Bitcoin Forum

I don't recall a day this year (not saying there hasn't been one that I didn't notice) where silver was over $30/oz. There is supposedly a worldwide shortage of silver...who woulda thunk it looking at market prices. I love my cool designed rounds and bars, but when will silver really rise? At least consistently past the $30 threshold? It is pretty disturbing to think that we're just about at the point where 1BTC=2 oz Silver!

What shortage?

Yes it has been disturbing  :-[

I don't think there's a shortage, I just think the supply from newly mined ore has just equalized with the actual demand.

You think you own silver?

Probably you mistake. You own a peice of paper where somebody wrote you own a silver.

Paper costs shit.

But wait... I bet you don't own even paper.

Why would you even want to have paper silver?

My coins are so shiny :D

Easier to bend into cool shapes, duh!

Unlike bitcoin, it is easy to naked short sell metals.  Demanding delivery for every international trade is only feasible with cryptocurrency.  As for not demanding delivery, look what happened when France asked Nixon for their gold in 1971.  Oops, dollars are no longer convertible.

Until the banking system is flushed of the actors selling what they don't have, metals won't make significant new highs.

Your silver will be worth something...

when you sell it for BTC!

Ha-chachacha!

*tap dances out the room*

Actually no, I own silver. I never understood the idea of "silver stock" or whatever they call it. Tangible assets are supposed to be just that; tangible. Plus I get a hard on whenever I'm playing with my silver (and especially gold).

And I haven't heard about a "shortage" per se. Just the fact that "soon" there will be a shortage and overwhelming demand for silver because it is used so heavily in industry. It was that fact that compelled me to invest more in silver than in gold. They're both solid investments, time has shown. But I really believed that silver would be performing better than it is because of all of its uses in industry.

Nice! You find that yourself?

Kinda

"In industry"

What industries?  Your post reads like a standard gold or silver ad.  No details, just buy now before it is too late.

Find it at the store? Its still cool. I was at my coin/gold store the other day and they had a 2.7 ounce solid gold nugget. The things I would do to that...

The first gold fleshlight?

Pretty woman in gem store was so charming... so I bought that peice she offered  ;D

Read up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver#Other_industrial_and_commercial_applications

LMAO... :D

I'm aware.  I was just pointing out your use of marketing terms.  In my mind, such terms have no place in investment decision making.

You better patent that.

What? I can't say that "silver is used in industry"?
And "marketing terms"? I'm not trying to sell anything here lol.
Failed trolling attempt.

It is worth something...almost .5 BTC/oz (for now).

Don't remind me.
Insane though, isn't it?
I remember probably like two weeks ago paying just over a bitcoin for a Maple Leaf...if I had waited I would have had 2 : (

I thought the main industrial use for silver was film photography which I'm pretty sure is a dying field.

Pants are used in industry.
Wood is used in industry.
Lamps are used in industry.
Air is used in industry.

Sure you can say it.  But it is meaningless marketing speak that can be said about nearly anything.  If you want to talk about the changes in demand from a particular industry I might pay you some mind.

The main industrial use is for electrical conductors. Billions of Ipads, Flat screen TVs and Cell-phones contain significant amount of silver. Solar PV panles are a massive silver sink and a rapidly emerging market. The large majority of this silver is considered irrecoverable (not the case with film). Additionally, the price for that silver is realtively inelastic. That is, if silver triples in price then a single Ipad may only nudge up $5-$10 but multiplied over the whole of the production it is significant yet people will happily pay it.

the argument for industrial silver pushing the price up is valid.

This is how you share actual information.  Thank you.

It used to be, but there are new applications now (as mentioned in previous posts).

LOL, that looks awfully like a chunk of pyrite.

I think he might have been looking at the non-metallic gem when he was making his purchase  ;)

Sorry, your highness. The conversation I started wasn't titled "The Industrial Uses of Silver". I merely said what I said to make a point that silver is used in industry, as gold is, but to a greater extent. The conversation from the beginning was about the value of silver. That's exactly why I started it in the "Speculation" area. Go pick a fight with someone else.

Sorry you're butthurt.  I guess I won't thank people for sharing information anymore because it might make you sad since you only have marketing speak to fall back on.  ::)

I think you might find this useful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTeSH8wTrQ).  :)

You are right to hold silver. You are drinking upstream from the herd. Remember, it's cheap now because no one understands what is really happening with the silver market. The fact that BTC has tripled in the last couple of months is a gift. No one knows where the price is going next week or next month but if you have vision, you can predict what is going to happen next. You just don't know when it is going to happen.

You strike me as someone who has the sight. So. Buy a little today, buy a little tomorrow.

You made a mistake fragmenting your wealth into illiquid, useless tokens. They will never be worth anything. Expecting silver rounds to make you rich is no different from daydreaming about how your extensive collection of "collectible" plastic dolls or vintage bricks will make you rich.

Precious metals and silver especially have massive handling costs associated with them, which makes the entire thing a novelty/consumer affair, not an investment. As a general rule of thumb, if you're "investing" in silver and your unit is not the metric ton, or if you're "investing" in gold and your unit is not the kilogram you're never going to show a net profit.

Forget about the entire thing, mark it down as yet another one of those cases where you (the naive, clueless, stupid-but-unaware) consumer got fooled by unethical salesmanship into parting with your cash for no benefit whatsoever. Try and learn from it, maybe.

It's hard to light a cigar from a silver round.

This was very well written.  You spoke/typed this out eloquently.  I can tell that you thought this out, and communicated your thoughts in a way that made your point clear to anyone who bothers to read it.  It is a shame that the point you are making, is one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard.

I do not feel the need to justify my opinion with facts, charts, or historical data.  I assume that you have seen them and chose to dismiss them.  I have been investing in precious metals for almost 15 years and paid off my mortgage with the profit you claim that I will never show.  YOU are the one who is "naive, clueless, stupid-but-unaware".  Please do not give out financial advice.

I've got some physical silver and a chunk invested in goldmoney with silver. I expect huge shifts in the silver price when the bankers lose control of the manipulation. They are like king canute trying to stop the tide. they will fail. It will be epic.

Pro tip whever there is news there is a world wide shortage of anything it means the opposite

wow. What's the metal bashing all about? Silver and Gold are the No.1 hedges against the upcoming currency collapse. You cannot rely on BTC to save the day - you need to have at least enough metals to make it through a year of unemployment.

Perhaps this is a case of selective reading. If your mortgage was anything less than $100,000 then perhaps we live in very different worlds. If your mortgage was more than $100,000 you should perhaps check how many ounces in a metric ton.

To clarify, the statement is


rather than

Your conclusion escapes my logic. Are you referring to cost of storage or what?

I'd be glad to take your crappy, worthless silver for free, so you don't need to worry anymore.

Actually I have two one-ounce bars of silver in my possession.  I don't buy "shares" or whatever.  If I buy gold/silver, I buy actual bullion.  I don't have enough bitcoins yet to buy an ounce of gold, but I will as soon as I can. :)

It's probably the case that it escapes something of yours, but I wouldn't go as far as calling it logic. Let's see.

I. Cost of shipping. If you're mailing a one ounce round and you're paying $5 then you've just added 15% to the spot.

II. Cost of insurance / cost of uninsurable risks. Read this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149253.0), this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=152382.0) etc.

What's your business plan here, order a round, wait for it to show up, if it does show up mark II cost as 0, if it doesn't show up make 500 angry posts in the forum and move on to the next "investment"? This is not logic, this is forum retardation.

III. Cost of proofing. How do you know you've not been sold fake rounds? Oh, you just know. Good for you.

IV. Cost of storage. No, this is not "zero because you just keep it in your drawer". If twenty houses get burglarized in your town each week and there's 10,000 houses in total then a two year storage costs you 20% of your silver. Outright.

IV. Cost of divesting. When you finally want to recoup your so called investment you will have to somehow sell this silver. That means all the steps above in reverse + the fact that whoever is available buying may or may not be interested in your particular format, in your particular volume and may or may not expect a discount. Add it all together, figure out the applicable taxes (plus the cost of fighting the taxman over the always possible miscategorization of your silver income - this is not something you may handwave away but must show as a line in your budget!) and you may be in a position to understand that unless you're talking enough volume the various fixed costs eat you alive.

All this if you have a head for business. If you're just doing the consumer thing and figure "$500 buys me an iPad which is worthless in two years or 12 shiny silver coins which I'll be able to pawn for enough to get ten gallons of gas and five packs of cigs in two years so therefore silver is an investment" then yeah, you couldn't follow my logic if you tried.

bold. You have a talent for alienating yourself.

Got it. Yeah, in fact I was referring to the consumer thing.
Your points are all valid. And if you're a business that incurs a huge overhead. Logically that overhead only makes sense if you have a certain volume and expect significant price movements. No wonder that paper gold is so popular - however for the same reason it'll be worthless in case of a crisis.

This is certainly true.

Anyway, nothing personal, a certain approach to precious metals just gets my goat. It's not impossible to profit from them as it's not impossible to profit from anything in this world, in principle. Hell, urine was profitable enough two thousand years ago that they had a special tax on it. But you need skills and you need capital to do it, whereas this angle being sold to normal everyday people that "buy $100 worth of silver and you will profit" is just wrong. It's akin to "start your own tomato farm on your windowsill" or in the words of Carlin "how to make money by renting out the space inside your nostrils".

You wanna make money trading silver, you'd better know what you're doing.

(And for the record the catastrophic angle doesn't work either. Sure, if apocalypse hits and there's no more functioning state it would seem silver rounds might make excellent trade items.

However, the presumption that you'll get to keep/be able to use your rounds is weird in that context. If the government couldn't keep itself together you're going to manage to keep yourself glued to your coins? By what process, using what method? If such a method exists why didn't the state use it to preserve itself? You think angry dudes with guns care you bought that silver fair and square 5 years pre-Apocalypse? The peeps SOL'd during Katrina didn't do much silver coin trading. The UAF 571 didn't establish a silver price per pound of human flesh. If most of humanity is wiped we'll spend our time digging through warehouses for salvageable items, not pushing back and forth engraved metal. On it goes.)

Though this is one of the things that confuses me about so many preppers... They focus on one potential issue and prepare for that above all others. Maybe it's EMP, maybe it's financial collapse, maybe it's bio/chemical. Some preparations are good for multiple scenarios but often there are some big holes. Personally, I suspect that whatever and whenever it happens, it could be "any of the above" or possibly something no one was expecting. To me it makes sense to work out some core essentials first, have a variety of things that would work for multiple specific scenarios, *then*, if you have time/space/money left over, focus on whatever your hobby horse is (meteor strike, magnetic field reversal, whatever). Durable goods first for sure but having a portable token for exchange is up there too. For me, silver > gold in this scenario, especially with the current price of gold.

Gold, however, is probably a reasonable hedge against financial instability. And god know, that's coming. I think bitcoin > gold for that though.

With all that said, if the zombie apocalypse does happen, enough people will be dead that silver and gold will be easy to come by. Should civilization scrape through, your best bet is likely to be less durable luxury goods that will be hard to come by (decent quality alcohol for example).

MPOE-PR, You are an incredibly stupid person to be so well written. Did you have an accident, like a blow to the head?  Something that would cut off blood supply to the area of your brain that uses logic, and social skills.  I suppose that it could be autism. Anyway, nothing personal, a certain approach to expressing your incorrect opinion spiced with insults to anyone that doesn't agree gets my goat.  I could not disagree with you more on this, and I choose to side with history, Ron Paul, and my own personal success with investing in precious metals.  I am not going to waste any more of my energy and time with you.

Metals always have a price. When black Death killed most of the population in some towns, the metals did not buy as much, because there was suddenly 5 times more purchasing media than before. The prices naturally adjusted.

It behooves me why some think that silver or gold is such a bad bet against calamity, that they don't buy *any* even if they could. Never in the history of mankind has it been stupid to have some hidable, portable, liquid Wealth just in case you might need it. Especially as the insurance costs you exactly 0% per annum long term. All the other preparations are of course also prudent and beneficial, but they come with a hefty annual cost. Storing grain etc. costs you easily 5% per annum even if you don't factor in the hassle, replacement cost etc. Also you can't usually buy it at spot, at least here the cost is about 3 times that. Equipment costs space to store and time+money to maintain.

I believe the arrogant dimwits who openly ridicule the owners(hip) of silver and gold are not actually that prepared in other fields either. Perhaps they feel insecure over the fact that they could not buy as much as they wanted, so they hope that they can take what they want with guns.

Disclosure: sold 5000 oz silver today to buy some bitcoin. Still own enough.

Bitcoin and PM's should exist in harmony, they complement each other perfectly.

When I see people argue for strictly one or the other I tend to think those people are retarded.

This sums up my sentiments, thank you  ;D

And to answer OP's question... I thought it was (sorry to use weasel words here) "pretty well known" that JPM and other major financial institutions were engaging in active manipulation to suppress the price of silver. The price won't go up until they stop doing this.

Another reason is naked shorts etc. The price of physical silver is coupled to the price of paper silver. Investors are pretty stupid (in that they actually invest in paper silver) but they aren't so stupid as to not be just a little bit wary that maybe every piece of paper doesn't quite represent the silver it says it does. So the current price is in between what the price of physical silver would be if it were decoupled, and what the price of the paper would be with the same level of uncertainty. Minus the amount that JPM & Friends is able to "suppress" via various methods. Of course, were the paper misrepresentation & naked shorts directly revealed, the price could crash due to investors selling paper silver. At that point the prices of physical and paper silver could decouple as investors might just have learned their lesson. Or not.
BTW my source for all this "information" is random articles on the internet and The Keiser Report. So, no claims as to sauce.

You're new here, and pretty clueless, but a pattern does emerge: you post in threads completely ignoring what is being said while going on about your own take on things. Thusly decoupled from anything of any interest (ie, what the people who aren't new here have to say) the respective barf fails to interest. It also happens to match the definition of both arrogance and dimwittery.


You ain't laughin' now, are ye.


You know, the discussion here isn't at all about precious metals. The discussion here is about when the OP's five rounds "will be worth something". The answer to that is never, pretty much.

Pick one that suits your mood best:
- Being new here obviously nullifies my 7y full time experience on PM's, own TV show, first book in Finnish about PM investing, etc, etc, and especially makes me incapable of saying anything of value concerning the topic of this thread.
- Seriously, is he paying you for making sure that he through various proxies will ever remain the sole shareholder of the MP-"exchange" whose "valuation" is $50 million and counting. No wonder I did not find any shares to short in the open market  ;D
- Looking at your latest 20 posts, there were 19 oneliners but you expended 3 lines on me. I'm flattered. Soon you will ask me on a date, but I will need to decline, since I have a wife, and a kid, and I am busy enough buying bitcoins in BitStamp, so that I don't need to sell pr0n to obtain them.
- LOL, I thought you put me on ignore, 'cause I did not hear from you in 12 hours. Maybe you just do sleep at times...

Sounds like the OP expected silver to have risen in value by now because "Buffet's going to need a lot of silver for his solar energy projects".

Up! Up! UP!

MPOE-PR, I tend to agree with you when you go on rants here, especially when you talk about the client's lack of protocol spec and other important things that most people ignore. But here, I don't know, are you just plain stupid? Your assessment (of the magnitude of silver required to generate a profit), although you may not realize it, is almost completely based on your personal expectations of a realistic rise in silver price in the indefinite future.

You say that based on calculations such as the risk of holding physical silver, the loss when selling to a vendor, cost of verifying authenticity of the silver etc - I won't make a profit unless I invest with a certain order of magnitude i.e. metric tonnes. This makes sense, sure if I buy gram of silver for 100% above spot and silver goes up $25 in 6 months I've still lost money.
What if I buy 100 ozt of silver for $2800 and in a few years it hits Max's target of $150/ozt? I don't care what you're deducting (so long as it's reasonable) for risk of holding, verification, eventual sales to a sketchy vendor giving me 10% below spot - I just made quite a bit of money. Now, feel free to pull some random figures out of your ass to show that I actually lost money. Maybe I bought a $10,000 underground safe to store $2800 of silver? Whatever it takes. The reason people here with years of experience in precious metals, people who have made significant amounts of profit from PMs, are laughing at you, is because they have personally experienced turning a rather large profit from PMs so it's easy to see that you're full of shit.

Not to mention we're removing, say, 20% (magic number?) from the value because of risk of theft - of COURSE that [deduction class, not amount] is a legitimate deduction, but (1) you are not an actuary (2) you pulled that number out of your ass. In my neighborhood I do not have a 20% chance of my silver getting stolen. But then what if I live in a secluded lot in the middle of the woods and I bury my silver in a hole deep in the ground? Any actuary would reduce my expected risk for the same reason that teenage girls pay more for car insurance (because statistically they can't drive.) There's a lot more to it than just looking at the home burglary rate. How many home burglars don't even find the PMs and just take the plasma TV? I know there is a legitimate risk that must be deducted from the value, but I question your seemingly random (but high enough to support your outrageously inaccurate conclusion) figures... 

And of course there's the "doomsday scenario" in which you conveniently explain away any possibility that silver might be used as a currency for even a short time. What about the multiple examples of countries where some citizens have turned to PMs during times of hyperinflation? What about the thousands of years in the past where PMs were used as currency? IDK, seems like you are just making this stuff up.
QFT:

Well, that's why it's called a "rule of thumb" now isn't it. It's not precise, it's only intended to give a taste & feel of whereabouts the correct solution lies.

In fact there's statistical methods to calculate the relative odds of success based on the standard deviations you need. For instance if your holdings need a 1-sigma event in order to become profitable then here's the odds for that - and they can be factored directly into your profit regarded as an EV of sorts. If your holdings need 3-sigmas that's significantly less likely and so therefore significantly less probable profit. On it goes.

My ass may be big, but it's not this magical place I pull figures out of to show you that a definitely good purchase was not a good purchase. I'm just saying that if you're stuck there sitting on something you bought as an investment but without a plan and are wondering "when do I hit the jackpot on these magic beans"...well...they ain't magic beans and you ain't no investor. This should be pretty obvious, not sure why people got suddenly too big-butted for their undies allovasudden.


I don't see anyone laughing, I see laughingbear about to pop an aneurysm over what he thinks he read rather than what I actually wrote. Which is no crime incidentally, tomorrow he calms down, re-reads and chills out.


Sure did. I did show what's the rationale for it in order to help people understand how it works and why, but no I'm no actuary and it was again not intended specifically. Rule of thumb defense, learn to love it.


I'm not saying it's impossible. I am saying it's by no means a given. There's an important difference here, about of the breadth of the difference between "it being possible there exists a god" and "being Catholic".

I think it's important to remember that holding PM for the event of a catastrophe is a precaution, not an investment. If something happens to make PMs tokens of trade, other parts of your life and investments are going to be in pretty bad shape. (I know there are those that are going "all in" for a catastrophe but I regard that as an affliction rather than a plan and in the case that such a situation comes to be, there's a fairly good chance most of us will be dead)

Sorry to awake a sleeping giant here, but I just discovered and read through this. MPOE-PR,  to put it lightly, you are 100% wrong. You lost me with your first post. And I imagine you lost everyone when you started asking how we know our silver is real, and FOR SURE when you mentioned the apocalypse. I really can't tell if its units of measurements you think are important or you're just using them to express volume?lol. If its a matter of units of measurement, if you have a pound of silver, I'll take it. You couldn't possibly want it since its not in a metric unit. No one would-it's worthless : / If you're talking about volume...you are mostly wrong. Although no shit sherlock to the greater volume, greater profit aspect of your statement. Here is a scenario...I buy one POUND of silver in January of 2003 at $5/oz. Then, in late April of 2011 I decide to sell it at $47/oz (spot prices source: http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalsilver.html). In 2003 I spent about $80 on my POUND of silver. In 2011 I sold that POUND for more than $685. So, off just one POUND I made $605.401. Sounds like a pretty good net profit to me!

Now, of course this is assuming that I bought silver at its spot price (although April of 2003 was not the lowest $ point of silver in the last decade). That rarely-never happens. But you call 1oz "tokens" a waste of money? I frequent several coin shops (nope, I don't pay for shipping, and yep, I know the silver I'm getting is silver)-$2 above spot is the highest premium for a generic round/bar at any of those shops. Talk about massive handling costs!

And I, the OP wasn't "fooled by unethical marketing". It must have been the historic success of precious metals as an investment that fooled me. Also, I don't have "a couple bars or rounds". I own about 200 oz of silver, and maybe five of of gold. And guess what's crazy??? I bought that gold at one price, and then when the price went up, sold some of it to the same place I bought it...and made a [net] profit! And no, I wasn't dealing in kilograms or metric tons. Unbelievable!

You have to be the worst "PR" rep ever lol.

How much silver you have?

You can make silver dildo's and sell them to for bitcoins or hard cash.

 ::) ;D


 ::)

I could but it'd have to be an alloy. Silver is a soft metal. I'd make one for MPOE-PR for free. And just because I'd like to give a valuable dildo, I'll melt my silver down (I wonder if MPOE-PR knew you could do that?)and make sure it's one even kilogram. That big enough you think? All of that stupid babble, has to be one big ass.

If MPOE-PR doesn't likes it i'll take it off from your hands and melt it again to get some nice jewelery and a silver rose to propose MPOE-PR.  ;D

 ::)

Edit: I just proposed her.

https://i.imgur.com/bh70yq3.png
https://i.imgur.com/CJXWoBJ.png

I hope she says yes. I wouldn't mind accept donations from all members for our marriage and i told her that jhonnywalker is going to finance our marriage.

 ;D

Shoot man, I'm sorry. I would love to be able to finance it but I don't think I can afford it. I only have half a metric ton of silver : /

/dev/null: I love you
MPOE-PR: Prove it, * big long detailed explanation as to exactly how she expects you to prove it (which involves signing a msg with PGP), and the criteria you must meet to even be considered   *

 :D

Don't worry we'll sell your car.

can you point me to the thread where you confess your love for her?