It's not that you can't get it, it's just that you have to use a big refiner like Perth Mint who have the raw material in order to back new unallocated orders.
On the contrary though you would have lost a tonne of money the last few weeks if you had bought an ETF prior to the plunge in the paper price. If you had bought physical retail silver you would likely be making money with the increased premium if you were to sell. Even if you had bought physical retail silver in the past few days, if you could get your hands on any, I don't see how you wouldn't be profiting as the premium has remained high, if not higher, along with the rise in the silver price?
I'm not familiar with the Perth Mint unallocated program. But say if you were to convert it into physical, I would imagine you would be waiting for a while before you will get your hands on it in the current environment for them to fabricate it, since a lot of things seem to be out of stock? The fear I have with the Perth Mint is that that's the first place the government will go to if they ever needed the gold. And you'll get pieces of paper back instead.
First Majestic is vertically intergrated, these guys will make the money. hopefully they can justify keeping their supply chain open to the cov19 government
I think the government has got enough to deal with at the moment to worry about confiscation of precious metals from the less than one percent of people who have any to confiscate from. This would be the last thing I would be worried about at the present time. Although, once gold prices double from here it might be a valid concern.
There are halts to trading happening already in the precious metals due to supply line disruptions. I dont see any point for the government to make temporary bans specifically targeting precious metals trading, unless it was part of a larger shutdowns involving the share market and other financial transactions. Lets face it we stackers are not that big or important in the grand scheme of things to attract special attention at the present time.
Bullion Now has Perth mint kilo bars back on their website with Delivery FROM July: https://bullionnow.com.au/store/
That's a long time and it's probably gonna look more like August September and if someone got covid at perthmint might be looking at December.
For those with a hankering to splash some cash on some gold, ABC actually have one item available to purchase. https://www.abcbullion.com.au/store/gabgluo375g-abc-bullion-luong-cast-bar
I'm just wondering how long now does anyone to wait to have your silver bullion delivered when he/she has changed from unlocatteed?...
Another single product available from ABC. Me thinks ABC are targeting the asian buyers right now given they have produced tael ingots in recent days rather than standard 1oz cast bars. https://www.abcbullion.com.au/store/gabgtael375gram-abc-bullion-tael-cast-bar
A friend of mine placed a silver order at Perth mint and he said they have 5,000 orders they need to fill and are only producing 1kg and 1oz kangaroos