never seen silver drop so fast $25.85

Ordered 3 ATBs for about $135 shipped each yesterday

 

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well it seems to be staying at this been on this amount for awile

 

My opinion: China and other large nations are slowing down. Hyperinflation is only talked about in conspiracy sources, low inflation, maybe even deflation appears certain for the next 2-5 years, commodities are decreasing on lowered industry and personal needs. The companies most on this site tend to hate are doing very well, but few here are participating, so the real world recognized that the need for PM is lessened and sold interests. Margin calls on PM contracts and options created the fall to current levels and much was the cause of the anti-bullion sites ( with large short positions) pushing to sell PM, and increase their gains also. Barring world wide catastrophe ( and one can not discount such, PM appears to be where base metals such as aluminum, steel, were in the 2008 range. Current PM holders were given evidence of a stronger dollar but continued with the "Valueless paper curse comments", continued with the rogue government confiscating PM, the people spouting "Buy now for the end of world protection" "back up the truck", "buying more if it goes down another 22 cents, etc. Misery loves company, but don't fall into the buy now as it is going to zoom back. Read more than bullion publications. The US is doing much better than almost any other country, and I suspect it will for the next few years. Diversification is the key for investments. Stocks, real estate, commercial investments, and even 5-10% commodities ( even PM) will serve better in the long run. For PM now, I would search through the producers, who have taken a beating, but still has the PM in the ground and production that can be hedged. The % gain should be higher than the spot prices over a couple of years. IMO.

 

Yeah, but, if the price eventually drops to $18/oz...you will have kicked yourself for nothing

I noticed Apmex site came to a grinding slow down yesterday. At times, it appeared the site was down. Their phone was busy.

(I didn't place any orders... was just trying to contact them to get a RMA for a coin I bought).

 

Provident Metals was so busy last night they said they were only taking online orders and couldn't do phone orders.

 

silvertowne was slow to

 

So how long before physical silver returns to small margins (90% ~2% at retail and ASE ~10%) vs paper spot? My local shops are volume dealers and surely hedged, but even they seem to have been temporarily set back on their heels. This is the first time I've seen them stop posting their silver prices online in a real time fashion - they show 'call for quote' instead...that can't be a good sign. It appears that the same is not true of gold (yet) as those premiums have continued to track. So for the short term, that means gold trumps silver, if I decide to buy.

On the flip side, it's kind of nice to see my dollars gaining strength in a tangible way. If the decline broadens to consumer staples, we all 'win'. My *pure* guess is that this particular drop will be short lived (months?) and that it will not become distributed significantly into other commodity prices (e.g. milk/dairy/beef/lumber). If it lasts for years and doesn't spread out...that's evidence of a narrow market bubble burst... Interesting times!

 

It does hurt to buy some silver and then the next day it's way cheaper. I will admit that. I bought at 22 times face and thought I got a good deal, then at 20 times face and now I am being offered 18 times face value. Ouch! I wonder if it will drop to 16 times face next. It makes it hard to buy because you aren't sure if it's hit bottom yet.

 

You never can. This is why I simply preach dca into it, and not get too excited at any one price level. Look at the early eighties, it had bounces up all of the way down. I am not predicting that, just using it as an illustrative point. This could also be the low. Since we cannot know, hedge your bets and buy some each week.

 

Or you could buy stocks, bitcoins, real estate, numismatics (not a great idea IMO), treasuries, oil, rare animals, or anything else that they can't simply dig out of the ground or leach out of the ocean.

I hear the Yu-gi-oh! card market is near an all time low. Maybe that would be a good investment.

 

It seems to be going up a little today, but there may be a new drop with a new low below. We'll see...

 

I doubt anyone can answer this definitively, but there is the small possibility 90% premiums will never come down. These coins have not been produced in nearly 50 years, so they are bound to run low on supply before other silver does since they are often melted down.

SAE's should come down eventually since they are mass produced each year, but that depends on whether the manufacturing and supply chain can outpace the buying frenzy.

If it were simply a matter of waiting for the next round of supply then 4-6 weeks seems like a good estimate, but if those all get bought up too then what? I doubt the volatile silver price will stay put for anywhere near that long.

 

Why do people melt junk silver if they can sell it fora premium?

 

I think they want to keep money flowing. The people I know who buy a lot get it pretty cheaply, and melt every week. They want to make money this week to keep the business going. They aren't going to buy and hold, because the price may come down next week, as we're seeing.

 

how do you make money melting junk silver? especially with the high premiums junk silver bring

 

I know a dealer who buys foreign silver and melts it down. I've been able to rescue a few nice coins from such a fate, including an uncirculated 1906 India 2 annas and an 1886 Canadian 5 cents.

 

You used to be able to buy it at spot or below for many years as a consumer, dealers even less. So it was treated as junk hence the name, and a lot of it has been melted down. Common 90% shouldn't have a premium, but we are experiencing an anomaly. It doesn't seem worth melting at current high premiums, but then again if there is enough demand for other silver.. survival of the fittest. Total demand exceeds new silver mined each year so it has to come from somewhere.

 

Yep, it comes from old tea sets, junk silver, rounds, broken or out of style jewelry, etc. I admit junk us is probably slowing down being melted, but a whole lot of issues like common modern silver dollars and state quarters are starting to end up in the junk bin.

I agree to a point with you inflexion, every year scarce coins are being created and will probably never be melted down. But i do believe most ase's are eligible to be melted at some point, as well as other new world bullion coins. When they fall out of favor in a few decades, masses will be melted.

 

You might be right, but considering these are already .999 fine, I don't think they'll be melted very often. I think it would cost more money melt and re-mint it than you would make by putting a more popular image on it.

 

Sure, but then they should just sell it as-is. Once you melt it, all premium disappears, so you would necessarily get no more than spot selling to a refiner. Probably considerably less. I can't imagine it's more profitable to sell it to a refiner for 90% of melt than to sell it to someone else as is.