Is A Massive Chinese Order Causing a Silver Shortage in Europe?!

[Sherlock]

Found this article interesting. Particularly the comment "silver will be re-monetized with the monetary reform to come"

Obviously I don't know if it's true or not?

One of my contacts with one of the largest European precious metals brokers told me this morning that they could not find any silver. All the refiners they contacted could not take their orders and could not give any delay. "Call us next next month", they said. This is the first time that such an event has occurred.

On Wednesday, he attempted to source a ton of silver (32,000 oz), from the three main Swiss refiners. Two of them refused to take the order entirely, and the third refiner stated delivery would take 2 weeks.
The refiners claimed they had been very busy during the last month trying to fulfill an "enormous" Chinese order.

Submitted by Cyrille Jubert, Author of Silver Throughout History
One of my contacts with one of the largest European precious metals brokers told me this morning that they could not find any silver. All the refiners they contacted could not take their orders and could not give any delay. "Call us next next month", they said. This is the first time that such an event has occurred.I called a Swiss Friend of mine, whose company specializes in silver scrap. He told me that the Swiss refiners were very busy refining silver ore arriving from the mines, and are now quoting between 5 and 6 weeks to refine silver scrap- twice the usual delay.
On Wednesday, he attempted to source a ton of silver (32,000 oz), from the three main Swiss refiners.

Two of them refused to take the order even giving a delay, and the third refiner stated delivery would take 2 weeks.
The refiners had been very busy during the last month trying to fulfill an "enormous" Chinese order. They refused to divulge how enormous this demand was because of professional secrecy, but it seemed to me it was a sovereign order. As India increased its 2012 silver import by 4.000 tons this year, the silver market is very tight. The Chinese demand saturates the refiners' capacity.

Earlier in the year, especially July and August, the Swiss refiners could not refine silver ore, because they had such huge gold orders, that they could not work on anything else.

This explains the actual European silver shortage.

In addition, all the old French silver coins seem to have vanished. My contacts who used to trade 500 kilos a day between 2007 and 2011, told me in spring 2012, that they didn't trade this amount in a month. For the past 6 months, the coins dealers have had no French silver coins to sell and even the black market seems to be completely dry.

Cyrille Jubert is a French journalist specialized in precious metals, who published "Silver Throughout History". From ancient time to the actual Crimex, the author followed the scent of silver, giving a very different version of Official History. He will convince you that silver will be re-monetized with the monetary reform to come very very soon.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/massive-silver-shortage-in-europe/

 

[worldbubble]

until they name the sources, dealers, brokers
it is all

 

[Old Codger]

I have often wondered why the Chinese are not just as keen on getting as much silver as possible as they have been with gold.

They need it for theirr industry and so on, just like every one else, and it would be a good companion to any Gold Standard they may be planning.

JMO


OC

 

[Shaddam IV]

I would like to hear Bron Suchecki's opinion on this....

 

[Pirocco]

Apparently todays price is high enough to make quite some people willing to sell silver. For ex today I noticed that the dealer I bought most of my silver from, sells
- 2009 Libertad kilocoins
- Philharmoniker 1ouncers from previous years in 'circulated condition' at a slightly reduced price.
- Maple leafs - same as above
- Silver Eagles - same as above
Everything is deliverable from stock, except for new Silver Eagles which are tagged as 'bad delivery', and new 2014 coins (which is every year the case for next years coins).
- a whole range old Franklin Mint / Kookaburra / colored / etc sets.
- various Kookaburra 1ouncers from 199x.
This indicates alot selling silver back to dealer.

On auction sites, so private sales to private buyers, alot offers accumulated, with both gold and silver bullion and junk, and they don't end up in sales, meaning that sellers want more than bidders are willing to give.

So there is no silver coin shortage here, rather the opposite lol.

And that source 'silverdoctors.com' - I (just me) have one word for it: Bah - after reading numerous bogus stories between march 2011 and now. Same stories at $50, at $40, at $30 and $20. They probably just make profit from selling silver, with the bogus stories to drive people into buying regardless the price. See, a profit side requires a loss side.

I sometimes wonder about all those Chinese precious metal related stories. They are nearly unverifyable, if it isn't due to the lack of sources, it's due to inability to read chinese. Anyone here can read chinese? Enough to dig the sources down to their original? I wonder.

 

[sammysilver]

It's all part of the puzzle. However, when you start adding up all these stories you get a sense of a great movement of PMs from West to East. In addition, silver because of industrial demand consumes much of the raw product with some confusion remaining over investment demand. I believe with the increasing awareness over silver there is a healthy trade in collectible silver bullion whilst the hardcore just keep increasing their holdings through profits on their collectables plus ongoing purchases.

As a maybe, if we say Silver Stackers has 10,000 members each holding 100 ounces that translates as over 4% of a years production of silver with most of us in Australia with only 23 million people population. Think USA 330 million, Europe 450 million.

"We will control the World!"

 

[bordsilver]

It's not as useful as a monetary metal because it has industrial uses.

It's industrial use is irrelevant. The question is whether it has higher value in industrial uses than as a monetary metal. If it is too valuable to use as money it won't be and vice versa.

 

[Midnight Man]

It's all part of the puzzle. However, when you start adding up all these stories you get a sense of a great movement of PMs from West to East. In addition, silver because of industrial demand consumes much of the raw product with some confusion remaining over investment demand. I believe with the increasing awareness over silver there is a healthy trade in collectible silver bullion whilst the hardcore just keep increasing their holdings through profits on their collectables plus ongoing purchases.

On the movement of precious metal from West to East I am convinced. China, and to a lesser degree Russia, have been buying in considerable amounts of Gold in recent times. Silver largely remains unnoticed in all of this, it doesn't tend to have the "glamour" of gold, and is less "newsworthy" to be reported.

To my mind, the Chinese are very clever people... yes, they have a tradition of precious metal acquisition and holding among their people that we in the West don't have, and this does account for some of their demand. But one needs to add to this their overall mentality - I believe the Chinese are very long term in their thinking - they don't look to tomorrow, they look to next year, next 5 years, next decade, next generation, and I believe much of their thinking and outlook revolves around this type of thinking. In other words, they're planners - and they've been doing this for the last few thousand years, and in that time, they've gotten pretty good at it.

Additionally, and partly because of this type of thinking, the Chinese are more prepared (I believe) to both wait patiently for outcomes, or even go through some pain/bad times to bring about changes they see as being beneficial to themselves in the medium to longer term.

Add to this the fact that economically, as far as world economics go, the Chinese now have a LOT of power. This almost cannot be overemphasised. Never in recent (thinking last 100 years or so) to my knowledge has any country had as much potential influence on the world economy as China does right now.

Combine these facts - the long term thinking, willingness to suffer today for better outcomes tomorrow with the power that this nation possesses and you could easily envisage the Chinese making some "plays" in the world economy to further their position, and potentially "upset" the status quo.

 

[Pirocco]

I have often wondered why the Chinese are not just as keen on getting as much silver as possible as they have been with gold.
They need it for theirr industry and so on, just like every one else, and it would be a good companion to any Gold Standard they may be planning.

It's not as useful as a monetary metal because it has industrial uses.
No central bank that I'm aware of has a Silver reserve.

So I disagree that it would make a good companion to a Gold standard, but may be worth stockpiling for it's industrial qualities (like they have at times with copper, iron ore, etc).

This is a weird argument, why would industrial usage of a product hamper that product in a usage as money?
I see it as rather the opposite, that industrial usage gives the silver market its consumption model, meaning that every year an amount silver goes into the extremely low particle density situation (read: waste), making it economically unrecoverable. A consumption model means that the stock is partly used up and thus limited, while gold just kept on being stockpiled forever.
It's exactly because central banks don't have silver stocks, that I chosed silver. And the second reason is exactly above consequence of industrial usage, this links the production cost much more closely (in time) to general price inflation. The only drawback of silver is its market, silver is bought by alot newbies / small fish, and those are outsmarted / outspeeded by more experienced, that just buy silver as an inbetween step to gold, making those silver people paying their ride for free. It's for a reason that the silver price moves twice as fast as golds: for every ounce a real inflation hedger/stacker buys, those temporary free riders buy 2 or 3. The double to gold futures market total net position relative to the annual production is a nice indicator of this (see my signature).