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U.S. Mint: New coin for investor market

A gold coin will go on sale early next year, with international investment sales the target.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Mint is putting special luster into a new gold coin, hoping to win a bigger share of international investment sales. It will be the first 24-karat gold bullion coin in U.S. history.

The Mint said Tuesday it wants to begin selling the coin by early next year with the goal of making it the best-selling such coin in the world. It would sell at prices far above face value, keyed to the world price of gold.

The Mint produces 22-karat gold bullion coins in its American Eagle series, but it has been finding that international investors, especially in Asia, prefer purer coins.

The American Eagle coins have face values of $50, $25, $10 and $5 but they sell for much more than that. The $50 American Eagle was selling for about $447 Tuesday.

The gold content in the American Eagle coins ranges from an ounce in the $50 American Eagle to one-tenth of an ounce in the $5 coin.

The new coins are expected to sell for essentially the same price as American Eagle coins with similar levels of gold. The only difference will be that the new series will be pure gold without alloys mixed in.

Twenty-four-karat coins - produced by Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Singapore and Mexico - account for about 60 percent of global gold coin sales.

Mint officials estimate the potential global market for 24-karat gold coins at $2.4-billion annually.

"We are the No. 1 seller in the world for 22-karat gold, silver and platinum coins and we hope to become the No. 1 seller in the world for 24-karat gold coins," Mint director Henrietta Holsman Fore said.

This will mark the first time the U.S. Mint has produced a 24-karat gold coin, a designation that means it contains 99.99 percent gold. The 22-karat gold coin, on the market since 1986, contains 91.67 percent gold with the rest of the coin silver and copper.

Congress authorized the sale of the American Eagle gold coins in December 1985 after then-President Reagan banned imports of the South African Kruggerand, a 22-karat gold coin.

Before the American Eagle gold coin went on sale in October 1986, the United States had not had a gold coin in general circulation since 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and ordered gold coins then in circulation withdrawn.

Currently, American purchases of 24-karat gold coins made in other countries represent almost one-third of all gold coin sales in the United States.

Fore said no theme has been selected for the 24-karat coins but possibilities include liberty, freedom, independence or an early American historical image, such as the Liberty Bell. The Mint's Citizen Coinage Advisory Committee is scheduled to consider proposals next week.

[Last modified April 20, 2005, 02:56:36]