I would like to offer my analysis of why, I feel that in many cases (not all) that bullion product prices are so darn high!
The price gouging is not coming from the mints or the distributors. It's coming from the dealers we are buying from!
We all have observed how dealers will offer a pre-sale in limited block amounts to see how much interest there is, then use that data to raise the price on the next limited block amount pre-sale price, until they have achieved the max price folks are willing to pay for the piece on a pre-sale. Then, when the product comes out, they do it all over again! When they first offer the product at price "X" and they see the demand is still extremely high, they pop the price up and if it's still selling too quickly then they pop the price again, and again until they feel they have the maximum price they can ask that the market is willing to pay. This is called price gouging and it may or may not be illegal in this respect, however, I do consider it to be extremely exploitative and a shady business practice.
If you find a dealer who is not practicing this shady type of fluid pricing then I would pledge my sales loyalty to them, even if their prices are initially a few cents more! We need to reward those dealers who are not greedy and shady and stop buying from those who are. If enough buyers are willing to do this, it will force the price gouging dealers to back off this this unethical practice. Just my opinion!