World mints have struggled to keep up with the booming demand for precious metals. The situation has been ongoing for more than a year and frustrated physical silver investors with suspensions, rationing, and delays. There are finally some signs that the shortage may be coming to an end, in particular for the American Silver Eagle bullion coin.

The Silver Eagle shortage first began in February 2008. The US Mint became so overwhelmed with orders for the popular silver bullion coin that they were forced to suspend taking new orders. The suspension was only in place until March 2009; however, sales were resumed on a rationed basis. Authorized purchasers were limited in the number of coins that they could order. Early suggestions indicated that the rationed amounts covered only a fraction of the overall demand.

ETF Securities USA recently filed with the SEC to launch exchange traded funds covering platinum and palladium. There are currently no exchange traded funds covering these metals available in the United States.

The same firm already offers ETFs for platinum and palladium which trade in Europe. According to the Wall Street Journal, the platinum holdings for the ETF approach 500,000 ounces.

In a previous post, I reviewed the amount of silver bullion sold by the United States Mint during 2008. With this post, I will take a longer term look at silver demand, which highlights the absolute explosion in demand which has occurred in recent years.

The supporting data for the charts included with this post comes from a new section of Gold and Silver Blog which collects the US Mint Silver Bullion Sales data since the inception of the program in 1986. You can visit the page to find the monthly sales figures for any date from 1986 to present. The section also calculates the approximate silver bullion value of each period’s sales based on the average monthly price of silver.

Over the past several months, the United States Mint has announced a series of actions and policy changes that make it more difficult for the average individual to buy gold. There have always been plausible or semi-plausible explanations, but the consequence of each action has been to limit or discourage gold ownership.

The recent actions of the United States Mint in relation to gold are presented below. I have also included the US Mint’s explanation for each situation, taken from official memorandums or press releases.

As trillions of dollars in equity values were vaporized this year, a strong November and December performance pushed gold into positive territory by year end. Gold’s annual gain was 4.32%. This marks gold’s eighth consecutive annual gain. The “lost decade” for stocks, has been quite the opposite for gold. Silver and platinum were less fortunate, posting losses of 26.90% and 41.31% respectively.

(Figures calculated from Kitco’s London PM Fix prices)

In the past week, gold quietly marked two important milestones.

First, as of Monday the price of gold is now showing a gain for the year. The closing price of gold on December 31, 2007 was $833.75. The price of gold today is $854.60. That makes gold up 2.5% for the year to date. If gold can hang onto this gain into the end of the year, this will also mark the eighth year in a row that gold has had a positive return. For the year and for this decade, gold has humbled its naysayers and rewarded its investors.

For much of the year, the United States Mint has been touting the upcoming recreation of what it has called the “nation’s most beautiful coin.” Augustus Saint Gaudens’ design for the Ultra High Relief Gold Double Eagle will be recreated as a one ounce 24 karat gold coin available for sale to the public.

The Mint’s intention to recreate the coin was first announced this March, followed by an official unveiling in July, and a well publicized first striking in November. The US Mint intends to strike the coins throughout 2009 in quantities necessary to meet public demand. So far, coin collectors have responded enthusiastically to the upcoming offering. With the recent mainstream attention on gold, there will likely be interest from the broader public as well. Is the United States Mint prepared to handle the potentially significant demand for the new gold coin?

Recently published commentary from analysts at Citigroup and JP Morgan both paint a bright picture for the future of gold. Citigroup specifically mentions the $2,000 level as attainable. JP Morgan recommends buying gold for the run into the holidays.

The Citigroup report runs down many factors that are well known to gold investors. Citi mentions the possibility that recent financial actions of world authorities will either result in massive inflation if the actions are successful; or further economic deterioration that leads to political instability and unrest if the actions are unsuccessful. Either scenario would have positive implications for gold. Citi also mentions the finite supply of gold in the world, and gold’s indisputable status as a monetary instrument. The full report can be found here (pdf link).

If you’ve tried buying physical silver recently, then you are undoubtedly aware of the incredibly high premiums charged above market value. I wrote previously about the premiums for 100 ounce silver bars, which are traditionally a low premium method for acquiring silver. At the time of investigation, premiums were running from 40% to 50%  above the market price of silver.

Premiums for virtually all other methods of acquiring physical silver are also stubbornly high. American Silver Eagles, Canadian Silver Maple Leafs, and other government issued bullion coins carry premiums often well in excess of 50%. The same high premiums persist for generic silver rounds, small size bars, and bags of 90% junk silver. Even 1,000 ounce silver bars are now carrying premiums of 25% to 30%. Many people have been actively looking for the method which will provide the absolute lowest premiums.

Yesterday the United States Mint announced some sweeping cuts to the number of products that it will offer to coin collectors. The deepest cuts take place in the US Mint’s offerings of collectible versions of gold and platinum bullion coins.

Most people know about the US Mint’s bullion coin offerings. American Eagle coins composed of gold, silver, and platinum are sold to the public through a network of authorized bullion dealers. In recent years, American Buffalo Gold coins were added to the lineup. These coins are bought and sold primarily as a means of investing in precious metals.

Yesterday the United States Mint announced some sweeping cuts to the number of products that it will offer to coin collectors. The deepest cuts take place in the US Mint’s offerings of collectible versions of gold and platinum bullion coins.

Most people know about the US Mint’s bullion coin offerings. American Eagle coins composed of gold, silver, and platinum are sold to the public through a network of authorized bullion dealers. In recent years, American Buffalo Gold coins were added to the lineup. These coins are bought and sold primarily as a means of investing in precious metals.

There has been much recent coverage of the rising premiums being paid to purchase physical gold and silver bullion. This has been cited as a consequence of the extreme demand for precious metals and evidence of the growing disconnect between market prices and physical prices.

I decided to look at some data to calculate exactly what kind of premiums are being paid and see if any trend or patterns in the data could be determined.

Gold reached its all time high price above $1,000 per ounce a few days after the shocking Bear Stearns bailout. In the following months, gold often experienced sharp declines and has stubbornly refused to reattain the key $1,000 level despite more shocking bailouts, bank failures, and bankruptcies.

Reporters, analysts, and bloggers have cited a variety of reasons why gold has not exploded higher amidst the ongoing turmoil. Some of the reasons are more valid than others, but all are worth examining. Without further ado, the Gold and Silver Blog brings you the Top Ten Reasons Gold Is Not Above $1,000:

With the price of gold on the decline, flimsy commentaries have started to appear which characterize gold as a fringe bet of foolish people.  I am admittedly biased in the opposite direction writing gold and silver blog, but if I wrote a commentary, I would at least make some substantive arguments that go beyond cursory and reckless statements.

I found this recent commentary, written by Jane Bryant Quinn for Bloomberg, particularly egregious, so I would like to examine some of her specific points.

Earlier this week, the United States Mint took further actions to meet the increased demand for gold and silver bullion coins. This included production halts for certain bullion offerings and the continued allocation for one ounce Gold and Silver American Eagle coins.

Within the memorandum sent to authorized bullion purchasers, the US Mint specifically stated, "gold and silver demand is unprecedented." Throughout the course of this year, the Mint has provided similar explanations each time a new suspension or allocation program went into effect. While sales of Silver Eagle coins are higher than any other year in history, the sales of Gold Eagle coins are far below their peak.

I don't think I have to rehash the events of the past few days. I've put together a quick list of possible lessons or takeaways. If you've lost money, at least learn from it.

You don't have to be in on every trade or every situation. When Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) were teetering on the brink, they experienced periods of sharp gains amidst the sharp declines. Even during the week before the government stepped in, both stocks posted in excess of 100% gains from intraday low to intraday high. Most people were predicting a stock price of zero, but some still felt compelled to make the trade, to "buy a lottery ticket." That is not how investing works. If you find yourself thinking along these lines, turn off your computer and go out for a sandwich. That sandwich will probably turn out to be a wise investment.

The full live auction list including reserve price ranges for the live auction at the upcoming TRAFFIC conference has been released.

Some of the best generic dot com domain names are held by public companies. Some are used in relation to a particular campaign or product like open.com or baby.com, while others simply forward the owner's main website like gift.com or books.com. Here is an extensive list of generic domain names owned by public corporations.

In the final issue of Business 2.0, Paul Sloan covers the Marchex (MCHX) story. In addition to providing a great history of the company and its founder, the article also mentions Open List. This is the technology that Marchex uses to pull together relevant content from around the web to automatically seed 100,000 different websites. I had mentioned in an earlier post that the resulting websites don't seem all that useful.

The article also brings forth a comparison of the profitability of a domain parking company and Marchex. Marchex's largest acquisition was for a portfolio of domain names that made $18 million a year of profit on $20 million of revenue. As a whole, Marchex recently made $220,000 profit on $134 million of revenue. If Marchex's development strategy does not start to yield incremental traffic and revenue, all they have done is created a domain name parking company with way too much overhead and a compromised revenue model.

In early August, Tucows (TCX) dropped sharply following their second quarter earnings release. Tucows's decline was joined by other domain related stocks which also logged double digit percentage declines in August.

Since second quarter earnings, the company has been relatively quiet with a few notable items:

The Shakeout