Ray, I've been accumulating scrap silver for many years. I agree with your analysis of the situation. It may well take 5 years. In my opinion when it happens, it will happen fast.
The antique thing I'm not so sure about. When Rogers went about perfecting plated silver in antebellum times, eventually twenty pieces of utensils could be plated with one ounce of silver. Much of that older silverware is very worn and the first thing worn off, of course, is the silver. Some silverware is double, triple, or I suppose there must be 4X plated stuff, but even that extra silver must be balanced against the fact that modern silverware is one oz silver to 24 pieces.
I just don't see people dumping their silverware for a few crumby dollars. It would take $10 silver and as for my hoard, I won't dump unless silver does something spectacular, like $20+ and I'll only change my mind if the yearly supply deficit trend changes. Also "antique" pieces of silverware generally sell from 50 cents to $3 or more dollars apiece so without $10+ silver I believe it won't interfere with the bullion market as a ready supply to fill the holes with.
Nonetheless, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few
Jean Val-Jean's out there willing to dump their silver at any turn, but there probably aren't as many out there as one might think after the huge smelting of such articles from 1979-80. --Al |
