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    Johnson Matthey to Asahi Bullion Bars

    The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of JM Bullion, Inc.

    December 2014, it was announced that a large Japanese conglomerate, Asahi Holdings, had bought Johnson Matthey’s North American bullion refineries, located in Salt Lake City, Utah and Brampton, Canada, for the sum of £118 million (pounds), or approximately $186 million USD.

    Once that news broke, I decided to aggressively begin buying some of the Johnson Matthey kilo (32.15 oz) and 100 oz bullion bars in anticipation of their going away. Earlier this year, Johnson Matthey discontinued striking their bullion bars.  Since then, their bullion bars have been, and will most likely continue, garnering a premium selling in the secondary bullion market. That said, there are many Johnson Matthey bullion bars in existence today.  In fact, they struck gold and silver bullion bars for 162 years running!

    Asahi Holdings was formed in 1952 and opened its first precious metals refinery in Kobe, Japan, in 1968. Asahi (pronounced “Ah-Sa-He” ) literally means “morning sun” in Japanese.

    The Asahi bullion hallmark is already a LBMA “Good Delivery” certified refiner, and the acquisition of the two aforementioned JM’s refineries will allow it to expand its market share in the West. In addition to continuing to service precious metal mining operations in North America, the two ex-JM refineries will also process scrap gold and silver from Asia into Good Delivery and retail investment bullion bars.

    The good news for bullion stackers is that the new Asahi 100 oz silver bullion bar is still hand-poured in Salt Lake City (note the SLC stamping on their bars below). Meanwhile, Asahi’s premiums are some of the lowest in the bullion industry.

    asahi
     

    In fact, as I mentioned last week, I am actively selling mint cases of American Silver Eagle coins on eBay, and moving into lower premium bullion bars, like Asahi, in order to take advantage of the tremendous premiums Silver Eagle coins are garnering currently.  Through this sell/buy arbitrage of selling silver eagles now and immediately buying, for instance, these hand-poured Asahi bullion bars, I have been able to gain approximately 20% in total ounces.

    If you would like to learn more about Asahi bullion bars, click here.

    Until next time, all the best to you and yours.

    james
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    You can continue following my writing here on JMBullion.com, as well as on social media channels like my Twitter page.

    Research provided by James Anderson on behalf of JMBullion.com.

    Disclaimer: All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.

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