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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;WingedLiberty, post: 1174167, member: 26030&quot;]My primary local dealer that does huge internet business is still completely out of ASE&#039;s ... this was true at $50 and still true at $35.&nbsp; And they just pushed back their &quot;shipping date&quot; of 2011 ASE&#039;s to May 31.&nbsp; I spoke with the owner at length on wednesday and he was telling me that everytime silver dipped a little bit he would get piles of orders for 500 count sealed green boxes.&nbsp; Domestic orders not foreign.&nbsp; When he sold out of 2011 ASEs, people started ordering all the older dates (selling at higher premiums).&nbsp; His stock of Silver Eagles is completely gone.&nbsp; He said he was actually embarrassed having no stock of ASE&#039;s since they are so popular and he considers himself a high volume dealer. He did say he still has some 90% pre-64 junk silver, but that stock was low on that too.</p><p><br /></p><p>I then asked him if shipments of ASE&#039;s from the mint had slowed down.&nbsp; He said he didnt know exactly what they were doing, but he thinks the mint&#039;s production of ASE&#039;s has slowed down quite a bit since January.&nbsp; He reasoned that the mint feels they can make more money selling silver coins to collectors at higher margins (things like the commems or proofs) -- and that the $2 (5% to 7%) profit margin by the mint on an ASE was too small for them to be motivated producers.&nbsp;&nbsp; He also thought that the mint was having a harder time getting enough raw silver to produce ASE&#039;s in quantity (although he admitted this was only his theory).&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: darkorange">[As aside: the dealer didnt share this info with me -&nbsp; but I got the impression that they might be a 2nd tier distributor not a 1st tier -- that is, I think he might get his supply from a 1st tier distributor not directly from the mint -- however I am not sure -- I did ask him this question but he didnt really answer it.&nbsp; I did notice this mornning that APMEX was also OUT of 2011 ASE&#039;s and they list the &quot;shipping date&quot; as May 13th.&nbsp; KITCO also appears out of ASE&#039;s.&nbsp;&nbsp; Looks like this supply shortage is becoming more widespread.]</span></p><p><br /></p><p>I was watching this site to get a feel for the monthly production of ASE&#039;s ... </p><p><a href="http://americansilvereagles.us/2011-silver-eagles/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://americansilvereagles.us/2011-silver-eagles/" rel="nofollow">http://americansilvereagles.us/2011-silver-eagles/</a></p><p>but they havent posted any new info since the January and February 2011 monthly summaries.&nbsp; If anyone knows where I can find the info on the monthly production of 2011 ASE&#039;s for March and April, let me know as I am curious about monitoring this.</p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s noteworthy that January showed the largest production month of ASE&#039;s in the history of the series (over 7 million ASEs produced in 1 month) -- then the Feb production fell by 50% -- and I think that drop was not due to a demand drop but due to supply shortages.&nbsp; This certainly is interesting -- physical silver still appears to be in really short supply -- while the price drops 30%.&nbsp; My feeling is a continued drop in the price of silver is only going to increase demand.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Another thing I noticed is dealer&#039;s spreads on 100 count and 500 count ASE&#039;s have increased over the past month.&nbsp; This is something someone posted in a video a while ago, that the spread to buy physical silver would start to increase due to tight supplies even in an environment of falling prices (due to massive selling of paper silver contracts in the ETFs).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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