Coins and bars represent a portion of the silver market. See the 3 similar graphs below. Fabrication times for silver coins and bars can create temporary shortages for various businesses. Especially when prices fluctuate. More importantly - Do the fabricators of coins and bars ever encounter a shortage? There surely is a lot of compensation to be found within other silver market allocations considering how small the coin and bar portion of the silver market seemingly is. Source: http://www.worldresourcesforum.org/files/file/graph fritz circle.png Source: http://www.silver-coin-investor.com/images/mar10f.gif Source: http://www.sterling-silver.ws/articles/about-silver/silver-uses.jpg Source: http://media.resourceinvestor.com/resourceinvestor/article/2013/01/23/G3.png Would a significant rise in the allocation of silver for investment coins and bars really be a big deal considering the graphs?.
Exactly. As much as I find it interesting to track, big friggin deal if dealers are out of stock, it represents two fifths of fuck all of the market. If the bullion market share were to significantly increase and mints start finding it difficult to source silver that is when things will get interesting.
Also interesting would be to see which corporations make up most of the industrial demand and if they are hedged and or dare I say have a vested interest in keeping the price down....
7% for photography? Who is still shooting on film?!?! Not as much as 19% in 2005 but still, I'm surprised.
I have to wonder a bit about that 7% for photography. The last umpteen times I've been X-rayed (which has been a lot, owing to surgeries and other bone-related trouble), the X-ray machine digitally saved the shots directly into the hospital mainframe and transmitted them electronically to whoever needed them. As for medium format film---the people who shoot film with their Leica S2's, Mamiyas, Hasselblads, etc are an incredibly small group out of photographers overall. 4 out of 5 people who use a camera don't even know what the phrase "medium format" means. I think they got that downtrend roughly correct (19% down to 7% in 8 years), but I wonder if that present 7% reading might be lagging a bit behind (i.e: above) present reality...
The graphs relate to silver usage. They don't indicate how much silver is warehoused for supply feed, as a side note (I'm not sure of supply buffer quantities). Silver ETF's seem to live in another world like the silver price. The silver price tracks generally gold for example. Bankers/Govt can steal from people in Cyprus in falling economies and the metals go down at the same time. QE's often mean silver happens to fall somewhat thereafter. In 2008 silver price via ETF went into an apparent irrational bubble just a did in 1980. The bubble prices are so short lived they little nothing regarding silvers value. Even at $30 I was suspicious that the price could return to $20 and sit there for years to come. The rises of 2008 and 2011 would have been driven from within the paper silver markets. Speculation driven due to economic factors and hype (see how quickly silver falls back down to the ground also). Retailers may run out of fabricated silver products during these times, but this is surely not the market driver. America may lead the hype for example, but the American market is not the world market. If need be, silver coin and bar fabrication could possibly be increased by significant margins without affecting the overall silver market supply too much. When silver runs up in price people tend to get on board and buy silver as it rises, yet silver suddenly takes a major correction despite the people rushing in to buy during the rise (I'm no expert here, just some thoughts)
I'm not sure what you are talking about then, it's like you don't count those 1000 ouncers that are typically serving for industrial/paper trading ETF's/futures. These are out there, serial numbers avail, and they are bars, aren't they? The Silver Institutes demand/supply refers to the class you seem to talk about, as "Coins & Medals". Not the 'coins and bars' you talk about.
Sorry, there is some ambiguity regarding bars. I'm not claiming that, or denying that anything does not exist. The reason I created this thread was to point out the bigger picture of silver usage vs supply concerns regarding the more highly fabricated silver products found on display within bullion retail outlets. My concern is that people may equate shortages at bullion retail outlets with shortages in silver supply, at times when it is not the case at all. I'm also pointing out that in such a large and diverse market of silver consumers, compensation can surely occur from the greater market if more silver is allocated to coins and the more highly fabricated consumer bars (PAMP bars for example).
Do you equate shortages of consumer grade coins and fabricated 1kg bars etc at retailers for example as a sign of silver shortage then?.
If you specify / narrow it to 'highly fabricated bars' then yes, I agree. And yes, some erroneously equate shortage of specific silver with shortage of silver. Happens all the time. Probably read too much SilverDoctors Zerohedge etc articles. The graphs however, could indeed be labeled as 'bullshit' in aspect of time, since they are outdated (2008 2005) while most of silvers price move happened post 2008. The IShares vehicle still holds 10000 ton from the market, 1/3 world year supply. But their, and general ETF demand, stalled since 2011, so the statement could be made that the graphs are gradually becoming again valid. Todays silver price is the peak price of 2008. The rest of the year will make clear whether the average (a more accurate judgement) will differ.
Here are some more recent graphs. Source: http://www.silverinstitute.org/site/supply-demand/silver-demand/ Source: http://www.silverinstitute.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/World-Silver-Demand-12.jpg The above graph shows a considerable ramp up in silver usage for coin production. The market has absorbed the extra allocation to coin production. Having travelled across China, I found the Chinese to be very capitalistic. Here is some data from China. Source:http://silverinmalaysia.com/category/silver-malaysia-ebook/
The biggest mistake people make when analysing effects on the price of silver is by correlating it primarily on its industrial demand. Over the past 5 years, industrial use for silver has gone up very little, yet prices have increased 6 or 7 fold. This tells me that silver is an investor driven in regards to its price. I recommend people read Thomson Reuters GMFS's world silver survey. It has allot of good statistics that can help people see the bigger picture. As silver is an investor driven commodity, I have found specific statistics with certain countries economies are a good indicator of where things are going. I've also found official Government data tend to be lies, and that industrial electricity consumption (manufacturing), casino visitor statistics, and similar overlooked investor related statistics tend to flow with the direction of the silver price and provide a good roadmap over the next month. The WWW has also played a huge part in the price of silver rising in the past decade, as it has shown people silver as an investment option which they were unaware of before, also, easy and free access to live spot prices make silver feasible to invest, which was not the case before for many people, I guess. EDIT: Also, in 2011 China legalised private ownership of bullion.
China's push for it's people to save in silver and as mentioned legalisation of private bullion ownership is a big deal IMO. It could well have a flow on effect to other developing nations and lets face it China ain't getting smaller... http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...and-to-advance-to-record-on-wealth-protection A bit old but you get the picture...
my friend brother purchased on the weekend. Not much was available and he paid 30/oz for it. If the price stays below 26.00 physical is going to be hard to come by.
