How many significant physical silver investors are there?

[theo]

I've thought it over a bit and IMHO a significant silver investor is any individual or household that owns 300 or more ounces of silver in a widely recognized form (basically coins, rounds or bars). I know that might seem meager to some of you, but 300 ounces is not likely to be accumulated by accident and is worth over $10,000 at today's prices; serious money to most people. Also, anybody who still has that much silver after all the grifting we've seen over the past few years probably knows what they have and are unlikely to part with their stash or at least not the core part of it.

So my question is, what percentage of households in the U.S. and Canada do you think have 300 ounces or more in silver?

[Luoganta]

I'd say take whatever number you are thinking of...and double it....10 times.

To give you a snap shot I've been hording since the 'Join date' I literly joined this forum and got my first bit of silver a few days later. I right now have 46.3 Troy oz of silver. If you'd consider 300oz to be a significant investor I don't see any reason I wouldn't reach that number in say 1 or 2 years.

[shinnosuke]

Just taking a blind stab at it...less than 2%

[NickelExpress]

I highly doubt its a very big number at all, I would think more people have gold and not many people have a significant quantity of that I would guess (talking actual weight not appraised\insurance value on jewellery). I think if more people had silver\gold you wouldn't be able to still find silver coins circulating, gold\silver jewelery at garage sales and second hand stores, people just don't seem to know the value of the metal meaning i highly doubt they or their significant other has heavily invested in it.

[Treetop]

Im guessing the number is below 1 percent.

[TXBullion]

little over quarter percent, about a millions people

[68Camaro]

If you want a quick ROM estimate, divide the total US Mint ASE production by your 300, and I think that would be a fair estimate of the number of US owners with that many ounces. (Some with more, others with less, but many of the "less" also having other forms of silver as well like 90%, foreign coin, rounds, bars, etc.) In round numbers there have been 300,000,000 ASEs produced to date, so that suggests a million American families. Not many.

[beauanderos]

Or... it could just mean one individual with three hundred million ounces. Hoard? Wanna fess up?

[coppertone]

I know very few and most of those are recent buyers some of which bought at my encouragement.

My employer has a significant amount of physical silver most of which I sold him or helped him buy. Yet at the time we were buying heavily (summer, 2010) he was told by his brother, a professional investment advisor, that we were wasting our time.

Not sure maintream society has got the message yet concerning government debt levels, fragile fiat currencies and the need to protect some of their money.

[Mossy]

If you are talking "physical", a bag of $1000 face contains about 720 ounces. I'd not call that "significant", and it would be (was) cheap to buy back around 2001 and easy leave in a corner.

For physical, I'd say a serious investor has 10,000 ounces or more.

How many? No idea. Not me, though I'm scratching up what I can.

[68Camaro]

If you are talking "physical", a bag of $1000 face contains about 720 ounces. I'd not call that "significant", and it would be (was) cheap to buy back around 2001 and easy leave in a corner.

For physical, I'd say a serious investor has 10,000 ounces or more.

How many? No idea. Not me, though I'm scratching up what I can.

Interesting cut-off. You're not a serious investor if you don't have nearly 400,000 in physical silver? Dude, the number of people with $400,000 in savings period (regardless of PM or not) would automatically cut out 99.99 percent of the population.

Something like only 5% of people have any significant savings period. Much less physical PM. (Remember, more than half the people don't even pay income tax anymore.)

It's an arbitrary bar, but at 10,000 oz I think you've raised the bar too high to matter. If the purpose of this is to try the assess whether the middle and upper middle classes, who actually have some savings, have moved some, most, or all of it to silver, you've got to set that bar in the hundred of ounces.

[kidman232]

i would say anything over 20 oz's of silver does not happen by accident and would consider them self a significant silver investor

[avidbrandy]

What defines a serious investor? I'd say it's a percentage of the investments in metal, not a flat amount. To say "you must have $400,000 in silver to be a 'serious investor' is rather absurd. I'd say anyone who has over 50% of their investments in precious metals is a serious investor.

[Rodebaugh]

If you are talking "physical", a bag of $1000 face contains about 720 ounces. I'd not call that "significant", and it would be (was) cheap to buy back around 2001 and easy leave in a corner.

For physical, I'd say a serious investor has 10,000 ounces or more.

How many? No idea. Not me, though I'm scratching up what I can.

Interesting cut-off. You're not a serious investor if you don't have nearly 400,000 in physical silver? Dude, the number of people with $400,000 in savings period (regardless of PM or not) would automatically cut out 99.99 percent of the population.

Something like only 5% of people have any significant savings period. Much less physical PM. (Remember, more than half the people don't even pay income tax anymore.)

It's an arbitrary bar, but at 10,000 oz I think you've raised the bar too high to matter. If the purpose of this is to try the assess whether the middle and upper middle classes, who actually have some savings, have moved some, most, or all of it to silver, you've got to set that bar in the hundred of ounces.

2 points Rich . $400K is quite a chunk'o change. To have that much in Silver (pyhsical) is tough......TOUGH. Putting a bag of face together is a big step in its self. Not alot of folks can just log onto APMEX and buy one.

500 ounces is a good silver holding. 10 ounces of gold is a good benchmark as well.

Sounds like a good poll question. What is a a solid core of silver in ounces for a person to own.

[Rodebaugh]

i would say anything over 20 oz's of silver does not happen by accident and would consider them self a significant silver investor

I don't know.....

I have 35oz in sterling silver flatware (ASW)....that could happen by accident to some lucky yardsale patron needing flatware.

not likely....but a guy can hope!

[avidbrandy]

I don't know.....

I have 35oz in sterling silver flatware (ASW)....that could happen by accident to some lucky yardsale patron needing flatware.

not likely....but a guy can hope!

Just rub it in a little.

I go to garage sales frequently looking for exactly this. Have yet to get lucky though.

[Mossy]

Interesting cut-off. You're not a serious investor if you don't have nearly 400,000 in physical silver? Dude, the number of people with $400,000 in savings period (regardless of PM or not) would automatically cut out 99.99 percent of the population.

Something like only 5% of people have any significant savings period. Much less physical PM. (Remember, more than half the people don't even pay income tax anymore.)

It's an arbitrary bar, but at 10,000 oz I think you've raised the bar too high to matter. If the purpose of this is to try the assess whether the middle and upper middle classes, who actually have some savings, have moved some, most, or all of it to silver, you've got to set that bar in the hundred of ounces.

Depends on when it was acquired. I had (traded for gold) $1000 face junk coins, purchased right after 9-11, for roughly $8000 present value dollars. I did not and do not regard myself as a significant silver investor.

5% is probably an over estimate, even defining "savings" as "somewhat liquid assets", but that was not the question. Nor was "new investor" specified.

Right now, Colorado Gold is offering a 100oz bar of silver for $3850 total. Okay, 10 x $3850 is $38,500, and I'd call that a chunk of change. That's 1000 ounces. I'd call that "serious", but not "significant".

What does a new car cost these days? Do you think that enough silver to buy a single new car for cash should be called "significant"? I don't.

[avidbrandy]

yea and how many people have enough cash to buy a car? If we follow this path we're gonna go down into a different debate about credit and then America's issues.

I personally own about 200 ounces. I consider myself a significant investor though, mainly because it's the majority of my savings. However, I'm 20 years old. How many people my age have enough to buy a 'significant' amount of silver. I have 2 cars, and no debt. does having debt count? If you have $20000 in silver, but you have a $200,000 mortgage still, does that effect it or not? Does the fact that all your silver is technically on loan then matter? I don't know.

[Mossy]

Interpretation of "significant" vs "serious".

Good point about the mortgage.

[argent_pur]

I have one ounce of silver...a NORFED "Illinois $20) round I bought from ebay. I think anyone who has at least an ounce could possibly be considered "serious" Ahh, really though in all seriousness, you'll define the line anywhere you've already crossed, lest you consider yourself to be "just a dabbler" or a "hobbyist". We small fries will define serious much differently than a COMEX trader would. Who exactly is the target group we're considering here?

[avidbrandy]

I think he's implying your average American. But if that's the case then do you take the person's income into account? or what about their net worth? Isn't the average networth somewhere around $0 because of debt, etc?

[TXBullion]

What's the equity on the house 200k mortgage is insignificant on a two mil mansion

[68Camaro]

Regardless, I suspect the point of the original question - or at least what it would be for me - is a) are there enough significant physical individual investors to be able to move the market by their future buys (or sells) if they moved in concert, and b) is there a large enough untapped market that if the balance of the people without silver each choose to acquire a small amount, say 10 oz, might that alone affect the market. I think the answer to both is yes.

[timmus0382]

I heard somewhere that only one percent of the american population owns fine silver. That's only three million people, three hundred million ase's plus three hundred million other ounces, that comes out to 200 oz. per investor average. I say 200 would answer your question

[Mossy]

I'm thinking "significant compared to other people investing in silver". 300 ounces is very little compared to some people here. Compared to some here, that single bag of silver I used to have is small potatoes. And I'd not be ashamed to call myself a dabbler in either gold or silver, although I'm serious about trying to work my way up.

Someone could be considered a significant holder of PM's, but have negative net value equal to a hundred times today's value for the PM. I'd have to wonder about the definition of "savings", so maybe we don't want to over analyze.

Back to the original question, if we simply ask what percentage of the overall population has more than some combination of gold and silver working out to 300 ounces of silver, I'd say we need to use a whole lot of zeroes after the decimal point.

Camaro:

Point one, "maybe". Depends on cut off.
Point two, "darn tooten". If all the "have nots" bought in, we certainly would see an effect.