[pelletking]

I started buying Silver Bullion in 1996 my first purchase was (300) 1996 Silver Eagles @ $8 ea - it was going for 10% over spot - always ---- until now. Now you cannot buy silver bullion for less than 50-70% over spot. If you buy 500 1 oz eagles you can get it for as little as 40% over spot (and immediatly sell for a profit) - Does anyone else find this strange? WM

 

[trainsktg]

Yes, but the disparity is the difference between paper silver and physical silver.

My own kook tin foil hat conspiracy theory: the prices are being artificially held low by the dumping of massive quantities of paper silver on the market to allow certain wealthy individuals, families and businesses the chance to dump their own paper assets in get into PMs 'cheap'. These low PM prices must increase in value as paper currencies worldwide continue to be devalued, and when the PM prices begin to really skyrocket, these same individuals are poised to make a bunch of money.

Keith

 

[5thDragoons]

The Hunt Bros have their fingers in the pie again? SW

 

[Ike27]

Its all Yukon Cornelius fault...

Merry Christmas

 

[Clyde]

The Hunt Bros have their fingers in the pie again? SW

You do realize why the Hunt brothers got busted don't you? They were actually taking delivery of physical silver when a contract came due instead of just holding paper. This scared the pee-wadding out of the regulatory agencies and the other (traditional) traders, who weren't used to people actually buying teh commodity. So they changed the rules and manipulated things in a way that pretty well broke Lamar and Nelson Bunker. Sorry behavior if you ask me.

 

[Petrov]

1000 oz bars are .80 over spot - http://www.golddealer.com/bullionpage.html#British Sovereign

It's just the 1 oz coins that are expensive. I don't know if the mints are purposely restricting supply or having trouble keeping up with demand. The generic guys, e.g. Silvertown, probobly don't have a lot of incentive to increase production if they can just sell less for more - especially since they don't know how long the increased demand will last. To ramp up you need more equipment. First of all, there's the credit crunch, and second of all that equipment may sit idle if demand dies down in a year or two.

 

[John Sukey In Memoriam]

One thing I will Always hate the Hunt brothers for
All British Campaign medals (not counting the stars) were silver. Thousands of them were melted down for the content. And then there was all that Victorian and earlier silver items that were lost forever because the people who owned it got greedy. The same items now are worth far more then their metal content.
One thing for sure I'm not gonna sell off that 10oz Aussie silver coin I have

 

[Clyde]

Actually, I blame the Hunt brothers' run at a silver corner for all the sterling flatware that was stolen for melt value. Bad enough that owners got greedy - but what about the folks who didn't, but lost the family silver to some [email protected]#$%^&* who sold it for melt? We were lucky enough to not have that happen to our family, and I now have the flatware, which will be passed in due time to our niece, but a couple who lived down the street from Mom and Dad had it happen to them.

 

[cpw]

Fortunately, I held onto all of mine - though the temptation to sell was great.

 

[5thDragoons]

I will forever despise the Hunt Bros for the means of generating $ for their silver ploy. They owned a company that was the parent for Great Western sugar.

Sugar beets used to be big biz in this part of the country and one of the main cash crops.

So in their finite wisdom and before all the dust settled, Great Western sugar was bled white and went belly up... along with many farmers. For a couple years afterward, you could buy Great Western sugar contracts for (literally) 2 or 3 cents on the dollar.

Some friends and distant relatives had to sell out because of all that. SW