At the beginning of this year, the US Mint published a new pricing policy for all gold and platinum numismatic products. This new policy impacts the pricing for existing and future First Spouse Gold Coins.

The prior pricing policy required the United States Mint to publish any pricing changes in the Federal Register. This process sometimes took up to one month and had resulted in lengthy sales suspensions for some products.

Under the new pricing policy, the US Mint can adjust prices as frequently as once per week, based on the weekly average London AM Fix Gold Price. Prices will be adjusted based on a set pricing chart. Each time the price of gold moves outside of a $50 increment, the price of products will be adjusted up or down by the same $50 increment for each ounce of gold content. In the case of the First Spouse Gold Coins, the prices are adjusted by $25.

The prices for First Spouse Gold Coins were adjusted upwards under the new policy on January 12, 2009. The prices were subsequently adjusted downwards on January 16, 2009. The prices for all First Spouse Gold coins remain higher than they were before the new pricing policy went into effect.

The pricing tiers for the new policy are indicated below:

In an unexpected move, the United States Mint has lowered prices for the majority of the available First Spouse Gold Coins. The price reduction comes after a decline of more than 20% for gold from its peak price above $1,000 per ounce reached earlier this year. Since each First Spouse Coin contains one-half ounce of gold, the price of the precious metal has a big impact of the value of the coins.

Before the price change, the most recent three releases for Andrew Jackson’s Liberty, Louisa Adams, and Elizabeth Monroe were priced at $619.95 for each proof coin and $599.95 for each uncirculated coin. The new prices are $549.95 for proof coins and $529.95 for uncirculated coins. This represents a reduction of $70 and $75 dollars for proof and uncirculated coins, respectively.

The final release of 2007 for Dolley Madison was priced lower at $529.95 for proof coins and $509.95 for uncirculated coins. Because this price was already below the reduced price level, prices were not adjusted for the Dolley Madison coins.

The price changes were not announced or explained. The US Mint simply marked the coins as “not available” on Wednesday of last week, and then brought the coins back the next day at Noon at the lower prices.

More trouble with financial companies has caused a resurgence in the price of gold. As of the writing of this post, the spot price of gold was $986.10. This recent rise in the price of gold may bring some renewed interest to First Spouse Gold Coins, particularly the Dolley Madison Coin.

The Dolley Madison coins are still available directly from the US Mint. They can be found on the Mint’s website here. The coins are priced at $509.95 for the uncirculated version and $529.95 for the proof version.

Each coin contains one-half ounce of gold. If you do the math, you will see that these coins current prices are getting very close to the value of the gold content. The uncirculated version has a premium of only $16.90 above gold value (3.4% premium). The proof version has a premium of $36.90 above gold value (7.5% premium).

If gold continues higher to the point where coins do reach par, the Mint will likely suspend sales and reprice the offering.

Other First Spouse coins for Elizabeth Monroe and Louisa Adams are currently priced at $599.95 and $619.95.