Metals Market Report Archive

June 2026 - Week 3 Edition

This past week, I visited Washington D.C. with my business associate, Jerry Jordan, and he wrote a column about the experience to be published in a national magazine. I wanted to share his column with you here in the Metals Market Report to give our readers insight one what is happening with coins and currency in the nation’s capital.

America’s 250th Brings Out the Best in Coins and Community in Our Nation’s Capital

By Jerry Jordan

The last time our country celebrated a significant birthday was in 2001, celebrating 225 years of independence but for some reason, that’s not the one I remember most. For me, it’s 1976 and the bicentennial quarters.

I was only five at the time but for years to come, I always searched for the bicentennials and remember people telling me to “save those” because they were more valuable. In retrospect, the circulated, ungraded coins I kept in a jar in my room would probably only be worth about 25 cents but since I have no idea what happened to them, I’ll never know if I had a secret fortune that was likely spent on a candy bar.

However, because of those memories and now in my role as executive director of the Numismatic Literary Guild, I have a far greater appreciation for the potential rarity of coins and paper money. In early June, I was part of a group consisting of Dr. Mike Fuljenz, America’s Gold Expert, Dan Duncan, President of U.S. Coins, former Congressman Jimmy Hayes and John Kraljevich, Director of Numismatic Americana for Stacks’ Bowers invited to visit with U.S. Mint Director Paul Hollis at his office in Washington D.C. and see firsthand the new coins being released for America’s 250th anniversary, the semiquincentennial.

We learned there was little possibility now of a new President Donald Trump-signed $250 bill being printed but a commemorative legal tender President Trump coin is a distinct possibility.  For those in the media who cite the illegality of a living person being featured on money, they conveniently leave out the context that in the 20th Century, there have been four Democrats and a single Republican who have appeared on U.S. legal tender commemorative coins.  The sole Republican was President Calvin Coolidge, who was on a 150th Anniversary Sesquicentennial Commemorative Half Dollar in 1926. SO, having President Trump’s image on a coin is not only legal, it isn’t precedent setting either but some in the media conveniently fail to report truthfully or accurately.

Although the closest actual Mint to the administrative officers is in Philadelphia, in case you weren’t aware, the U.S. Mint’s coin shop is on the first floor of the building on 9th Street. So, of course, I couldn’t go upstairs without stopping to spend a few bucks scooping up the new Emerging Liberty 2026 Semiquincentennial Dime at “actual dealer cost.” That’s marketing-speak for not having to pay a premium. You see, there’s a machine in the lobby of the shop that exchanges coins for dollars without the markup of buying the new dime online. Plus, there’s a plethora of other rarities created by the Mint in the cases around the room, tugging at your wallet.

Luckily, I didn’t spend too much money and after a few photos, our group met with Paul, who showed us the new 10-coin silver proof set being released for America 250. There is also a standard proof set comprised of clad coins and each of the sets comes with a new double-date copper penny. Since production of the penny was phased out in 2025, my understanding is that the only ways to get a penny are in the new proof sets from the San Francisco Mint and the Uncirculated Coin Sets from the Denver and Philadelphia mints. The latter isn’t available for purchase until June 30, according to the Mint website.

Thanks to Paul and Mike Brown, the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, our group had a behind-the-scenes tour scheduled to see how our nation’s cash is made and it was incredibly educational. As a former semi-professional pool player, I gained a new appreciation for the term “The Color of Money.”

Yes, money is green … and dark green and red and black and blue and gray and gold. Plus, there’s an off-white area hiding a watermark image of Benjamin Franklin. That watermark area is built into the paper before it ever arrives at the BEP from Crain Currency in Massachusetts. In fact, several of the anti-counterfeiting technologies, like the micro-optic motion thread that gives a 3D effect when looking at a $100 bill, aka note. If you’ve ever looked closely at your money, then you have no doubt noticed that it has small blue and red fibers in it. That’s another security measure included in the cotton/linen blend of “paper” used for U.S. currency, which we were able to hold before it went into the presses.

Aside from being incredibly secure with armed guards at the entrance and cameras everywhere, the pressroom was much like that of a newspaper press, except that our money is printed on sheets rather than rolls, like a newspaper is printed. It literally smelled the same but the 600-lbs barrels of ink contained a highly classified mixture of color-shifting and magnetic inks that are used in the Intaglio printing process.

We were lucky enough to see the process from beginning to end, witnessing the ink being forced into rough-edged sheets of paper before it was trimmed and stacked into straps (100 notes), bundles (1,000 notes), bricks (4,000 notes), cash paks (yes, it is spelled correctly and contains 16,000 notes) and skids (640,000 notes).

Photos inside the facility are forbidden but trust me when I tell you that it was the first time I had ever held a brick of $100 bills. Yes, they made me give it back. In fact, when they saw me writing notes on my hand and arm for this column, our guide joked he was going to make me wash my hands before I left the building.

Quick fact, did you know the BEP will soon implement a new system for serial numbers across all of our paper money that will eliminate the “star note?” A star note is created as a replacement for a banknote that is damaged or misprinted by the BEP. The new process will also end the use of consecutive serial numbers. I am curious how that will impact the collector market, especially for people who search and trade low serial number notes, radar notes and solid number notes, among other variations.

In all, it was a great educational day.

However, for me, it wasn’t over. As a former investigative reporter and editor, I needed to see the reflecting pool and other areas around Washington, D.C., which the media continued to publish, were a disaster in progress. Unsurprisingly, I found that once again, media outlets were misleading the public about the reflecting pool, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the security of the city, among other things.

Having been to D.C. many times, I have never felt safer. As I maneuvered a scooter (it’s cheap and quicker than Uber) through city traffic in the late evening, I noticed armed National Guard soldiers stationed throughout the tourist areas along Pennsylvania Avenue and near the National Mall.

The Jefferson and Lincoln memorials were radiant and the reflecting pool, almost filled with water, was performing its duty of providing a mirror image of the Washington Monument, quite beautifully.

Mid-Month Deficit and Inflation for June

Since the major inflation indexes and federal deficit figures are released between the 10th and 15th of each month, we plan to update those figures in the middle of each month, as the rising debt and higher inflation are two major causes of the weakening dollar and future gold gains.

First, the Deficits: The United States Treasury borrowed another $1.2 trillion in the first eight months of Fiscal Year 2026, which runs from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026. The $293 billion in red ink in the month of May pushed the cumulative FY’26 deficit from barely $900 billion to $1.2 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. Due to this 8-month rise, the Treasury now projects we are on track for another $2 trillion in deficits by the end of FY’26.

What’s even more frustrating about these $2 trillion annual deficits is that they are happening in the midst of a strong economy. After nearly 4% GDP growth in 2025, Trump’s first year of this term, we are seeing evidence of even stronger growth this year. Normally, tax receipts in a strong economy tend to reduce the annual budget deficit but that is not happening in 2026.

Since these deficits are cumulative, service on the past debt (now approaching $40 trillion) requires ever more federal spending. If long-term Treasury rates remain high – near 5% recently – we will soon spend up to $2 trillion per year (5% of $40 trillion) just to service that debt. This means each year’s $2 trillion deficit may come from debt service alone! Long-term, the hugely bloated demands of Social Security and Medicare funding – as Americans age and young folks avoid marriage and childbearing, future workers can’t afford to fund these deficits.   

Balancing a budget is now technically impossible but if we just lower our goals to a smaller annual deficit (say, under $1 trillion per year), that means limiting future Social Security and Medicare as we put those programs on a much sounder funding plan – which might include higher taxes, later retirements and limited benefits. The only other political choice is to destroy the dollar by “monetizing the debt,” which means printing more dollars just to meet future entitlement demands. The deficit is now a systemic problem that politicians of both political parties continue to be afraid of or ignore the harm to all Americans but voters don’t seem bothered, either!

And now, for Inflation: Last Wednesday, June 10, the U.S. Labor Department announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by a whopping 0.5% (a 6% annual rate) in May and +4.2% in the past 12 months. Energy is the main problem for now, as the “core” inflation rate for the CPI, excluding food and energy, rose at 2.9% in the past 12 months, while energy prices rose 3.9% in May alone.  We may see better numbers in June, if the Iran peace deal works out, but peace has remained elusive there, as Iran seems to promise peace and then insist on more concessions.

The next day, Thursday, the Labor Department announced that the Producer Price Index (PPI) surged 1.1% in May (a 14% annual rate) and 6.5% in the past 12 months. The core PPI, excluding food, energy and trade services, rose 0.8% in May and 5.1% in the past 12 months.

Wholesale processed food prices rose 3.5%, the largest surge in over five years and energy prices rose 10.7%. Once again, much of this inflation is tied to energy prices, so June’s inflation could be lower, especially if the new peace deal with Iran works out as planned.

Wholesale commodities are rising fast in two key categories –  metals and energy. While we may bemoan higher gas prices now dropping at the pump, we can celebrate higher precious metals prices. My local full-service Shell station commented to me that wholesale gasoline prices to him are dropping but not as fast as they went up. 

Gold bounced back +7.7% over the weekend, from a low of $4,030 on Thursday, June 11, to $4,340 on Monday, June 15. Silver bounced back over 10%, from $63.75 in the middle of last week to just over $70 per ounce on Monday. Most of this recovery is caused by the rising chance of a real peace deal with Iran – just like the launch of that conflict (February 28) coincided with the start of a price decline in gold and silver. As with previous dips during gold’s rapid rise since 2020, buying on dips is a winning game plan.

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