Liberty Dollar Irks Mint

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:10:42 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Silver at Wolfesblog - the news of the US Mint being unhappy about the Liberty Dollar is old. But Silver's commentary on the problems with the Liberty Dollar are still worth reading. Instead of sporting a dollar amount, the Liberty Dollar should say "Silver: One Troy Ounce" or some such, and its value should float with silver's market value. In the old days, when a dollar was defined as one troy ounce of silver, putting a dollar amount on a privately minted coin might have made sense. No more. Click here for Clairefiles forum discussion, including a civilized back-and-forth between Silver and a proponent of the Liberty Dollar. [clairefiles]

There are several problems with the Liberty Dollar (LD).

1) The premium on the coin is very high; currently a coin with 1 ozt of silver, worth less than $11 on the spot market, is valued by the LD folks at $20. Last Friday (the market is closed as I write) Goldmasters was quoting other free-market silver coins for $11.64, and official US Mint coins for $13.94. The market values US mint coins over private mints; the premium last Friday was $2.30 per coin. The market values a coin more than an ingot of questionable purity; the premium was $0.59.

Add comment Edit post Add post