Gold Coins Investing

Investors experiencing uneasiness from their recent Dow Jones roller coaster rides are turning to gold coins with the hope of smoothing their road to financial security. Or so the marketeers for the two leading bullion coin producers are saying. Promoters for both the Canadian maple leaf and the American gold eagle are taking advantage of the wild stock market gyrations to point to the "advantages" of putting one's softer currency into harder money.

This is an ongoing story, as precious metals investors have been able to say more or less the same thing for quite a number of years. In 1987,the American gold bullion coin program celebrated as it wrapped up its initial year of sales to lay claim to a number of accomplishments, including the capture of 65 percent of the American bullion coin market. The gold eagle displaced such well-entrenched competitors as the South African Krugerrand and Canadian maple leaf.

According to mint figures for that first year of production, 2,721,750 ounces of gold coins were sold, topping original sales estimates by 23 percent In addition, 446,000 one-ounce gold proof eagles were bought by collectors.



The eagle's silver cousin performed even better in '86 - '87, selling three times better than had been projected, resulting in the sale of 12,056,000 ounces to investors and another 1.4 million proof silver eagles to collectors. Total revenue of gold and silver sales was over $1.5 billion.