A Royal Canadian Mint commemorative silver coin, designed by artist Yves Berube to mark the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, is unveiled in Halifax on Monday, March 5, 2012.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
The Royal Canadian Mint went bargain hunting when the price of silver plummeted last year.
"We certainly took advantage of the double dip in silver and gold prices in 2013," said Chris Carkner, managing director of the Mint's bullion and refinery unit. "That drove demand for investment coins and bars."
Canada made 29 million ounces of silver coins, a 60-per-cent increase over the previous year, according to a survey released on Wednesday by precious metal research firm Thomson Reuters GFMS.
The average price of the shiny white metal, heavily used for jewellery, electronics and silverware, dropped 24 per cent to $23.79 an ounce last year.
The U.S. mint also took advantage of the cheaper prices and pumped up production of its coins by nearly 30 per cent to 44 million ounces.
"We saw a lot of investors thinking this is a good deal and really snapping up coins," said Andrew Leyland, manager of precious metals demand at GFMS.
Demand for the Canadian investment coins – one ounce silver coins with the Queen etched on one side – is growing faster than orders for the American bullion coin.
"The Canadian maple is a popular coin," said Mr. Leyland.
The Canadian mint has been churning out investment coins for 25 years at its Ottawa headquarters on Sussex Drive.
Over the past nine years, its coin output, also known as fabrication, jumped more than 2000 per cent to 29 million ounces from 1.3 million ounces in 2004.
U.S. fabrication increased 200 per cent to 44 million ounces from 15.5 million over the same period, according to data compiled by GFMS.
The North American consumption, combined with investor interest in silver bars, pushed demand up 13 per cent to a record 1,081 million ounces last year, according to the GFMS survey.
World production increased slightly, the survey said. But people were less willing to part with their old silver jewellery and dated silver coins and bars, because of the slump in silver prices.
The volume of old material used in production, also known as silver scrap, dropped 24 per cent to 191.8 million ounces – the lowest level recorded by the survey since 2001.
Rachelle Younglai