About American Silver Eagle Proofs

To a very large degree is is due to unprecedented promotions being made by salesmen trying to sell IRA accounts. The increasing prices in precious metals this year have given these guys a tool to use and they are using it to the n'th degree. People are scared, and there is no stronger emotion than fear, so they are buying into the hype.

To top it off, the IRA managers are assigning values virtually out of thin air to these coins simply because they are Proofs. They are doing the same thing with gold issues. ASE Proofs are assigned a value of $50 each in the IRA accounts and the AGE Proofs (1 oz) are assigned a value of $2000. This arbitrary assignation of value by IRA managers has led the coin market to accept these values for common, late date Proof examples, because they can point to them a say - see, they ARE worth this much.

Coincidentally, along with the recent increase in late date Proof bullion coin values, those few examples which have traditionally held more value than other dates, namely the '94, '95 & '96 Proof ASE's, have dropped in value by 25% in the same time frame that the late date issues have increased by 50%.

This points to an inherent danger in my opinion. Since their is no real reason to justify this increase in value for what are common NCLT coins, and because their values are supposed to be based on bullion content alone according to federal law for inclusion in IRA's, I expect that at some point the goverment is going to step in and downgrade those values to honestly reflect their true value - bullion content.

This could have a devastating effect on the overall value of many people's IRA accounts in regard to value. And in turn, would cause a virtually overnight collapse of the market for these bullion coins. Well perhaps collapse is a bit harsh, but if values dropped from $50 per coin to the realistic $18 per coin (which is their true bullion value) - that's a pretty hefty loss to take in one fell swoop.

At the very least, these people who are buying these Proof issues at these vastly inflated values today, may well suffer exhorbitant losses at the time they try to cash in some years from now when the coins sell for bullion content alone.

It is recipe for disaster.

 

Non Circulating Legal Tender

 

Yeah they will sell for more than business strikes. But what I am talking about is whether or not the IRS will accept the assigned value for tax purposes. This has never happened before. And tax returns for this year have not been sent in yet. Don't forget, in an IRA account you get to write off the amount you deposit on your taxes. And the IRS is rather sticky about such things.

Time will tell.

 

I just read an interesting letter in NN from Robert L. Higgins, Pres./CEO of Certified Assets Management. In his letter he talks about folks putting Proof AGE's into their IRA's. He advocates using the business strike AGE's, which sell for a precentage over spot, if you feel you must or want to put gold in your IRA. This is a quote from the letter.

" I don't have millions of dollars to try and promote this like the companies who sell this concept do and I am not making too many friends by bringing this subject up, BUT think about what this is doing to our nation's retirement future. Currently there is $4.4 trillion in IRA's, only the coin market can turn that into $1.5 trillion."

It seems I am not the only one concerned about this situation with the current pricing of AGE Proofs.

 

Only to a collector who was willing to pay such outrageous prices. And that is usually a collector with little real knowledge of the hobby. The vast majority of collectors wouldn't buy them at all.