We’ve made a few changes to the format for showing how well, or badly, the US Mint and the Perth Mint are doing with their bullion sales and hopefully we’ll stick with this one. The first graph in each section will compare the months sales figures with the previous month and more importantly, with the same month a year ago. The second graph shows sales for the year to date and compares them with the same period last year. Everything green in colour is the latest figure.

Hopefully, this will give a better indicator of the trends rather than focusing too much on the individual month and the new graphs help visualise it better. Our Bullion Sales page remains live and tracks the official figures from the last six years. Those graphs really do give a good look at the state of the market compared to the previous half-decade and it’s permanently accessible on the main menu under RESOURCES.

We’re looking at getting less confusing numbers from the Royal Canadian Mint, but at present they’ve changed reporting by lumping everything in together whereas the previously listed out the bullion coins seperately. They also only report quaterly and even then with some delay, so for now at least, we’ll continue to leave them out. Any comments, feel free to leave them below.

There really seems to be no end to the bad news regarding American Silver Eagle (ASE) sales. May has produced the worst monthly sales of the year to date and it has even failed to approach half the previous worst number. As for the month of May compared to previous years, the next worst result in the last six years is FIVE TIMES HIGHER. The Perth Mint by comparison is just trundling along, posting better numbers than April, but little more than half any other month in 2018. They’re also the lowest May numbers since the introduction of the big selling Kangaroo coin – again, barely cracking through half the usual numbers from the last two Mays. They have jumped in front of the ASE, however.

Year to date, the picture at the US Mint doesn’t improve. Almost five million fewer ounces left the mint in the first five months of 2018 compared to 2017. Worryingly, the trend is downward. In Perth they can take some comfort in the fact that overall silver sales are up, even though they’re well shy of 10% up. In this market, any upward trend is to be applauded, we guess.

In contrast to silver, the American Gold Eagle has seen a healthy jump in May. A rise from 15,500 last May to 24,000 ounces in May 2018 is nothing to be sniffed at and the rise over April 2018’s 4,500 is positively mountainous. Dig a little deeper, however, and the truth is that year-to-date sales of the AGE are barely half of those at the same time in 2017.

The Perth Mint by comparison has seen a 50% drop on last May and numbers remain very low at under 15k/oz. Year-to-date sales are down around a quarter on the same time in 2017, so while not as bad as the US Mint, still nothing to shout about. Perth remains ahead of the US Mint in overall gold sales so far this year.