Time to Take a More Serious Look at Platinum?

Pork may be advertised as the ‘other white meat,’ but platinum is the ‘other white metal.’ The low mintage of Platinum American Eagle coins speaks for itself, but the series has never caught on with collectors, mostly being relegated (with the exception of the proofs) to bullion trading by precious metal investors instead. Even at bullion spot prices, platinum, like gold and silver, has made a significant increase in value recently. Should collectors take a more serious look at them?

The PAE series could be called sleepers. Gold coins, both the intrinsic value impacted and the scarce to rare, appear to be fully priced at the moment. While some significantly rare or high-grade gold coins have performed well at recent auctions, other less significant coins have not. The headlined prices realized are impressive at first glance, but few have been record setting.

Silver coins are performing better than gold, likely due to bullion gaining about 10 percent in one month. Morgan and Peace silver dollar values continue to lag the market, perhaps suggesting as with platinum this is becoming a sleeper series. With the value of so many coins continuing to move horizontally this may be an indication market expansion is still to be seen. Anything being valued partially or fully for its intrinsic value is selling, but coins oriented more strictly towards collectors continue to lag. If gold and silver break out of their current trading range this could be good for the coin market—both buyers and sellers.