Reuters:

A few years ago his visits to the Mint, which was founded more than 800 years ago, might have seemed eccentric.

No longer. From the Georgy Pobedonosets to the American Eagle, gold coin production is being cranked up in mints around the world to satisfy customers believing the assets may be immune to the global financial crisis.

Russia’s state-controlled Sberbank says it has never seen such strong demand for investment coins, while the U.S. Mint says sales of its one-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins rocketed over 400 percent to 710,000 ounces in 2008.

"The demand for gold and silver has been unprecedented," said Carla Coolman, a spokeswoman at the United States Mint.

(snip)

"There is no sign of demand abating," Austrian Mint Marketing Director Kerry Tattersall told Reuters, expecting sales this year to exceed 2008’s record levels. "At present production is struggling to keep up with demand."

Hans Dieter Rauch, who sells both collectors’ and investors’ coins in his boutique on Graben, one of Vienna’s most exclusive shopping streets, said revenues soared 300 percent last year.

"It’s the man in the street, not particularly rich people but normal citizens like you and me," said Rauch, 65, monitoring the fluctuating price of gold on a screen in his back room.

My comment: Demand is soaring among "normal citizens" because they are wise to what governments around the world are doing to their paper currencies and they want to prevent their wealth from being confiscated by inflationary policies which are stealth taxes.

John Polomny
The Real Deal