Collecting American Eagle Platinum Coins
Have you given any thought to collecting platinum bullion coins? Is there a rationale for collecting American Eagles minted on platinum planchets? And how does platinum compare to gold as an investment?
As I write this, gold’s value is $1,922 an ounce, with platinum at $951 an ounce. In other words, gold is worth more than twice as much as platinum. This gold/platinum differential hasn’t always been the case, however.
A graph comparing platinum and gold values over time reveals that, for many years, platinum’s value was significantly above that of gold. This was true from about 1946 through the mid-1970s, at which time gold dramatically increased to make the two metals approximately equal in value. They stayed this way until the turn of the century. At that point, platinum again gained the edge and held it until about 2005, when the two metals began to track each other in a gradual decline for the next decade. After that, platinum continued the decline whereas gold rose in value to give us the situation today.
If rarity were the sole factor determining value, the much rarer platinum would be worth considerably more than gold. As just one measure of this relative rarity, approximately 2,500 to 3,000 tons of gold are extracted annually compared to fewer than 200 tons of platinum.
The bulk of the world’s platinum comes from Russia and South Africa. By contrast, the countries contributing significantly to the world’s gold production are China, the United States, Australia and Canada, in addition to Russia and South Africa.
Both precious metals have
