Smelting the Family Silver

[beauanderos]

Interesting video from the UK shown on Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/91870651/

During the last silver spike, people were smelting items due to the high prices. Now, people are smelting items due to the poor economy. The proportion of people who own silver (in any form) is contracting, not expanding. More weak hands, are the strong hands hungry enough to absorb the supply?

[agmoose]

I dunno........I think there are alot more folks, in proportion to the size of the population who own silver today than there were in 1980 for example. However, you are probably right that many who were here for the last spike to the high 40's have bailed out. Some will return, and some won't.

I think a lot of us wonder if we're at or near the floor on silver price, or if it'll drop another 40%. I tend to think it will drop another 10-15%. I also think it'll be nearly double what it is today within a couple of years. Just my .02, and that is probably all its worth.

[beauanderos]

Silver and gold should launch like a rocket lifting off on a moonshot, due to the proliferation of excess liquidity being created. However... that is not in the interests of powerful gov't entities who act in collusion with the bullion banking cartels to suppress prices, so it's impossible to predict what will happen in the short term.

[inflationhawk]

The French election could be the turn and the beginning of a new wave of global monetary policy easing, giving strength to metals.

[Know Common Cents]

People look to the debt crisis in Europe as well as other hot spots such as North Korea, Syria and a litany of others and say, "Ho hum. All that trouble is so far away from me, it really doesn't matter. I can still get my 12er of Bud Light, a couple packs of Newports and I'm set for the weekend."

Until such point that the American populus is awakened on a localized level, complacency will rule their lives. I'm thinking the November presidential election has an opportunity to hit the PM throttle. Not in a good way for the huddled masses, mind you, but rewarding for the Au and Ag bugs.

With an unfavorable outcome to the election, I forsee a wholesale selling of the family jewels (literally and figuratively) just to hunker down for the duration of really bad economic times and social strife.

I'm certainly not selling. Quite the contrary. Tangibles are the only way to look beyond the horizon and know that my family will remain alive, intact and reasonably happy. Batten down the hatches, mates! Back up the truck for another load of PMs and bullets.

[cesariojpn]

All that history melted down........wasteful.

[beauanderos]

All that history melted down........wasteful.

More than that. Tragic. Kinda reminiscent of the way when you drive around town it's not the same anymore as it was when you were a kid. Familiar buildings changing occupancies, several times. Or torn down altogether and replaced with something more modern. You can't share "landscape" memories of anything in a conversation, unless you are the same age. If you're trying to have a conversation with someone a few decades (or several) younger, they don't know what you're talking about... as if you, or your city, had alzheimer's. I've never read You Can Never go Home Again, but I don't think this is what Thomas Wolfe had in mind.

[justj2k78]

My father gave me the "family silver" as I began this stacking journey over a year ago now. It was nothing major, a couple of Morgans, some War nickels, and then a bunch of older coins with no silver content, but that were quite old and interesting. Since then, my father has had a stroke, now lives in a nursing home, and occasionally knows who I am but does not have a single lucid moment. I'd never sell it. It's not the monetary value, it's that he - even inadvertently - strengthened my resolve to do this.

[everything]

Well, they did that here too, back the last couple of years, and things even got a little crazy, probably still are. I think it takes longer for mining to ramp back up than it does for price to ramp up, and so until then, we melt. Then again, China has 13 months supply of silver, maybe this is just how much silver costs these days. Maybe this is just the last of the weaker hands, who you never know, might be selling at a good price.