The U.S. Mint has released its figures for December production in both gold eagles (161,500 one oz. bullion coins) and silver eagles (2,085,000). The mint used 846,000 troy ounces of gold in its gold eagle program in 2008. It’s been a lot of years since the mint went through that much gold in a twelve-month period.

For silver, the 19,510,000 one ounce silver eagles produced is almost double whatever the previous record year was.  The silver ETF, SLV, added 987,000 ounces to its stash…and the Swiss silver ETF added another 300,000 ounces as well. There are also rumblings about the Central Fund of Canada adding to its position as well.

Over the weekend there was a yahoo.com news story that Chavez in Venezuela is making more noises about seizing gold concessions “that previous governments granted private operators, in a bid to supplement fall in oil prices with proceeds from state-controlled gold.”

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