Yesterday there were two headlines of interest. One of which was about gold.

(Reuters) - The U.S. mint sold 190,000 1-ounce American Eagle gold coins in May, the largest number since January 1999, and the most in any month so far in 2010, according to a spokesman for the U.S. agency.

The other news article was about silver.

The United States Mint’s bullion 2010 American Silver Eagles posted their best May and second best sales month in history, according to the most recent figures available from the Mint.
In just the one month, buyers purchased an astonishing 3,636,500 of the one ounce .999 fine silver coins. This number smashes the old May record of 1,904,500 set last year.
May 2010 sales fell short of the best month ever by only 59,500.

So with all that gold and silver leaving the mint, I guess today's bulletins aren't really all that surprising.
The U.S. Mint has canceled production of Silver Eagle proof coins, Gold Eagle proof coins, and Gold Eagle uncirculated coins. The reason is that they have simply run out of gold and silver blanks.

The U.S. Mint has been forced to suspend sales several times since the financial crisis started. They did in August 2008, March, July, and November 2009.
In November 2008, the Australian Perth Mint also had to temporarily suspend production because of demand overwhelming supply.

Global gold bullion demand is up 195% in a decade.

Gold prices have set on fire but the demand for gold coins seem to have emerged stronger than ever with global investors going on the buying spree last year. As per the available statistics, investors bought 228.5 tonnes of gold in the form bullion coins, up by over 195% since 2000, when the investors bought 77.4 tonnes of gold coins.