By Harry Miller, Numismatic News October 15, 2013

This article was originally printed in Numismatic News.
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I was at the screen reviewing overseas markets and commentaries to prepare this column and I see precious metal confusion. The bulls had a lot of common sense, but the bears also had good arguments, like why are metals not rallying with all the financial duress caused by Washington? It was depressing to see the markets sell off yesterday especially since Janet Yellen seems like a shoo-in for Fed chair. I looked at last week’s report and noticed that while gold was down $4, the others were up; the lack of a real rally here worries me. The only plausible excuse is that investors are sitting on the sidelines accumulating cash in case of a default by the United States. A default will never happen because there are more than enough taxes coming in to pay the interest on our debt. Soldiers may not eat or the needy may not get their benefits, but the interest will be paid. Thinking about that, which would be highly deflationary, might be what gold is telling us.

In the area of U.S. type coins, gold is where the primary action continues to be with generic issues following bullion. Better date issues remain in good demand as exemplified by the 1909-O $5 Indian up 30 percent in MS-64 and the 1920-S $10 Indian up 10 percent in MS-64 and MS-65.

The non-gold type arena is highlighted by Draped Bust quarters in VG-8 through EF-40 and Seated dollars up to $275 in G-4 for either type. Collector demand pushes the quarters while promotional demand the dollars.

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