Blanchard and Company Douglas LePre recently discussed the importance of toning in coins for numismatic collectors and investors.

The natural oxidation that occurs on coins, especially silver, can enhance their appearance and maximize their historical character with this naturally occurring patina. (Related to toning is the concept of the shipwreck effect, in which coins recovered from sunken vessels show signs of long-term immersion in saltwater.)

Some coin owners even go to the trouble of trying to add artificial toning to their pieces in an attempt to make a quick buck, Doug notes.

Conversely, some neophyte collectors who are unaware of the importance of toning actually make the huge mistake of cleaning their coins. And when one submits his or her coins for official grading by one of the major certification services like NGC and PCGS, the doctoring likely won’t go unnoticed.

Cleaning coins is a big no-no in numismatics and should never be attempted without first consulting an expert. Three recent news items in Coin World drive home this point.

An 1892-S Morgan Dollar that PCGS had designated as Altered Surfaces and Uncirculated Details sold earlier this year for $16,450. That sum is well below what other comparable Morgans have garnered in recent sales.

On the gold front, an 1857-S Liberty Double Eagle also received an Altered Surfaces and Uncirculated Details designation from PCGS. It sold for $4,230, a price that Coin World noted was higher than an About Uncirculated 58 example, but lower than a problem-free Mint State coin. And 1886 proof version of a Coronet Double Eagle, also with the Altered Surfaces tag, got $18,800 at a sale a price deemed affordable by Coin World but perhaps not optimal. (The flip side of such doctoring practices is that they make certain coins more easily obtainable for collectors on a budget, but that doesn’t do the sellers much good.)

The lesson here is: Don’t clean your coins. If you do, you’re at risk of reducing or even destroying the value of your investment by eliminating some of the very attributes that are sought by coin enthusiasts.

Let a phrase from the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates (of Hippocratic Oath fame) serve as a guide for collectors: First, do no harm.

The World Gold Councils equivalent in the silver sector, The Silver Institute, just issued a bullish assessment of the white metals performance in the first half of 2016.

From Jan. 4 through July 11, silver has gained more than 44%, the institute noted, citing London Bullion Market Association price data.

Investment demand for silver has been increasing on almost every front. ETF holdings hit a record high of more than 662 million ounces, while net longs in the futures and options markets also are at all-time levels.

And in the physical market, coin sales are booming again in 2016, up 29% for the first quarter of this year, growing at at double digit paces in all the major regions of the world. The only down spot the institute found was a dropoff in the consumption of silver bars in the first half.

The institutes findings on silver have been borne out by data from the major sovereign mints around the world. Silver American Eagle sales from the U.S. Mint remain on a record sales pace, though demand has tailed off somewhat in recent weeks.

As of July 14, more than 26.945 million silver Eagles have been sold. Thats 10% more than were purchased at the same time in 2015, meaning that the Mint can still break the all-time sales record of 47 million set last year.

Meanwhile, Australias Perth Mint, with its silver Koala and Kangaroo coins, also enjoyed a blockbuster first half. Its sold more than 1 million ounces of silver coins for nine of the 10 past months, and its first-half sale totals of 7.636 million ounces easily topped last years figure of 2.81 million ounces.

Although the Royal Canadian Mints latest report hasnt yet been released, sales of its flagship silver Maple Leaf coins followed up on 2015s record year by setting a new all-time high in the first quarter of 2016.

Figures also are pending for the Austrian Mints 2016 sales of its silver Philharmonics, but its combined silver sales in 2015 hit 7.3 million ounces.

Although silver is potentially vulnerable to a pullback after its blistering run so far this year, its future looks bright thanks to its dual nature as a monetary metal and an industrial commodity.

I firmly believe we are on the cusp of an explosion in the silver price that will ultimately see silver trade at many multiples of the current $20 price, industry veteran John Embry recently observed. And another analyst even thinks that Americans and Canadians will likely face silver shortages in the future as investment demand continues to surge higher as the price skyrockets. The time to load up on silver is now, while the price is comfortable below its all-time high near $50.

With stocks struggling to build on record gains, gold and silver reclaimed some lost ground Wednesday and remain close to two-year highs. Concerns over Brexit contagion are keeping the metals supported, but several other factors have surfaced this week that bode will for bullion prices this year.

Silver continues to attract plenty of spotlight thanks to its roughly 50% increase in 2016, which has outperformed golds almost 30% run. And the bulk of silvers current increase has occurred between June 1 and July 4, during which time the metal rose by 32% to top the psychologically important $21 level. Since the Brexit referendum on June 23, silver is up 17% versus golds 8% gain.

The gold-silver ratio has now fallen to about 66-to-1, down from the 83-to-1 difference hit in February. Should gold recover yet again and head for the $1,400 level as a number of analysts are now suggesting, then a falling [ratio] to 60 would suggest silver might be heading for the $23 level and up, wrote metals analyst Lawrie Williams.

Some see triple-digit silver: But even at 66-to-1, silver remains arguably undervalued compared with gold. We are mining today 9 ounces of silver for every ounce of gold, noted First Majestic CEO Keith Neumeyer, who sees the potential for triple-digit silver. Silver is way more rare than people actually think it is and the market is slowly waking up to that fact. I think the ratio should be trading at more of its natural ratio closer to 9 or 10.

Whether or not we eventually see triple-digit silver is unknown, but some other analysts and investment firms remain bullish. The real star of the show has been silver, Capital Economics wrote on July 1. We continue to expect silver to outperform gold over the next couple of years.

So does Michael Purves of Weeden & Co., who sees bullish potential in the gold-silver ratio as well. The extremes in this ratio reached during the gold and silver lows earlier this year have set the table for a substantial decline in the gold/silver ratio, which should result in disproportionate gains in silver, he wrote.

Regardless of which metal ultimately takes the prize this year, some new developments this past week could keep the bull run in both going. Chinas sagging economy and Brexit aftershocks are obvious bullish drivers for gold and silver, but here are four more:

Helicopter money is the new central-bank meme

Ex-Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke a proponent of helicopter money, which is just another name for massive deficit spending by governments in the form of infrastructure outlays and direct handouts to households visited Japan this week to discuss potential stimulus plans. Now current Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester gave the tactic her blessing in an interview.

Were always assessing tools that we could use, she said. In the U.S. weve done quantitative easing and I think thats proven to be useful. So its my view that [helicopter money] would be sort of the next step if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we wanted to be more accommodative.

With central banks in the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, and China all easing and devaluing their currencies, the U.S. Fed also is in no position to lift rates amid continuing post-Brexit uncertainty and historically weak U.S. growth levels.

U.S. presidential election heating up

The big political news of the past couple of weeks signals that the U.S. presidential election is now getting under way in earnest. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will not be prosecuted for her email mismanagement, and her rival Bernie Sanders has now officially endorsed her, to the dismay of his rabid supporters. Meanwhile, Republican contender Donald Trump is surging in the polls, at least in key swing states, making the race too close to call.

And unfortunately, in a nation already harshly divided by controversial police shootings and the mass killings of five Dallas officers, the looming party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia could ratchet up those tensions even further. The FAA, for example, has already declared 34.5-mile no-fly zones over both convention sites. An already very hot summer could get even hotter if activists ranging from Black Lives Matter to disenchanted Sanders supporters disrupt either of the conventions.

Major investment banks are now warning that uncertainty from the elections is threatening to spill over into markets. UBS, for example, found that wealthy U.S. investors are holding record amounts of cash out of fear for their retirement accounts ahead of the Nov. 8 election. As campaign vitriol heats up even further, the volatility quotient is expected to rise. And as a result, the Fed is even more unlikely to raise interest rates ahead of the outcome.

South Sea China becoming geopolitical powder keg

Chinas military buildup in the South China Seas disputed Spratly Islands archipelago was dealt a blow by The Hague, which overruled Beijings claims to the contested waters. Nonetheless, China has vowed to continue flexing its muscles there with an air-defense zone, which puts it at odds with the Philippines and other nations with dibs on the area. The area increasingly is threatening to become a new military flashpoint between China and the U.S.

Renewed tensions there come on the heels of a NATO summit in Warsaw, Poland, and new warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the world is on the brink of a new war.

Worlds biggest gold buyers to keep buying

And in a long-term strategy to undercut the U.S. dollars dominance, both China and Russia remain key buyers of gold via their central banks. And most other central banks around the world are buying to diversify their currency holdings amid global devaluations. Central banks around the world have increased their gold reserves by 2.7% from a year earlier to about 32,800 tons, the Nikkei Asian Review reported, citing a World Gold Council study.

And because of zero and negative interest rates proliferating around the world, these mega-buyers of bullion will have all the more impetus to keep loading up. With rates having turned negative in most of Europe and Japan and likely to remain so for some time on Brexit woes, the opportunity cost of holding gold has all but disappeared, wrote Simona Gambarini of Capital Economics. In particular, we expect central banks from developing economies to be the main source of demand from the official sector in the future.

Just a few weeks after the United Kingdoms historic June 23 referendum, getting an accurate read on just how far the Brexits aftershocks will be felt remains a difficult task. However, one major investment bank thinks this monumental threat to the European Union is just another reason to buy commodities, especially oil and gold.

Make no mistake: Pain in being felt across the eurozone, with Barclays declaring Great Britain on the cusp of a recession that will begin in the second half of 2016 despite the Bank of England about to cut interest rates for the first time in seven years.

And the International Monetary Fund is partly citing Brexit in slashing Italys growth forecasts and warning of two decades of economic stagnation for Europes third-largest economy.

IMF sees negligible effects in U.S.

However, the IMF also thinks that Brexit could have negligible effects on the U.S. economy, which although mired in historically low GDP output in recent years remains one of the prettiest horses in the global glue factory. St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard, too, just minimized Brexits potential domestic impact in public comments.

Whether now is the time to minimize concerns over Brexit is unclear, but certainly the resulting global central-bank money printing to alleviate concerns and boost growth is one reason why Citigroup likes commodities.

Citi is especially bullish commodities for 2017, analysts wrote. The oil market is treading water for now, but the oil price overshot to the downside earlier this year and this is clearly setting the stage for a bullish end to the decade.

Citi economists see the damage to global growth from Brexit to be limited in extent and duration in 2016, while stronger growth from China and the U.S. should lift global growth for the rest of the year, they wrote.

Team lifts average price forecast

Some at the firm like black gold better than real gold, but that preference hasnt stopped Citi from raising its price forecasts for bullion. Its now lifted its 2016 target to an average price of $1,265 for the year, up 9% from 2015, partly because its expecting the Federal Reserve to launch no more than one rate hike this year and perhaps none in 2017.

Its more bullish, outlying scenarios call for gold to run as high as $1,400 to $1,425 in the second half of this year.

Now is not the time to fully discount Brexits possible after-effects, but Citis bullish take shows that gold doesnt necessarily need the fear of an EU disintegration and subsequent contagion to keep rising into 2017.

Japan is facing an economic quandary: despite massive infusions of quantitative easing and even negative interest rates to stimulate its moribund economy, the yen remains stronger than officials would like. Now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abes ruling coalition has won a decisive victory in elections there, the nation has summoned one of the worlds biggest experts on money printing and currency debasement. That expert? Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Bernanke met Monday with Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who is under pressure to try a new strategy at the BoJs July 28-29 meeting. Some market players speculate Kuroda might decide, in a surprise, to provide helicopter money a term coined by American economist Milton Friedman and cited by Bernanke, before he became Fed chairman, when talking about how central banks might finance government budgets as a way to seek to fight deflation, Reuters reported.

Bernanke himself outlined what he sees as the pros and cons of helicopter money (as well as other unconventional policy tools) in his blog at the Brookings Institution, calling such a plan presumably last-resort. The term is inspired by the image of direct helicopter drops of monetary stimulus in the form of tax cuts and/or fiscal and infrastructure spending, enabled by further central-bank money printing. Indeed, Bernanke also is slated to meet Tuesday with Abe, who already is working on a stimulus package reportedly worth about $98 billion.

We are going to make bold investment into seeds of future growth, Abe said Monday.

Well have to wait to find out what Kuroda and Abe have up their sleeves, but many Japanese investors arent being so patient. Numerous reports document increasing moves into gold in a nation otherwise not known for a deep appetite for the metal.

Japans largest bullion retailer, operated by Tanaka Holdings Co., recorded a 60% leap in the sales of the metal from May into June, even tripling on the day after the UKs Brexit referendum passed.

For investors, buying gold is similar to casting a no-confidence vote, former World Gold Council executive Itsuo Toshima told Bloomberg. Gold is the unprintable currency, unlike the yen. The yens appreciation in spite of the adoption of the negative-rate policy has kindled skepticism about the policys benefits. Its also led to investors seeking to protect their assets in case Abenomics fails.

Meanwhile, separate research found that Japanese investors also are increasingly buying and storing gold in Switzerland, with the number jumping by 62% in the first half of 2016 versus the last half of 2015.

With the metal up only about 7.5% so far in yen terms, versus the more than 25% gained by dollar-priced bullion, investors no doubt see room for further price appreciation if and when the Bank of Japans unconventional easing tools finally gain traction.

And although last Fridays jobs report from the Labor Department has lent some much-needed shine to the U.S. economy, other key indicators continue to suggest that the Fed will be keeping gold-bullish low interest rates in force for quite some time and eventually could be turning to negative rates of its own if things take a sharper turn for the worse.

Golds startling resilience was the buzzword afterFridayshighly scrutinized U.S. employment report and another reason why a major banks new bullish forecast should carry weight with bullion investors.

In anticipation of the June nonfarm-payrolls number from the Labor Department, the gold price initially dippedFridayafter hitting two-year highs earlier in the week as traders took profits.

The jobs report is viewed as a gauge of the U.S. economy as well as an indicator of the Federal Reserves future interest-rate policies. Along with Brexit uncertainties, the disastrous Mayjobs report issued in June ensured that the central bank would not raise rates at its meeting that same month.

Payrolls rose by 287,000:However, the June payrolls number publishedFriday(July 8) surprised to the upside,with 287,000 jobsreportedly created. Gold then fell near $1,336 but then remarkably rebounded back into positive territory. By early afternoon the metal was just below break-even status, trading near $1,360. (Silverrose, again topping the $20 level, and stocks gained as well.)

Conventional wisdom holds that if the jobs number was poor, the gold price would rise because of cooling expectations of a Fed rate hike. Conversely, a strong jobs report would be expected to slam bullion lower by raising the likelihood of Fed action. (Rising interest rates are often, though not always, associated with lower gold prices.)

Brexit likely ties Feds hands:But gold has held relatively firm. Why? Because 1) the true U.S. jobs picture isnt nearly as strong as the payrolls report suggest. The unemployment rate rose to 4.9%; a closer look at the employment categories shows that most of the newjobs areminimum-wage positions; and the labor-participation rate remains near record lows, with more than 94.5 million Americans out of the work force.

And 2) even though a good headline jobs number would ordinarily pressure the Fed to raise rates, too many negativesexist in the global economy for the central bank to start tightening now. Uncertainties from the pro-Brexit referendum are only just starting to unfold, with cracks surfacing in the UK property market and across the European banking system (especially in Italy as well as in Germanys Deutsche Bank).

U.S. elections also a factor:Moreover, with the U.S. presidential election just months away, the Fed might be reluctant to change the status quo by raising rates now. A rate hike could derail thestock market and the overall U.S. economy, and with Fed chief Janet Yellen leaning left politically, any resulting shocks could hurt the chances of her presumably preferred candidate, Democrat Hillary Clinton, against Republican Donald Trump.

Sure, The Wall Street Journals Fed insider, Jon Hilsenrath, as well as Goldman Sachs both see the chances of a Fed ratehike rising after this positive jobs report, butothers disagree largely because of the ongoing Brexit overhang.

One jobs number isnt going to change the outlook for the Fed right now, said Bob Haberkorn of RJO Futures. It hasnt changed the fundamental outlook for the global economy, because we still have Brexit and low rates.

BOAML sees $1,475 ahead:That overhang is one reason why gold was standing tough after the jobs report and why investors should consider taking Bank of America Merrill Lynchs new bullion forecast seriously.

A BOAML research team led by Michael Widmer has joined the likes of Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley in predicting gold prices rising near $1,500 in the coming months.

The world has been walking from crisis to crisis and we see risks that this may not change, the banks analystswrote. We called a bottom in gold in February and Brexit reinforces our view. As such we are upgrading next years gold price forecast from $1,325 per ounce to $1,475 per ounce.

The burgeoning chorus of gold bulls also includesBarry Dawesof Paradigm Securities ($1,400-$1,500, this year, with longer-term potential of $1,900);Georgette Boeleof ABN Amro Bank ($1,425 this quarter, $1,450 in 2017); andJoni Tevesof UBS ($1,400).