You are here
Auction of largest gold coin yields only melt value
World's Biggest Gold Coin Fetches Over 3 Million Euros
By Alexandra Zawadil
Reuters
Friday, June 25, 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE65O2S320100625
VIENNA, Austria -- A Spanish precious metals trading company bought the world's largest gold coin for 3.27 million euros ($4.02 million), its exact material worth, from the estate of an insolvent investment firm at a rare auction in Vienna on Friday.
The 100-kg (220.5 lb) piece, one of only five Canadian $1 million Maple Leaf coins the Royal Canadian Mint has ever produced, was snapped up immediately in a written bid from ORO direct, a gold trading company based in Madrid.
Prophecy to Become Coal Producer This Year
with 1.5 Billion Tonnes of Resource
Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX.V: PCY) announced on May 11 that it has entered into a mine services agreement with Leighton Asia Ltd. to begin coal production this year. Production will begin with a 250,000-tonne starter pit as planned in August, with production advancing to 2 million tonnes per year in 2011. Prophecy is fully funded to production and its management team includes John Morganti, Arnold Armstrong, and Rob McEwen.
For Prophecy's complete press release about its production plans, please visit:
http://www.prophecyresource.com/news_2010_may11.php
There were no counteroffers in an auction room packed with more journalists than potential buyers. It sold for the catalog sum, the coin's pure gold value based on Friday's market price. This was four times its face value.
The auction was ordered by the administrator of Austrian investment group AvW Invest, which filed for insolvency in May after its owner and chief executive was arrested on suspicion of fraud, breach of trust and other charges.
AvW had acquired the coin in 2007, joining an exclusive club of owners including Queen Elizabeth, who is also displayed on one side of the coin, two unidentified investors in Dubai and one who is so reclusive even his or her residence is unknown.
AvW had lent its coin, 53 cm (21 inches) in diameter and 3 cm thick, to Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum where it had been on display as part of its coin collection.
Its purity is 99.999 percent, the purest type in the market.
The Royal Canadian Mint launched the coin in 2007 to showcase its production facilities and steal the entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's biggest gold coin.
That title had previously been held by the Austrian mint, who in 2004 produced fifteen 100,000-euro coins weighing 1,000 troy ounces (31.1 kg) to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its best-selling Philharmonics coin.
* * *
Support GATA by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:
Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:
http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal
Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon:
* * *
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:
To contribute to GATA, please visit:
http://www.gata.org/node/16
