premium appearing in gold and silver eagles, at least temporarily. Of course, with the US government's repeated suspension of gold and silver coin production, we know they are no longer meeting their obligations to the public under the law. Shocking, I know.
As for gold, it is quietly meandering around the end-of-year target ($1200) that I issued approx 3 months ago.
Soon enough this will all blow sky-high...
»
- advertisements -
It is simple: The U.S. dollar goes down, and gold (which is priced in dollars and has increased demand from buyers) is moving up. But when the dollar reverses higher, then gold upside potential will be capped.
admin
http://invetrics.com
The mint was charging way above the price of Krugerrands and Maple Leafs for those USA Eagles.
The intelligent man rejects all conspiracies as unproven by scientific fact.
The wise man assumes all conspiracy theories are true, having real world experience with human nature.
The intelligent man calls the wise man a fool.
The wise man watches the intelligent man be the fool.
The intelligent man argues his points and expects all others to rally to his support, truth being some sort of democracy ruled by mob perception.
The wise man inserts truth into discussions and arguments much like mortar between bricks.
Bricks traditionally were made with cow dung by intelligent men, btw.
-MobBarley
Does this come in the form a picture book?
Stupidity has much worse consequences than conspiracy.
Thanx PM! Great post as usual.
despite the plunge in gold prices today it in no way alters my thesis of permanent and severe backwardation of gold which is what the mint's latest action indicates....much of the price decline today was due to frn strengthening and in quite a dramatic fashion.....
the dollar continues to be debased in ribald fashion....there, my friend, is where the bubble is......
One cheap fool proof way to test for W ( tungsten/wolfram ) is to X-Ray it.
The diffraction pattern for each pure metal is unique.
Tungsten cannot be fabricated in the manner of ordinary metals. So the idea of pounding out planchets ( coin blanks ) in W is absurd.
China is the world dominant source of W; so it's not at all impossible to imagine that insiders defrauded their own leadership or that the CCP itself has scammed the global bullion markets.
////
The target 'mark' for any such conjured bullion would be ETF vehicles.
Just the rumor alone is enough to force any serious player into assaying/ recasting their inventory.
////
BTW, it's hard to imagine Au pulling back with Barrick (sp?) unwinding its hedge while a flood of new players hits the trading pits.
Oops double post
Had to wait for the mods to review anonymous content (I guess since HAL couldn't/wouldn't instantly correlate my IP address with "Anonymous"). So I logged in and rewrote. Mea culpa.
It's very easy to test one ounce gold coins just balance it on your finger like a symbol and hit it...if it has a long ring it's gold it's only metal that does it
Well, the CFR knows all about "drops". They dropped the twin towers, WTC-7, Flight 93, a cruise missile into the Pentagon accounting department (who just happened to be looking under desks for the missing $2.3T):
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
http://www.libertyforlife.com/eye-openers/911/pentagon_missile_911_vict.html
Not to mention: various governments, economies, cultures, and IQ's.
you bet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2INIOXe_WI
CFR are experts on collapse. They brought down the Twin Towers, WTC-7, Flight 93, and a cruise missile into the Pentagon accounting department who was trying to find the missing $2.3T.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
Not to mention global IQ.
I finally figured out who this "Anonymous" poster is.
Look! Post by Anonymous #144327 is almost identical to this post below by Rollerball! #144336
There you have it.
Anonymous = Rollerball.
Just kidding--Rollerball got so excited about his post he forgot to login first.
See my reply to Snoobob below, Dick Tracy.
Can I get some opinions on this??
When it comes to investing in decent amounts of silver and or gold, would you feel equally safe investing with companies like "Gold Money or Bouillon Vault" instead of literally holding it??
No. If you want security, buy physical and hold it in a safe deposit box or another true vault storage. Buy the physical from a reputable dealer so you have confidence in what you're getting. Without making any comment on those companies, with which I have no familiarity, at some point the paper market is going to be revealed as naked and not very attractive.
"...naked and not very attractive." Understatement of the day!
Well, unless you can predict when a banking holiday is about to hit I wouldn't trust safety deposit boxes. Heck, I wouldn't really trust them at all. The gubbmint is good at making sincere mistakes - especially when they get a cut! Maybe that's why it's called a banking holiday.
Safety deposit boxes are cracked open all the time. All the time!
http://networdblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/outrageous-theft.html
Well if you own your house and are planning to stay there, you can always build your own vault. I think the cost would start in the $10k-20k range. You could also get a pretty decent TLR60x6 safe (a true safe) for under $10k. It is not the sort of item you pick up at Home Despot however.
Tungsten bars floating around in the market may explain what happened at the Canadian mint. Think about it, here's what we know:
17500 ounces was discovered missing in a semi-annual audit
The RCMP recently finished an investigation and definitively concluded no theft took place
The mint has no further comment for now
The Canadian mint can refine gold to one of the highest standards five-nine pure 99.999
Maybe they bought some 400 ounce tungsten bars plated with gold, wanted to refine them from 99.99 to 99.999, threw them in the furnace, and were left with less after smelting, maybe they did a big batch with some real 400 ounce bars and didn't notice the discrepency until later
Now no one at the mint wants to comment about what happened?
Wonder how many of those tungsten bars are at fort knox.
TUNGSTEN MELTS @ 8000 DEGREES GOLD @ 2200. I WOULD THINK IT UNLIKELY THAT THEY WOULD HEAT THE FURNACE BEYOND THE 2200 DEGREES NECESSARY FOR GOLD. IN WHICH CASE THE FRAUD WOULD HAVE BEEN READILY APPARENT TO THE NAKED EYE.
IF HOWEVER YOUR CONCLUSION IS THAT THE CANADIAN MINT GOT "STIFFED" ON SOME BULLION AND HAD TO MAINTAIN OPERATIONAL SILENCE RATHER THAN EXPOSE ANY NATION STATE, I AGREE.
"MONEY IS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD,AND ROTHSCHILD IS HIS PROPHET"
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
TUNGSTEN MELTS @ 8000 DEGREES GOLD @ 2200. I WOULD THINK IT UNLIKELY THAT THEY WOULD HEAT THE FURNACE BEYOND THE 2200 DEGREES NECESSARY FOR GOLD. IN WHICH CASE THE FRAUD WOULD HAVE BEEN READILY APPARENT TO THE NAKED EYE.
IF HOWEVER YOUR CONCLUSION IS THAT THE CANADIAN MINT GOT "STIFFED" ON SOME BULLION AND HAD TO MAINTAIN OPERATIONAL SILENCE RATHER THAN EXPOSE ANY NATION STATE, I AGREE.
"MONEY IS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD,AND ROTHSCHILD IS HIS PROPHET"
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
The effect at the smelter would have been dramatic. There would have been a huge tungsten block at the bottom of the ladle that would have clonked to the floor. What a wakeup for the staff. Those clunkers could have severely injured someone.
Tungsten melts at 3400C where gold melts just above 1000C.
You know, this may have been the real cash for clunkers program.
Very good theory, I like it. They are saying that it wasn't an accounting error and they are sure it wasn't theft. So that leaves the tungsten theory pretty much the only idea left. I'm sure somebody noticed a great big residue of tungsten in the smelter.
Tungsten melts at 3422C , gold melts 1064C. It would have been obvious.
I do think fake bars are a better explanation than they just 'lost' the bars or that they were stolen. I definitely don't believe the line that it was just a clerical error , and that a world-class gold fund simply added up their holdings wrong...
We'll have to wait and see, (as with most everything else these days)...
Yep. Gold soup with chunks of...WTF!
That's probably why the IMF immediately melts anything coming through its doors - imagine the counterfeiter getting inadvertently caught by India! That's some spicy curry to swallow.
That is my suspicion as well.
@PM
thank you for your research.
Question: What other sources, besides Rob Kirby, exist for this story we've all been following on "tungsten" in gold bars? I'm not satified with what appears as only one source.
thank you.
Just seeing what thoughts are on this---
Would love to invest in physical or silver, but don't want the risk of storing it in my place directly. Also, safety deposit boxes are not insured in the event of theft, so that option is out. Any opinions or commentary on the company "Gold Money"--??
It seems like a reputable outfit, but with all the turbulence and counterfeit potential in the future with metals, I am not sure I would trust anyone's "promise to deliver" if all hell breaks loose.....
at ~1000/oz. gold has a similar volume/value ratio as $100 bills. 100 eagles take up 13cm x 5cm x 2.7cm. Packed you can fit 100 into a VHS cassette sized package fairly easily.
unless you are planning on buying thousands of ounces, hiding is not a problem. just use a little creativity. and use a safe . . . as a diversion for any would-be thieves.
Just my $.02, but there isn't great risk in storing your own metal, provided 1) you can hide a firebox or safe reasonably well, and 2) you can resist talking about your investment. The human condition usually leads to #2 being the more difficult of the parameters.
Hitler Gets a Margin Call:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVB-SSkkLnY&feature=player_embedded
Rusty,
the fish would not get the difference between tungsten and gold, only lead and the like.
Density tungsten = 19.25, speed of sound 5174 m/s or 2900 m/s depending on crystal orientation
Density gold = 19.3, speed of sound 2030 m/s
The difference in density is too small to catch tungsten easily but the speed of sound or the sound of the coin itself would do. Right now I do not have a gold coin at hand to test the sound so it is hard to tell the proper sound.
Another way to test would be to bend a coin, gold is soft while tungsten is hard.
Hitting a nail into the coin or drilling would be the brute-force way to prove a fake if dimensions and weight are right but the sound is not.
Maybe that old cartoon trick of biting the coin wasn't so far off.
Indeed, the cartoons got it from historical practice.
Tungsten Gold Eagles - The question is: Can you "Press" a blank of Tungsten using a counterfeit Gold Eagle die?
Books
The only tungsten fake coins I've heard of used a tungsten powder inside a gold shell. I discussed this with a large-volume bullion dealer that I trust, and they said that such a coin would have a grainy appearance on the flat areas of each face, due to the thin shell over the grainy powder. I don't have a way to test this, of course. Has anyone actually seen a fake 1oz "gold" bullion coin?
This Chinese company freaking advertises that it can make gilded tungsten coins.
They brag how their fake gold rounds cannot be detected by weight/density measurements alone. Unbelievable. Please bear with the chinglish--it is worth the read.
http://www.tungsten-alloy.com/en/alloy11.htm
Why tungsten alloy is used as gold substitution?
In theory, as its density is 19.1g/cm3, which is approximately 70% denser than lead, uranium could be used as material of making fake coin. However, it is weakly radioactive and not as dense as gold, so it does not appear to be a practical method.
Then people have discovered that tungsten is environmental-friendly, durable and hardness, the most important is that its density of 19.25g/cm3 is just about the same density as gold (19.3g/cm3), which bears the similar specific gravity. These advantages make tungsten enjoys the superiority to be the best substitute for the costly metal of gold or platinum. It is necessary to tell that alloying gold with tungsten would not work for several reasons but a coin with a tungsten center and gold all around it could not be detected as counterfeit by density measurement alone.
One thing nobody seems to know is that it is extraordinarily difficult and dangerous to plate tungsten. It requires hydrofluoric acid as an etch, which requires very careful handling. I assume this could have been done on a large scale in China without anybody knowing, but there was also talk of the tungsten blanks coming from a U.S. refiner, which mens the bars were already stamped, since you cannot stamp after plating. So a U. S. refiner cast a million and a half tungsten bars that were stamped as 99.9 Au? And nobody talked?
A few thoughts from my personal experience:
HF (hydroflouric acid) is a very common etchant in the semiconductor world, as well as uses in other plating processes. I personally use it to strip down titanium blanks for plating at work (lab scale) about once a month, so it isn't unheard of.
I heard a few times that the bars had a thick coating of gold on them. This would make it impossible to stamp the tungsten blank, because the plating process fills in valleys overtime. That would imply that the bars were stamped after the gold plating, and it would then look more realistic to those handling the bars. It is possible that someone was paid to cast the bars, another person was paid to plate the bars, and a third person was paid to stamp the bars. Or maybe the people doing the work were told that this was for a art exhibit or similar. One of the people doing the work would have had to read a financial blog to know that they were part of a fraud, so it isn't entirely impossible that there has been silence.
All of that being said, the simplest answer is that there are no fakes. I am surprised that there hasn't been a lawsuit to prove/disprove this yet.
Isn't it possible to check gold with ultrasound or sonar, or whatever releases a ping and can check the sound which is received for the exact make-up of the metal? I mean they can see the wrinkles on your dick from outer space, can't they devise something clever for checking stuff?
Ah, I knew that's what was wrong here. Too many alchemists, not enough physicists.
Volume and mass is all you need.
This is for coins, but same basic theory.
http://www.fisch.co.za/principle.htm
The problem is that tungsten's density is so close to that of gold.
I would think that you could measure electrical or thermal conductivity and get an idea of whether the metal is what it's supposed to be, or tungsten, without needing to drill.
Yeah that's a start. I am not a technical person but in the 21st century seeing people checking stuff with liquids, or drilling holes in them, seriously, isn't there a better and foolproof way?
This gilded tungsten bar rumor is very persistent.
Why don't the victims come forward? Why can't just one victim come forward? I don't care if the LBME promises you a real gold bar replacement--think of the implications!
Don't they know that this will change the world forever if there is proof that the USGovt has been been putting gilded tungsten in conveniently unauditable Ft Knox and GLD?
The slimebags would be brought before the World Court. We could follow the chain of corruption and root it out. Gold prices would go to $5000-$10,000/oz.
You are not thinking this through. The only bars that are supposedly "escaped" were found in HK. The Chinese are putting the screws to the LBMA and the BBs. Maybe this was a middle finger salute in response. I would expect the salted bars were only intended to back the paper gold (that suppresses the price), never to be assayed. The Chinese get the message, but want LGD replacement, with no price moving fuss. Why should they want $5-10k gold right now? They are BUYERS, and they want LGD bars at the best price possible.
I am perplexed as to why GLD fund management doesn't come out and say unequivically and in collaboration with a third party audit firm, that they've checked their bars and they are good. I guess they don't want to give credibility to the rumor, which I understand... but the rumor is true, at least for some parties.