Platinum:Gold Ratio

While gold is trading near all-time highs, platinum is trading about
$700 below its all-time high reached in 2008. Since 1972, platinum
has*traded at about 1.35 times the price of Gold on average. Right
now, however,*platinum is even cheaper than gold, trading at only 0.92
times the price of Gold. This is a rather “rare” situation as it only
happened in the early 80?s and for a short time in 1974. In 1972, 2000
and 2008 it even traded as much as 2.30 times the price of Gold
(monthly basis). Based on this ratio over the last 40 years, we can
say that Platinum is “cheap” relative to Gold.

Platinum:Silver Ratio

Over the last 40 years, platinum traded at about 76 times the price of
silver (monthly average). Right now, it is trading at only 47.26 times
the price of silver, far below the historical average ratio. In 2003,
it even traded as high as 150 times the price of silver. In 1979
however, it traded as little as 20 times the price of silver, but that
was rather an “exception”, as silver jumped from $6/oz to $48.70/oz,
as the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market. Taking out
this exception from the chart below, I think it’s fair to say that
platinum is also cheap compared to silver:

Platinum:Palladium Ratio

Over the last 40 years, the average platinum-to-palladium ratio was
3.17. Right now, it is 2.53. In 2001 however, it was a low as 0.60*
because of rumours that the Russian stockpile of alladium was almost
depleted. Leaving this “exception” of 2001 aside, I think it’s fair to
say platinum is cheap relative to palladium, based on this ratio of
the last 40 years:

Gold:Silver Ratio

Many argue that the gold-to-silver ratio is headed back to 15, a level
not seen since 1979. However, as explained above, this move in silver
was rather “exceptional”, as the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the
market. When we look at the historical average of the gold-to-silver
ratio over the last 40 years, we can see that the ratio now (51.60),
is just slightly below the monthly average of the last 40 years
(56.42). This means Gold is not cheap, nor expensive compared to
Silver.

When we look at the daily gold-to-silver ratio going back to 1920, we
can see that the daily average (52.32) doesn’t differ that much from
the monthly average of the last 40 years (56.42). This tells me that
55 is a good estimate of the average gold-to-silver ratio.

In the chart below, we can see that gold was expensive compared to
silver when the gold-to-silver ratio was higher than 80, and that
silver was expensive to gold when the ratio dropped below 30?ish. In
April earlier this year, the ratio dropped towards 30, meaning silver
was getting expensive relative to gold, and has now reversed sharply,
back towards its 90 years average.

Conclusion

Based on the charts in this article, we can conclude that:

Platinum appears to be cheap relative to Gold
Platinum appears to be cheap relative to Silver
Platinum appears to be cheap relative to Palladium
Platinum thus appears cheap relative to the other*Precious Metal
discussed in this article.

If you are a stacker or collector of Silver coins you are probably
already familiar with the Perth Mint Lunar Series. After the success
of their first Lunar releases that began in 1999 the Perth Mint kicked
off Series II with release of the 2008 Year of the Mouse coin.

The most recent coin, 2011 Year of the Rabbit sold out within a week
after the Chinese New Year (5 months after initial release) with the
Perth Mint Blog noting they were sold out on February 9th. At that
time the Tiger (2010) and Ox (2009) were also sold out, but the 2008
Year of the Mouse was not, so the Perth Mint started minting and
selling these again to reach the 300,000 coin limit (the mouse is also
now sold out).

All the Series II 1 ounce Silver bullion coins have a 300,000 mintage
limit. On a global scale this is quite a small number and allows the
Lunar coins to achieve quite a nice premium compared to other Global
coins as well as other Perth Mint series like the Koala (which have
larger or no limits)

In comparison to the 300,000 limit on the Silver Lunar series, the
Timberwolf and Grizzly Bear, both part of the Canadian Wildlife Series
from the Royal Canadian Mint, both have a mintage of 1,000,000 (over 3
times that of the Lunar Series). The 1 ounce Silver Panda (BU) from
China had a mintage of 800,000 in 2010. It’s worth noting however that
other variations of the Lunar coins are not limited to a specific
mintage so the gilded & coloured versions as well as sizes other than
1 ounce (e.g. 1/2, 2, 5 or 10 ounce) could end up filling the void
where the mintage limited 1 ounce bullion coin cannot.

The Lunar coins are especially popular in European countries and
examples of the premiums fetched can be found on sites like
Silber-Corner or eBay Germany. In fact there is a rumour doing the
rounds that a European dealer approached the Perth Mint about buying
the entire 2012 Year of the Dragon mintage!

Pre-orders are already being taken for the 2012 Dragon coin with Gold
Stackers (sister site to the Silver Stackers forum) recently having
sold out of their allocation and Bullion Bourse now taking orders well
in advance of the expected September release. Even without having seen
the design it would seem that enthusiasts are keen to get their orders
in.

I suspect that demand for these coins is going to be astronomical. The
Year 2000 Dragon coin is easily still the most popular of the first
series and demands the highest premium even though it had the highest
mintage of the 1 ounce bullion coins (as per this reference table).
There is talk of these having instant premiums/being sold out on
release, I suspect that this won’t be the case, but it can’t hurt to
take precautions. I have placed a pre-order myself to both hedge
against the possibility of a higher Silver price at the time of
release as well as locking some in to avoid missing out. That said I
am holding back and will be looking to order more with any large dips
in the price of Silver (which I am expecting through the middle months
of the year as QE2 ends and uncertainty takes over).

While it is predominantly a bullion coin, the 1 ounce Silver Lunar coins:

- Have a low mintage
- Sport an aesthetically pleasing design
- Are housed in individual capsules
- Have a quality finish
- Are produced by world renowned Perth Mint
- Come with legal tender status
And are priced as bullion coins on release.

They allow a simple entry into the Silver market. If you expect Silver
to continue to appreciate over the medium term then they are a great
option as a bullion purchase, but come with the potential for a
numismatic premium once sold out at the Perth Mint.

Here is the mintage from the last 12 years of the Type 1 series…

Read more: http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/Perth-Mint-Lunar-Series-mintages.html#ixzz1fa197V44

http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/Perth-Mint-Lunar-Series-mintages.html

The conclusion I draw is that the kilos have consistently been produced, with the lowest mintage totals… I looked up where I can find previous kilos with two in mind. From the first dragon kilo, the price is around 3200… Also, the ox that was done two years ago, they are retailing at 2800… Again the kilo will be produced based on demand, but when production ends, price will begin to move up because of scarcity brought on by many collectors unwilling to sell….

I wanted to alert you to an opportunity I see taking place in a certain silver coin…. One year ago, the Canadian Mint began producing a “Wildlife Series” coin with a strict mintage of one million ounces with 5 future introductions of a different animal every 6 months….

First coin that was produced in the Canadian Wildlife series was the Canadian wolf, which when released in Sept of 2010, which at the time could be bought for spot +6.00… After a few months I noticed that the major dealers were able able to sell these for spot+ 20… Look below for today’s google search of Canadian wolves…

Shopping results for canadian silver wolf

Then I noticed the second series of the called the Canadian Silver Grizzlies were bought for a spot +6.00 premium, but three months into it, they show up as this on a google search….

Shopping results for canadian silver grizzlies

What is the reason for the explosion of price? Again they are minting only one million of each coin… Looking at supply and demand of all other silver coins, just this year of the 2011 Silver Eagles 40 million coins have been produced. And probably another 20 million this year will be produced which I believe will be a great investment because of where silver will be in the future. But what if you have a coin that will go up in value even if silver (hypothetically) does not go up? There is a numismatic value that is immediately happening to these coins that will outperform all major silver coins in the marketplace in seeing what is happening to the previous two coins minted… Would an investment that will go up two-fold (silver price and rarity premium) make sense? Buying a coin slightly over the price of a silver eagle but with potential significant upside is making sense… Below is more information on this coin…

The Royal Canadian Mint’s six-coin, three-year Canadian Wildlife silver bullion series just started shipping the Canadian cougar Sept.30^th, and with the latest pullback of silver this should present a good opportunity not only for the silver “pullback” witnessed in the last couple weeks, but a multiple that will be put on the coin because of the collector value being realized on this coin being produced by the second largest minted coin….

2012 Canadian Cougar Silver Bullion Coin – Click to Enlarge

Details of the strike were recently announced by the Mint, including its expected September 2011 release and 1,000,000 limited mintage.

“Issuing products which stand out in the competitive bullion industry has helped the Mint achieve a reputation as the source of the world’s purest and most innovative bullion coins,” commented Ian E. Bennett, President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint about the pending release.

Like the first two issues featuring a grizzly and depicting a wolf, the Cougar silver bullion coin is composed from .9999 fine silver. As a comparison, the popular American Silver Eagle bullion coin from the United States Mint is struck from .999 fine silver and has a much larger mintage that is determined by demand (nearly 29 million in 2011 through to August).

2012 Silver Cougar Bullion Coin Designs and Specifications

The Canadian Wildlife silver bullion series features reverse designs emblematic of the diverse array of wildlife that can be encountered in the vast landscape of Canada. Among those creatures is the cougar which is shown on the reverse of this one ounce silver strike. The cougar is also known as puma, mountain lion, mountain cat, catamount or panther in other regions of the world.

Senior Royal Canadian Mint Engraver William Woodruff is responsible for the design of the large cat. It depicts the Canadian cougar with its front paws grasped on a fallen inclined tree limb baring its large teeth with an open mouth. The inscriptions of CANADA, 9999, FINE SILVER, 1 OZ, ARGENT PUR and the initials WW for the designer are also shown on the reverse.

Canadian Wildlife silver bullion coins are struck as legal tender of Canada and feature face values of 5 DOLLARS which is indicated on the obverse. That is joined by the Susanna Blunt effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and additional inscriptions of 2011 and ELIZABETH II.

COMEX Registered Silver Bullion Inventories Fall Sharp 38.5% in Two Weeks – Risk of COMEX Silver Default Remains

Spot gold and silver prices rose slightly again this morning after hitting a one-month high yesterday as equity markets internationally came under selling pressure. The Moody’s downgrade of Greece and worryingly poor US economic data again pushed investors to seek the safe haven of bullion. Gold reached new record nominal highs in sterling yesterday (£945.62/oz) as the pound fell on concerns about the UK economy.

Silver Prices and Rates

Markets await key U.S. data on nonfarm payrolls Friday, while ongoing concerns over Greek sovereign debt and contagion in the Eurozone also affected market sentiment and supported the precious metals.

COMEX Silver Bullion Registered Inventories – January 1996 to May 31st 2011

Friday’s U.S. payrolls is likely to show that the world’s largest economy is weakening and may be on the verge of a double dip which will likely lead to further safe haven demand.

Seeing as the extent of the recovery was always exaggerated, this is not a surprise to us.

The supply situation in the silver market gets more interesting by the day.

Registered COMEX  silver inventories have fallen to multiyear lows at 29,631,268 ounces. In the last 5 days they fell from 32,132,903 ounces to Tuesday’s holdings of 29,631,268 ounces. As can be seen in the table below registered silver inventories fell every single day last week leading to a sharp fall of 8.4% in 5 days.

Registered metals are those metals which meet the standards for delivery under the silver futures contracts and for which a receipt from an Exchange-approved depository or warehouse has been issued. Eligible metals are those which meet the delivery standards as stated in the rules for which no receipt from an Exchange-approved warehouse has been issued.

This is a long term trend that has been seen since the early 1990’s when total COMEX silver stockpiles were over 101.45 million ounces.

However, the scale of the drop in inventories since early 2008 is significant and the trend has accelerated in recent weeks.

Registered silver inventories are down a sharp 38.5% in just two weeks – from 41,044,280 to 29,631,268.

COMEX Silver Bullion Registered Inventories – June 2009 to May 31st 2011

The record nominal highs near $50/oz, seen 31 years ago and again at the end of April, are likely to be seen again sooner rather than later due to the increasingly delicate supply demand balance.

The scale of current investment demand and industrial demand, especially from China and the rest of Asia, is such that it is important to keep monitoring COMEX warehouse stocks.

The Hunt Brothers were one of a few dozen billionaires in the world in the late 1970’s when they attempted to corner the market. Today there are thousands of billionaires in the world, any number of whom could again attempt to corner the silver market.

Also, today unlike in the 1970s, there are sovereign wealth funds and hundreds of hedge funds with access to billions in capital.

COMEX Silver Bullion Stockpiles – 05/31/11

The possibility of an attempted cornering of the silver market through buying and taking delivery of physical bullion remains real. However it would be very difficult to corner the silver market due to the very small nature of the silver bullion market.

A COMEX default remains a risk as does a massive short squeeze which could see silver surge as it did in the 1970s and again recently leading to silver targeting the inflation adjusted record high of $140/oz.

As ever price predictions from gurus should be take with a pinch of salt and diversification remains of paramount importance.

Taken from henrymakow.com

“The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” by Eustace Mullins

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” —Thomas Jefferson

In November 1949, Eustace Mullins, 25, was a researcher in Washington DC when friends invited him to visit the famous American poet Ezra Pound, who was confined at St. Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital and listed as a “political prisoner.”

A leading figure in Modern English literature, Pound was the editor and critic who introduced the world to James Joyce, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. During the Second World War, he was charged with treason for broadcasts on Rome Radio that questioned the motives behind America’s involvement.

Pound commissioned Mullins to examine the influence of the banking establishment on U.S. policy. Mullins spent every morning for two years in the Library of Congress and met with Pound every afternoon. The resulting manuscript, “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” proved too hot for any American publisher to handle. Nineteen rejected it. One said, “you’ll never get this published in New York.” When it finally appeared in Germany in 1955, the U.S. Military Government confiscated all 10,000 copies and burned them.

Thanks to the American Patriot Friends Network, this book is freely available on line. (I recommend you save it on your desktop, as I did.) Why is it so (excuse the pun) inflammatory?

Essentially it paints a picture of the world, and the role of the United States, which is radically different from the one we are given in school or in the media.

“Notwithstanding the war of independence against England,” writes Mullins, “we remained an economic and financial colony of Great Britain.” Between 1865 and 1913, he says London bankers led by the Rothschilds used agents such as J.P. Morgan and J.D. Rockefeller to gain control of American industry and organize it into cartels.

Where did these bankers get the money? For over 200 years, European bankers have been able to draw on the credit of their host countries to print it!

In the Seventeenth Century, the moneylenders and the aristocracy made a pact. If the king would make paper currency a liability of the state, the moneylenders would print as much as he liked! Thus the Banks of England, France and the Reichsbank came into being but they were all private corporations and remain so today.

According to this nefarious pact, the moneylenders got to charge interest on assets they created out of thin air. The aristocracy all took shares in the central banks plus they got to finance a burgeoning government and to wage costly wars.

This piece of chicanery is at the heart what plagues humanity.

The bankers have a vested interest in the state (i.e. the people) incurring as much debt as possible. They are behind the Marxist, socialist and liberal movements which call for big government and social spending. They are behind the catastrophic wars of the last century. The Warburgs financed the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bank of England financed the rise of Hitler. Prescott Bush (W’s grandfather) was head of Brown Brothers Harriman, which financed the construction of the Nazi war machine.

Naturally if you can create money out of thin air, your first instinct is to buy tangible assets with it. There is a powerful impulse to use debt to control nations and take over their real assets. This is the essence of the so-called Third World Debt crisis. Dedicated to owning all wealth and enslaving humanity, an irresistible vampire has been unleashed uponthe world

Much of Mullins book is devoted to the subterfuge by which the United States was drawn into its lethal embrace. In 1913, the Owen-Glass Bill gave mostly foreign-controlled banks (posing as “the Federal Reserve”) the right to create currency based on the credit of the United States government and to charge it interest for doing it!

To accomplish this, the bankers had to rig the election of 1913 in order to get Woodrow Wilson elected. Then their stooges in Congress passed the legislation on December 22 after their opponents had gone home for Christmas.

“This act establishes the most gigantic trust [cartel] on earth,” Congressman Charles Lindbergh said at the time. “When the President signs this bill; the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed.”

Mullins explains that the legislation passed just in time for the American people to finance World War One. After maintaining standing armies for 50 years, European powers no longer could afford the luxury of another war. But the U.S. was relatively debt free and made the whole thing possible.

What would WWI have been without Germany? Apparently Germany was not self-sufficient in food and would have had to sit out this war. In the nick of time, the bankers organized something called “The Belgium Relief Committee” which channeled billions of dollars worth of U.S. meat and potatoes not to Belgium but to Germany. When Edith Cavell, an American working in a Belgium hospital pointed this out, British intelligence had the Germans arrest and execute her.

Mullins makes a convincing case that every U.S. President since Wilson has been a lackey of the bankers. J.F. Kennedy was assassinated because he started to print his own U.S. government-backed currency. This is also the transgression that led to the murders of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield.

Last year alone, the American people paid $360 billion in interest to the bankers. To maintain this massive fraud, the bankers enforce an iron grip on the political and cultural organs of the nation. According to Mullins, “The New York Times” is owned by the Kuhn Loeb while “The Washington Post” is owned by Lazard Freres. In Europe the Rothschilds own Reuters as well as the French and German news services.

I presume US publishers, TV networks and movie producers are similarly beholden. Rockefellers, Carnegies and the Fords endow the nations’ libraries and universities. Journalists and professors dutifully parrot fantasies about democracy and freedom. Mind control laboratories run by the CIA and the British army (TheTavistock Institute) dream up ways to manipulate and undermine the population. The psychological sterilization of the human female (“feminism”) is an example.

The “War on Terror” is part of the banking cabal’s plan to consolidate its grip on humanity in a friendly (or not so friendly) fascist “New World Order.” They want to secure their political, economic and social grip on the obstreperous Muslim world, as well as build up a security apparatus in case the docile populations of the West become restive.

Well, at least the cosmic battle between Good and Evil is out in the open at last!

June 26, 2002

“The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” by Eustace Mullins

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” —Thomas Jefferson

In November 1949, Eustace Mullins, 25, was a researcher in Washington DC when friends invited him to visit the famous American poet Ezra Pound, who was confined at St. Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital and listed as a “political prisoner.”

A leading figure in Modern English literature, Pound was the editor and critic who introduced the world to James Joyce, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. During the Second World War, he was charged with treason for broadcasts on Rome Radio that questioned the motives behind America’s involvement.

Pound commissioned Mullins to examine the influence of the banking establishment on U.S. policy. Mullins spent every morning for two years in the Library of Congress and met with Pound every afternoon. The resulting manuscript, “The Secrets of the Federal Reserve” proved too hot for any American publisher to handle. Nineteen rejected it. One said, “you’ll never get this published in New York.” When it finally appeared in Germany in 1955, the U.S. Military Government confiscated all 10,000 copies and burned them.

Thanks to the American Patriot Friends Network, this book is freely available on line. (I recommend you save it on your desktop, as I did.) Why is it so (excuse the pun) inflammatory?

Essentially it paints a picture of the world, and the role of the United States, which is radically different from the one we are given in school or in the media.

“Notwithstanding the war of independence against England,” writes Mullins, “we remained an economic and financial colony of Great Britain.” Between 1865 and 1913, he says London bankers led by the Rothschilds used agents such as J.P. Morgan and J.D. Rockefeller to gain control of American industry and organize it into cartels.

Where did these bankers get the money? For over 200 years, European bankers have been able to draw on the credit of their host countries to print it!

In the Seventeenth Century, the moneylenders and the aristocracy made a pact. If the king would make paper currency a liability of the state, the moneylenders would print as much as he liked! Thus the Banks of England, France and the Reichsbank came into being but they were all private corporations and remain so today.

According to this nefarious pact, the moneylenders got to charge interest on assets they created out of thin air. The aristocracy all took shares in the central banks plus they got to finance a burgeoning government and to wage costly wars.

This piece of chicanery is at the heart what plagues humanity.

The bankers have a vested interest in the state (i.e. the people) incurring as much debt as possible. They are behind the Marxist, socialist and liberal movements which call for big government and social spending. They are behind the catastrophic wars of the last century. The Warburgs financed the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bank of England financed the rise of Hitler. Prescott Bush (W’s grandfather) was head of Brown Brothers Harriman, which financed the construction of the Nazi war machine.

Naturally if you can create money out of thin air, your first instinct is to buy tangible assets with it. There is a powerful impulse to use debt to control nations and take over their real assets. This is the essence of the so-called Third World Debt crisis. Dedicated to owning all wealth and enslaving humanity, an irresistible vampire has been unleashed uponthe world

Much of Mullins book is devoted to the subterfuge by which the United States was drawn into its lethal embrace. In 1913, the Owen-Glass Bill gave mostly foreign-controlled banks (posing as “the Federal Reserve”) the right to create currency based on the credit of the United States government and to charge it interest for doing it!

To accomplish this, the bankers had to rig the election of 1913 in order to get Woodrow Wilson elected. Then their stooges in Congress passed the legislation on December 22 after their opponents had gone home for Christmas.

“This act establishes the most gigantic trust [cartel] on earth,” Congressman Charles Lindbergh said at the time. “When the President signs this bill; the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed.”

Mullins explains that the legislation passed just in time for the American people to finance World War One. After maintaining standing armies for 50 years, European powers no longer could afford the luxury of another war. But the U.S. was relatively debt free and made the whole thing possible.

What would WWI have been without Germany? Apparently Germany was not self-sufficient in food and would have had to sit out this war. In the nick of time, the bankers organized something called “The Belgium Relief Committee” which channeled billions of dollars worth of U.S. meat and potatoes not to Belgium but to Germany. When Edith Cavell, an American working in a Belgium hospital pointed this out, British intelligence had the Germans arrest and execute her.

Mullins makes a convincing case that every U.S. President since Wilson has been a lackey of the bankers. J.F. Kennedy was assassinated because he started to print his own U.S. government-backed currency. This is also the transgression that led to the murders of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield.

Last year alone, the American people paid $360 billion in interest to the bankers. To maintain this massive fraud, the bankers enforce an iron grip on the political and cultural organs of the nation. According to Mullins, “The New York Times” is owned by the Kuhn Loeb while “The Washington Post” is owned by Lazard Freres. In Europe the Rothschilds own Reuters as well as the French and German news services.

I presume US publishers, TV networks and movie producers are similarly beholden. Rockefellers, Carnegies and the Fords endow the nations’ libraries and universities. Journalists and professors dutifully parrot fantasies about democracy and freedom. Mind control laboratories run by the CIA and the British army (TheTavistock Institute) dream up ways to manipulate and undermine the population. The psychological sterilization of the human female (“feminism”) is an example.

The “War on Terror” is part of the banking cabal’s plan to consolidate its grip on humanity in a friendly (or not so friendly) fascist “New World Order.” They want to secure their political, economic and social grip on the obstreperous Muslim world, as well as build up a security apparatus in case the docile populations of the West become restive.

Well, at least the cosmic battle between Good and Evil is out in the open at last!

?