Monday, August 15, 2016

Bernanke has set the stage for the Fed’s collapse -Jim Rogers

December 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

Investor Jim Rogers says precious metals are not tempting him at the moment, but he remains bullish on gold over the long term.

Read more….

DAILY COMMENTARY FOR DEC. 31

December 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

By Toby Connor, Gold Scents
Click here

Toby Connor

GoldScents

A financial blog primarily focused on the analysis of the secular gold bull market.

If you would like to be added to the email list that receives notice of new posts to GoldScents, or have questions, email Toby.

Koos Jansen: New Year’s Eve gold rush at Shanghai shopping mall

December 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

10:16a ET Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Dispirited gold investors in the West may be cheered by a dispatch received today from Shanghai by gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen. It’s headlined “New Year’s Eve Gold Rush at Shanghai Shopping Mall” and it’s posted at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, here:

http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/new-years-eve-gold-rush-shanghai-shopping-ma…

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

Final Hours of US Mint 2013 Last Chance Products

December 31, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

The final hours of the US Mint’s 2013 Last Chance Sale have arrived, and that means this year’s commemorative silver coins, last year’s annual America the Beautiful Quarters Silver Proof Set, and several other products will be discontinued. An entire page is dedicated to the event on the US Mint’s website, and the list below […]

Related posts:

Another knock down and then it’s gold’s year, Kaye tells KWN

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

12:04a ET Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Hong Kong fund manager William Kaye tells King World News tonight that 2014 will be gold’s year but probably not until the bullion banks that do the bidding of Western central banks push the price down once more to facilitate a final draining of the metal behind the exchange-traded fund GLD. China and India, Kaye notes, seem to be acquiring substantially more gold than is being produced, and so the dishoarding from Western vaults is unlikely to be able to continue much longer. KWN proprietor Eric King adds an intriguing piece of intelligence at the end of the interview. It’s posted at the KWN blog here:

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/12/31_A…

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

Bank of Canada’s gold coins to be liquidated to help balance government’s budget

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

By Bill Curry
The Globe and Mail, Toronto
Monday, December 30, 3013

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bank-of-canadas-gold-coins-…

Canada’s first gold coins had barely been minted before Ottawa yanked them out of circulation a hundred years ago in an effort to stop gold from leaving the country during the First World War.

After a century of sitting in cloth bags inside the Bank of Canada vault, they are among a wide range of assets the Conservative government is liquidating — in this case literally — to save taxpayers a few dollars and help balance the books. The plan is to melt down more than 200,000 gold coins from the years 1912 to 1914, when Ottawa suspended the gold standard.

The coins have been the subject of whispers among collectors curious what happened to the $5 and $10 gold coins that Ottawa had pulled out of circulation. The mystery was lifted late last year when the Bank of Canada announced it would be offering 30,000 of the bank’s 246,000 coins for sale to collectors.

The sale is unlikely to make a big difference to Ottawa’s bottom line, but it is among a string of recent moves by the federal goverment to unload public assets as it moves to balance the books by 2015. Ottawa is in the process of selling off a variety of items, from foreign embassies to port lands. But the government’s decision to cash in on high gold prices by selling and melting the coins upset some coin collectors. Those who already had the coins in their collection did not appreciate the flood of new coins into the market, which could push down the value.

The $10 coins sold for either $1,000 or $1,750 each, depending on whether they were “premium” quality or not. The sale recently closed. Final numbers won’t be known until the spring, but a mint official confirms they came very close to selling all the coins. In fact, the move created a bit of a gold rush among Canadian collectors.

“It’s the most popular topic for 2013, for sure,” said Michael Wang, a Vancouver coin collector who bought individual coins and also paid $12,000 for a six-coin set. “My wife was about to kill me when I told her I bought this thing,” he said, laughing.

But unlike some who were dissapointed with the coins, Mr. Wang has no regrets. “Just to hold a piece of history in Canada, that’s really the important part,” he said. “This is Yukon gold or Ontario gold from back in the 1910s. It’s not like recycled gold that people are getting now from jewellery and other things that are being melted and refined. This is the actual, physical gold that came out of the ground.”

The coins had been sitting in bags at the Bank of Canada in Ottawa for decades. They were officially recorded as part of Canada’s gold holdings in the Exchange Fund Account of foreign currency.

A copy of the private agreement between the Department of Finance, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Bank of Canada offers some insight into the government’s motivation for the sale. The agreement, which was obtained through Access to Information by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin, said the objective was to improve the liquidity of the government’s assets, provide a piece of Canadian history to coin collectors and to “extract value from coin sales for the government and taxpayers.”

Canadian currency was pegged to the price of gold from the pre-Confederation days in 1854 to 1914, reflecting a common international practice of the time. These were the first gold coins to feature a Canadian symbol: the Arms of the Dominion of Canada. The other side features King George V.

Canada briefly returned to the gold standard in 1926, but effectively abandoned it for good in 1929. The United States effectively abandoned the gold standard in 1933, but didn’t make the move official until the 1970s.

The Canadian coins weigh roughly eight grams for the $5, and 16 grams for the $10, and are 90 per cent gold. Ottawa and the Royal Canadian Mint packaged and marketed them as collectors’ items at prices above their melt value.

“These sorts of things don’t happen very often,” said Bret Evans, managing editor of Canadian Coin News. “We knew the Bank of Canada had scooped them up, but the exact information, how many were there, whether they still existed even was not known. … The hobby has long been fuelled by rumours of what were in the bank’s vaults.”

Not all collectors were happy with the government’s decision. “They should have melted them back in 1912, 1913 and 1914,” said Frank Rossi, owner of Universal Coins in Ottawa.

Mr. Rossi said collectors who already had these coins were not pleased with the sale because it drove down the value of their collections. “A market had been established,” he said. “Then all of a sudden all of these coins start appearing. … This has diluted the market. I don’t even think those coins that they did issue were in that great of a shape anyway. The coins were way overvalued. … They sold the sizzle, they didn’t sell the steak.”

It is not clear yet whether the sale did in fact push down the value of the coins. Tracking of prices by Canadian Coin News shows prices held constant throughout the sale, but that could be because there hasn’t been a lot of data lately on sales of the coins between collectors.

While buying the coins may not have been a great financial move for Canadians, it appears to have worked out well for the government. A spokesperson for Finance Canada said the government expects to make a “modest” profit from the coin sales, but it is too early to say exactly how much. In an e-mail, David Barnabe suggested that none of the remaining coins has yet been melted.

‎”The government is considering various options to manage the remaining gold coins,” he said, “including timelines for melting and any resale of the bullion.”

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

Sudden rush on junior graphite as year-end nears

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

Graphite juniors dominate the TSX-Venture over recent trading sessions, speaking to optimism for the sector.

Read more….

No move on gold import restrictions, but India mulls mining revival

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

Apart from the famed Kolar Gold Fields, there are about 40 mines where prospecting has been done, and 16 other gold mines that could be developed

Read more….

China said to regard gold as the center of a new and fair monetary system

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

6:44p ET Monday, December 30, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

China sees gold as the basis of a new world monetary system that is fair to all nations and not favoring any nation issuing a dominant currency, according to a speech given this year by Zu He Liang, director of the Chinese Gold Market Research Center, and reported today by gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust:

http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/china-accumulates-gold-world-dream

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

http://www.gata.org

To contribute to GATA, please visit:

http://www.gata.org/node/16

Copper supply in focus as market moves to surplus

December 30, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

While China remains in the driving seat for copper, 2014 could well mark a shift in focus from demand to supply.

Read more….

« Previous Page — Next Page »