I have great admiration for Jason Hommel. He’s bought a lot of silver from me in the past. I am surprised at his ’warning’ that everyone is out of silver, including A-Mark, my supplier. You’re WRONG JASON at least about A-Mark.
The problem with silver is that when it got to $20, and gold to $1,000, the public said to itself, “Oh boy, I’d better buy some.” My son and I have been so jammed with new customers that our regular customers have a hard time getting in. Hundred ounce silver orders, which are the minimum, by the dozens, from new customers who feel the need to get into the market, and rightly so, even though they aren’t wealthy. We appreciate them, as we do all customers, even though on a hundred ounce silver order, we make very little if any profit. I have two phones and he has two, and they have all been very busy. The demand has caught everyone by surprise, including the US Mint. Our supplier of 10 ounce bars and A-Mark rounds, is the same company which makes the blanks for the US Mint. (The Mint stamps out the coins,. but the blanks are made by a private mint). Whenever a sudden demand for a product happens, no matter whether it is cars, spaghetti, houses, or gold and silver, the normal supply systems are upset. When a grocery store customarily sells 1,000 gallons of ice cream in a week, and a hot spell causes great demand, the grocery store is going to be short ice cream, because everyone bought what they had. Ice cream isn’t short. The demand overwhelmed the dairy which makes the ice cream, that’s all.
Now Jason should know by now, that there can be no shortages of ANYTHING, if there are no price controls. The price of anything on the free market will see to it that there is no shortage, regardless of what it is. Then silver and gold took a nose dive, causing even more demand. If there were a ’shortage,’ which is impossible without government price controls, the price would go to the sky, not lose a couple of bucks an ounce! If silver, or rather when silver goes to $50 or $75 an ounce, its price will be reflecting the amount available. The less available, the higher the price will be, and the market will cause people not to buy because they consider it ’too high.’ No shortage however, just price reflecting demand and supply.
I’d love to have a new Mercedes, but I can’t afford one, so I drive one of my four old ones. If Mercedes were cheaper, more would sell, and the demand would probably outstrip the factory’s ability to make them fast enough. The demand for silver has increased tremendously, and the manufacturing ability is increasing as I write this. There will be a delay for ten ounce bars of a week or so, but you can still lock in the price at today’s prices. The demand for Englehard 100 ounce bars was so great, that the supply evaporated, and there are no more available now. They haven’t been made for many years, but are still very pretty and slick. So, we have brand new Johnson Matthey bars made in Salt Lake City, and there is no ’shortage’ of them. The incorrect word ’shortage’ should be delay, because there is no shortage of silver, any more than there is a shortage of anything, without government price controls.
There will eventually, when another 1% of the world’s population wises up, be an intense demand for precious metals. The reason being that all currencies can be increased at the touch of a printing press switch by irresponsible governments, and believe me, they all are that. As the flood of paper money increases, more and more people will want to transfer their surplus assets from scrip into tangibles. Since gold and silver have been real money for thousands of years, guess what they will turn to if they have a brain? That’s absolutely correct. It will be gold and silver. Years from now, don’t be surprised when the same gold and silver as we have now, reach astronomical levels, price wise in paper scrip. Same stuff, but they will cost more in paper money. Those who got in, even at $20 and $1,000 per ounce, will be awfully glad they did way back in 2008.