Sales of silver American Eagles climbing toward new record

By By Paul Gilkes

Published: Oct 21, 2015, 3 AM

Unless derailed by shortages of available planchets, the U.S. Mint will likely break its 2014 annual sales record for 1-ounce silver American Eagle coins.

Images courtesy of APMEX.

Add another 886,000 American Eagle silver bullion coins to the U.S. Mint's calendar year 2015 sales total.

The U.S. Mint reported that of the 970,000-coin weekly allocation announced Oct. 19, 699,500 coins were ordered by authorized purchasers Oct. 19 and another 186,500 pieces were purchased on Oct. 20, leaving 84,000 available coins.

The two days of sales brought the October monthly sales total to 2,891,000 coins and the annual total to 38,945,000 coins. The record set in 2014 totaled 44,006,000 coins.

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All of the American Eagle silver bullion coins are struck at the West Point Mint but do not bear the production facility's W Mint mark.

The only direct sales of the silver bullion coins by the U.S. Mint are to a network of 12 authorized purchasers who buy the coins for the closing London PM spot price of the metal on a given day plus a $2 per coin premium. The authorized purchasers may then sell the coins directly to other dealers or the public at a markup.