What's your LCS getting for silver eagles?

[RTPMarine]

Context of this thread is ASEs, not some other series, and of the norm for pricing readily attainable, not some jackass price that a fool pays.

You're picking a fight with me. It's cool if that's your thing. It's not mine, though.

OP's first post mentioned premiums in general--he even mentioned JM bars by name. My responses were making the point that the trading premium value of a coin is not tied to how much it costs to mint.

[Engineer]

It's not mine, though.

That's a good one! Got any more?

Premiums can't be tied to a percentage unless spot remains relatively constant. At $4/oz, I'd buy all day at a 100% premium. At $40/oz, I'd gladly pass up a 5% premium. Minting costs, shop overhead, shipping, seniorage, and to a strong extent numi value are all tied to the dollar rather than the spot price, so premium percentages must rise as spot prices drop.

I always look at .999 or numi premiums as spot plus X dollars. Spot represents the supply level and velocity of silver supply, while the X dollars represents the fixed costs listed above.

[RTPMarine]

Premiums can't be tied to a percentage unless spot remains relatively constant. At $4/oz, I'd buy all day at a 100% premium. At $40/oz, I'd gladly pass up a 5% premium. Minting costs, shop overhead, shipping, and Seniorage are all tied to the dollar rather than the spot price, so premium percentages must rise as spot prices drop. That much would be easy to calculate...but the velocity of silver in the market place is an entirely different matter.

I always look at .999 or numi premiums as spot plus X dollars. Spot represents the inflation/deflation of silver supply, while the X dollars represents the fixed costs listed above.

So say a generic round gets struck in a mintage of 100,000 total coins. Since there are fewer coins than a mintage of 40,000,000 (as with 2011 ASEs), by your argument those generic rounds would cost more than ASEs because they cost more to manufacture, package, and distribute per coin. All of those overhead costs had to be spread among only 100,000 coins instead of 40,000,000 coins.

I'm not refuting the overhead involved with minting coins, just saying that it is a pretty simple supply and demand model--the costs associated with minting the coins aren't the bottom line. And I already acknowledged that neither percentages nor straight dollar differences are valid.

[Engineer]

So say a generic round gets struck in a mintage of 100,000 total coins. Since there are fewer coins than a mintage of 40,000,000 (as with 2011 ASEs), by your argument those generic rounds would cost more than ASEs because they cost more to manufacture, package, and distribute per coin. All of those overhead costs had to be spread among only 100,000 coins instead of 40,000,000 coins.

I'm not refuting the overhead involved with minting coins, just saying that it is a pretty simple supply and demand model--the costs associated with minting the coins aren't the bottom line. And I already acknowledged that neither percentages nor straight dollar differences are valid.

Your supply and demand model needs some work. How much does a treasury mint worker cost per hour versus a private worker? How many millions do they pay for shiny new presses, and how much would I pay for a decent used press off ebay? How many bureaucrats does the US employ versus the private mints? Do private mints need to keep their machinists in-house, or can they outsource the work without incurring the costs of running a full time machine shop? How much does it cost the US mint to get coin design approval from congress? Then there's the whole issue of security costs.

Your argument that the government can perform work cheaper than the private sector is entertaining though.

[Robarons]

Local guy is tapped out and hes $3 over

Claims even his supplier is tapped out

[RTPMarine]

Ok guys, then explain to me why 1996 Eagles cost 2x spot. Was there a spike in the minting costs that year? Of course not. It's a key date, so people demand it. Supply and demand.

[68Camaro]

Ok guys, then explain to me why 1996 Eagles cost 2x spot. Was there a spike in the minting costs that year? Of course not. It's a key date, so people demand it. Supply and demand.

Arrrgh... Really?

Numismatic prices aren't in the context of the discussion...

[jacks2start]

Local here is about 3-4 over spot

[clashctyrokr]

My LCS has ASE's for $2.95 over. They almost always have some on hand too On busy days they're mixed date, but I call ahead and wait till they have full rolls of BU 2012's before I go buy. They get monster boxes as far as I know.
Other shops in the area are $3-$4.50 over.

[Klark Cent]

The nominal cost of rounds will always be 1-2$ more than spot just due to production and overhead. ASEs will be a Buck more than that because they have to charge the seinorage of the $1 face value on top. So $3 over spot is a reasonable price for them. More is too much.

Shouldn't that then make the Mapleleafs (with a $5 face value) cost way more than ASEs?

I figure my thinking is wrong. I am just wondering how.

thx

[68Camaro]

It should on the surface, if RCM follows the same rules, but I don't know what their rules are. They may not be under the same legal restrictions as the US Mint. Maybe someone that knows can clarify (or look up the RCM rules).

[SilverDragon72]

All this discussion is motivating me to take a trip this week to my LCS to add to my silver stack!

I like ASE's, Kookaburras, Maple Leafs, Libertads and the Britannia silver coins! Very nice to look at

[baggerman]

I stopped in one in my area today to get some coin tubes and they had some NONE BU PAINTED ASE so out of curiosity I asked how much, $37.00

[SilverDragon72]

All this discussion is motivating me to take a trip this week to my LCS to add to my silver stack!

I like ASE's, Kookaburras, Maple Leafs, Libertads and the Britannia silver coins! Very nice to look at

I recently acquired 2 Englehard Prospector rounds and one generic round a couple days ago.....

My LCS informed me that someone came in and dumped almost 400 ounces of silver earlier this week. That's why the trays were overflowing with silver....wow!

I sure wish that I could have gotten more, oh well, maybe next time!