US Mint Gold Coin Prices Likely to Rise

Is it that time again already? Based on the recent London Fix prices for gold, the US Mint will likely need to increase prices for their gold numismatic offerings tomorrow. This will bring prices for coins to their highest levels so far.

This year, the US Mint began using a new pricing policy, which allows them to adjust prices as often as weekly in response to the changing prices of precious metals. Product prices are adjusted if the average London Fix price of gold for a one week period moves across certain thresholds. The prices used to compute the average are shown below.

London AM and PM Fix Gold Prices
	AM Fix	PM Fix
Fri Oct 8	1,054.75	1,045.00
Fri Oct 9	1,046.75	1,051.50
Mon Oct 12	1,052.00	1,058.75
Tues Oct 13	1,064.50	1,057.50
Wed Sept 23	TBD	N/A

Unless something drastic occurs, the average price of gold will fall within the $1,050 to $1,099.99 range resulting in another round of price increases. Price updates have generally taken place around mid-morning on Wednesdays, which will provide collectors with a small window of time to place any orders before prices are raised.

For this tier, the price of the 2009 Ultra High Relief Double Eagle will be raised from $1,389 to $1,439 per coin. The lowest price for this coin was $1,189, which was in effect back in January when the coins first went on sale.

The price of the First Spouse Gold Coins will be raised from $679 and $666 to $704 and $691 for proof and uncirculated coins, respectively. The lowest prices for the First Spouse Gold Coins varies, since the five coins currently available were released at different times. Around September, most of the current coins had been available at $616 and $629.

Precious metal prices are moving higher just before the upcoming release of the (non-canceled) collectible gold and platinum coins (tentatively) scheduled to be released in the coming weeks. If the coins been released earlier in the year, collectors would have been able to purchase the coins at much lower prices.