Calculating the amount of gold sold by world central banks in any given year is not an exact science. Nowhere is the information correlated and made publicly available. While some central banks are happily open about their activities, others are camera-shy. Nevertheless, Gold Fields Mining Services has a shot at it each half year. The results are only estimates, which GFMS admits are garnered through a combination of publicly available information and “field research”. As the release of information can come with a considerable lag, GFMS often updates its numbers through the course of the year.

That’s the first thing to consider.

The second thing to consider is that whatever GFMS comes up with in its estimates, the numbers will always be questioned by an organisation known as GATA. Read Full Story

An old coin was discovered between floor panels in a building from 1840 in Djúpivogur, southeast Iceland, currently under renovation. It has a picture of a lion hanging from an ax, which is Norway’s coat of arms, and dates back to 1653.

“It was made in Kongsberg in Norway out of Norwegian silver,” numismatist Anton Holt told Morgunbladid. “Every coin found in Iceland is significant because we didn’t have any coins ourselves.” (more…)

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.,  — Collectors Universe, Inc. , a leading provider of value-added authentication and grading services to dealers and collectors of high-value collectibles diamonds and colored gemstones, today announced that, pursuant to its previously adopted dividend policy, the Board of Directors has declared the Company’s quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share of common stock for the third quarter of fiscal 2008. The cash dividend will be paid on March 3, 2008 to stockholders of record on February 18, 2008. (more…)

By JOHN STEELE GORDON for Barron’s

BECAUSE GOLD IS CHEMICALLY INERT, it doesn’t tarnish and it has few industrial uses. Because it has been a prime store of value for millennia, it has always been very carefully guarded. Because it is so extraordinarily valuable (a cubic inch of pure gold is currently worth more than $9,000), even long-lost gold is searched for diligently.

A hundred and sixty years ago this month, for instance, James Marshall was inspecting a new millrace in Northern California that he had just constructed for his employer, John Sutter. A pebble about half the size of a pea caught his eye. “It made my heart thump,” he later remembered, “for I was certain it was gold.”

In 1847, the United States had produced a mere 43,000 ounces of gold, mostly as a byproduct of base-metal mining. In 1853, California alone would produce more than three million ounces, then worth some $65 million. The total revenue of the federal government in 1853 was $61.5 million. Read Full Article