Physical Gold in Short Supply While Premium Remains Elevated.

As I started noticing on Wednesday 2/3/21, physical gold was getting scarce. Here is what I indicated two days ago:

As of 2/3/21 @ 12:10 PM EST there is only one dealer selling in quantities of more than 10 coins: APMEX. This is the first time that I have seen this situation since I started keeping track last April. It appears that physical gold is starting to get in short supply just like its sister metal, silver (although as of 2/3/21 @ 8:20 PM EST silver coins are now available in quantity again).

Or, maybe it is as innocuous as dealers just no longer relying on Ebay to sell their coins after the silver squeeze from earlier in the week.

Time will tell …

Because my daily updates are only based on Ebay prices, I decided to look a bit further afield just to make sure that that I had confirmation of my own observations.

Well, I found a website which offers a comparison of gold coin offer prices from many firms: CompareGoldPrices.com.

When you first get on the site you see an nice selection of Gold Eagles for sale at a wide range of prices.

But then at the top in bold red is a very important notification:

Note: almost all dealers are out of inventory at this time due to extreme shortages. Pricing is provided for convenience, if available.

I clicked each link just to make sure and it turns out that there is very limited availability for immediate delivery. Here are the details:

• Silver.com: Available but 10+ shipping day delay ($1,965.14 check/wire price)
• BGASC: Available Immediately ($1,956.13 check/wire price)
• SD Bullion: Available but 10+ shipping day delay ($2,048.97 check/wire price)
• KITCO: Out of stock
• Provident Metals: Out of stock
• JM Bullion: Out of stock
• APMEX: The only dealer selling in quantity on Ebay
• GoldSilver: 1-2 month delay

This might account for the substantial increase in physical gold premiums that started on 1/12/21. The chart at the top of this post shows this very clearly. Essentially, premiums went from 8% on that day all the way up to approximately 12% today. That is a 50% increase in a short amount of time.