By Jason Scott
Silver-coin sales from Australia’s Perth Mint, which was founded in 1899 and processes all of the country’s bullion, have surged to a record as buyers seek to protect their wealth with the metal known as poor man’s gold.

The mint sold 10.7 million 1-ounce silver coins since July 1 last year, according to Sales and Marketing Director Ron Currie. That’s 66 percent higher than the previous full fiscal year and about 10-fold more than five years earlier. Sales of 1- ounce gold coins will be close to a record, he said.

The soaring demand adds to signs investors are stepping up precious-metal purchases as Europe’s governments tackle a sovereign-debt crisis and central banks led by the U.S. Federal Reserve print cash to stimulate their economies, potentially devaluing paper currencies. Silver, the second-best performing commodity over the past year, rallied to a record in April.

“Silver’s still booming and it’s been going strongly for a year,” Currie said in interview yesterday from the mint in Western Australia’s capital. “A lot of the buying is by people new to the market,” with European and U.S. investors the most active international purchasers of the mint’s products, he said.

Immediate-delivery silver, which rallied to $49.79 an ounce on April 25, was at $36.33 at 4:40 p.m. in Perth, 42.6 times cheaper than gold. Over the past year, silver has beaten all the commodities on the Standard & Poor’s GSCI index apart from top- ranked corn. Spot gold, rallying for an 11th straight year, has gained 25 percent.

Full Capacity
The Perth Mint, producer of about 6 percent of the world’s gold bullion, introduced a web-based service last year enabling Australian customers to buy gold and silver. A new silver-coin press was commissioned in April and the operations are running at full capacity to keep up with demand, Currie said.

Silver sales have also surged in the world’s largest economy. Sales of American Eagle silver coins climbed 30 percent to 3.65 million in May, taking the total for the year so far to 18.9 million ounces, the mint’s website shows.

Demand for gold from the Perth Mint, which is controlled by the Western Australian government, has risen in the past 12 months, Currie said. Sales of 1-ounce gold coins in the year to June 30 will be close to matching the record of 415,115 ounces set two years ago. The mint processes all the gold mined in Australia as well as imports of scrap from overseas.

“The gold price is high but it’s not moving a great deal, so it’s not bringing new people into the market,” Currie said. “The institutional buyers and the big banks have slowed, but the mums and dads are still buying,” he said.