"At the moment, every gold coin that comes off the coining press has already been sold," said Starsich. "Right now we could sell three times as many as we are able to produce."

"I'm from an older generation. Whenever things get a bit uncertain we come back to gold coins and tell ourselves we'll always be able to sell them," she said. "Gold has that safety factor."

The Mint was founded in 1194 to strike coins from the silver paid as a ransom for Richard the Lionheart, after he had been seized and held captive by enemies near Vienna.

Today, the Mint says its one-ounce Philharmonic gold coin, named after the world famous Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, is the top-selling gold bullion coin in Europe and Japan.