Yesterday gold broke its all-time high close of $1,255.70 set on June 25th of this year on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold closed yesterday at $1,256.20.  This new record is still over $1,000 off of its inflation adjusted all-time high of $2,358 as calculated by Daily Finance, a division of AOL.  This may be a great time to buy gold coins.

Many experts say this is a good indication that gold will go higher from here.  In fact Jim Sinclair, a legendary gold investor, has an outstanding $1 million bet that gold will go to $1,650 by January 14, 2011.  That is an average increase in gold of about $4 per day or a 31.47% gain in the next four months.  Twice in the last ten years gold has exceeded the 31.47%.  From August of 2007 to January of 2008 gold gained roughly 40% ($657 to $924).  The next largest gain was from August 2005 to January 2006 when gold gained roughly 32% ($431 to $569).  So Jim Sinclair’s bet is still viable.

Other estimates by forecasters for gold gains this year are not so aggressive coming in anywhere from $1,300 to $1,500 by years end.  If gold just tracks the average gain of 13.1% during these last four months of the year, it should end up around $1,400 with the biggest gains still to come as we enter the third and final phase within the next few years.

The estimates on where gold will finish its run are all over the board.  I have heard estimates as low as $3,000 per ounce, and as high as $43,000 per ounce.  The later being based purely if the US was to go onto a gold standard based on current dollars in the system.

As gold heats up the general public will begin to buy into the market at higher and higher levels creating the ever popular “bubble.”  Current estimates put the general public’s gold ownership at under 3%.  Until we get to the peak in this bull market, be thankful that we can still buy at what is largely considered to be great values.