San Diego investors take note, Platinum Today reports that Rhodium bullion coins hit the market for the first time ever May 21st. The Cohen Mint produced the first grade .999 rhodium coin towards the end of last month and is planning to sell them initially at a one gram size for about $100.

In an interview with GoldAndSilverBlog.com, mint owner and operator Eitan Cohen explained that he is thrilled to be developing such a novel product for investors. He told the website: “The work involved in getting this project off the ground has been tremendous, easily the biggest thing our company has ever done. “This is really an historic moment, where a truly unique precious metal product comes onto the market, and we’re just excited to be the ones to have pioneered it.”

Mr Cohen also revealed that the method used to manufacture the coins was the result of a “eureka” moment after exhaustive tests had appeared to suggest that it was not possible. He explained that the process was very different to and more complicated than the way in which coins are made from other metals, as rhodium is far more “hard, brittle and downright stubborn”.

Furthermore, he noted that rhodium – which slipped from $10,000 per oz last July to under $1,000 per oz in a matter of months – will be “on the vanguard” of the pgm demand revival. “This metal, along with platinum and palladium, will feel a resurgence once the economy begins to pick back up and consumer confidence reawakens.”

The mint is capable of producing as many Rhodium bullion coins as required and will be selling them individually and on a wholesale basis, with a sealed plastic coin slab for encasing plus a certificate of authenticity.

Reuters (London) is reporting demand for gold coins has risen sharply, according to mints around the world, as interest in the precious metal soars on the back of financial instability and concerns over the inflation outlook. The Royal Canadian Mint, which produces Maple Leaf bullion coins, said it quadrupled its production capacity late last year as demand for gold and silver bullion products leapt.

Gold was one of the few commodities to rise last year as turmoil in the financial sector sharpened investors’ appetite for assets seen as a safe store of value, such as bullion. Spot gold rallied to an 11-month high of $1,005.40 on February 20 as a slide in equity markets increased interest in the precious metal.

Demand for physical gold products such as coins and bars has been particularly strong, traders say. The United States Mint said sales of its one-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins rocketed to 710,000 ounces in 2008, from 140,000 ounces a year before.

“The demand for gold and silver has been unprecedented,” a spokesman for the Mint told Reuters.

The chairman of the French Mint, Christophe Beaux, said sales roughly doubled last year in value terms and are expected to rise by another 50 percent this year. The 2009 catalog the mint had produced was almost entirely pre-sold, he said. The French Mint produces 100 euro gold coins, and plans to mint 10-ounce and 1-kilo coins this year.

In South Africa — the world’s second-largest gold producer — Natanya van Niekerk, deputy general manager for numismatics at the South African Mint Company, said she had seen a big increase in demand for gold. “I think we will see this same trend in this and the next quarter,” she said. “Gold surely has been resilient in these times.”

Michael O’Kane, head bullion trader at the New Zealand Mint, said many overseas buyers had come into the New Zealand market. “We’re seen as a safe-haven market,” he said. He said buying had been strong since the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in September, as investors moved money from banks into hard assets like gold.

The mint was averaging “a month’s transactions in a day,” he said, adding he saw demand continuing to rise.

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Anytime you are dealing in the buying or selling of gold, you have to watch out for gold scams. San Diego residents can read about recent gold scams in our state in this article: California Gold Scams on the Rise.

If you ever come across some gold bullion coins at a San Diego pawn shop and are considering buying them, there are a few things that you should keep in mind:

Remember that gold prices fluctuate all the time, sometimes quite dramatically. So be sure to check the current day’s spot price. What is gold’s spot price? That’s the current market price for the precious metal. In contrast, a gold bullion coin’s “melt value” refers the value of the coin if it is melted down and sold.

If you plan on buying a fractional gold bullion coin (that is, a coin weighing less than one ounce) you can expect to pay a higher percentage over melt value than if you were buying a one ounce coin.

The folks at the Professional Numismatists Guild say that the average retail commission that a seller charges is 5-6%. So if it seems like the pawn shop from which you are thinking about buying a gold bullion coin is charging a higher commission than that, you can likely get a better deal elsewhere

Lastly, as a general rule of thumb, remember that Kruggerrand bullion coins are usually sold for less than the American Eagle and Canadian Maple Leaf bullion coins.

If you are really keen on buying gold bullion coins, your best bet may be to look up a San Diego ANA (American Numismatic Association) bullion dealer by clicking here.

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People in San Diego often ask us just what the history of pawn shops is, where and how the whole business got started. For the curious, SDJB has now written: A Brief History of Pawn Shops.