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-- Posted 17 October, 2008 | | Discuss This Article - Comments:
Source: SilverSeek.com
Silver Stock Report
There are numerous auctions now at seekbullion.com, a site run by Peter Spina, of goldseek.com and silverseek.com.
Auctions run by others, include:
Two monster boxes of Eagles are closing in 9 hours.
20 Gold Maple leafs closing Sunday night.
20 Generic Brand 100 oz. silver bars closing Sunday night.
--THOSE ARE NOT MY AUCTIONS, but the prices for those items right now are GREAT, some of the best in the industry!
The 125 bars sold in my last auction, that closed yesterday on Wednesday, were sold for an average price of $15.56/oz., and, at the time, silver was $10.33, so the premium was $5.23 per ounce for Engelhard bars, a premium of 50.6% over spot. The 26 separate auctions were won by 16 different bidders. One person won 70 bars in the auction! 95% of the silver was shipped out today, to everyone whose wire came in.
Silver market commentary:
People are asking me about Jim Sinclair's 3 comments on silver, points 11-13:
11. Sliver will demonstrate the fact that it is more industrial a metal than precious.
12. Silver is not a currency because it is simply too HEAVY to settle debts or to be universally fungible.
13. Silver performs best when there is reasonable industrial demand and distrust of currency. When this happens rounding up the gang and their money will have a lot to do with which party is elected.
Regarding #11. What silver IS, is a function of philosophy. What silver is mostly used for, is a function of statistical surveys.
I have long parroted the CPM Group's surveys that say that of silver demand, about 90% is industrial, and 5-10% is for investors, or only about 100 million ounces. This is rapidly changing. Investment interest was so small, that it recently increased by 10 fold this year, as inflation expectations are now mainstream, and many potential silver investors cannot find any silver at their local shops. Yet, despite the mainstream expectaion for inflation, still less than 1 person in 1000 is buying silver, by my own estimations.
What this means to me is that if investment demand increases only a little, the price must go up. But investment demand for silver is usually siphoned away into paper silver, such as Silver Futures Contracts, and the SLV. Thus, silver prices are often driven by billion dollar funds who don't own silver, but only paper silver.
The billion dollar funds should understand that there is less than a billion dollars of silver to buy, in a year, and they should review my report on how to get into silver, for Billionaires.
How to Get Into Silver, for Billionaires February 27, 2008
Immediately after my report, silver shortages began to get extremely bad. Note the date:
Silver Shortage: 19 dealers reported "Sold Out" March 19, 2008
For most of my readers, it is TOO LATE for them to buy silver under $20/oz. My mere 84,000 readers must own or control about $8 billion of capital, and most of that is locked up in illiquid, and declining, real estate. There is no way that $8 billion of physical silver could be purchased for investment, without driving silver prices up about 8 times higher, to beyond $80/oz.
Yes, most silver per year goes to industry. But investors are now proving that they are demanding silver for savings, more than "industry" can provide!
Investors trump industry. Investors will be more attracted to silver as the price moves higher, as everyone is a trend investor. And low prices are also attracting investor demand, as inflation can be seen by blind men.
Regarding Jim's #12. I think Jim means to say that for a given value of silver, the weight is too heavy. I agree. I lifted a lot of it today. HEAVY! But that shows that it is cheap! You get so much for your money! If you have ever held silver, you know that part of the allure is the density, or the heavy weight, which is unusually heavy for an object so small. A bag of $1000 face 90% silver weighs 54 pounds.
But oil is heavier. $10,000 worth of oil, at $72/barrel, is 138 barrels. Now tell me, which is easier to lift and store? Will the general public ever buy 100+ barrels of crude oil to store on their front lawn, and have it delivered in 18 wheelers to the suburbs? Or will they go to their local coin shop to buy a bag of silver, or whatever they can afford?
I've been saying that for years. I was right. They cleaned out the coin shops, and the major wholesalers, until there was nothing left! Probably not one person in 300 million has bought 100 barrels of oil to put on their front lawns! Thus, the difference between silver and other commodities is self-evident to all thinking men.
And copper is also much heavier. Copper is $2.27 pound today. Thus, $10,000 worth of copper is 4405 pounds. Which amount of equal value is easier to lift? the 54 pound bag of silver, or the 2 tonnes of copper? Silver is not an industrial metal, it is a monetary metal, and copper is the industrial metal.
Regarding Jim's #13. I have no idea what he is saying. I have an opinion about old men. They over value their own personal experience, and undervalue the lessons of history. For over 100 years, silver has been going through a process of demonetization. Nations have been abandoning silver's use as money. There is not another nation that can do that again, they have ALL stopped using silver as money. This process must reverse. There are no historical examples to even show us what is going to happen. Both history and experience are useless. You need vision. You have to imagine what will happen to silver prices as monetary demand returns to silver. Silver will be an excellent store of value, and it already is! Real silver prices are increasing much faster than the prices of silver promises.
SILVER PRICE NEWS UPDATE: As some of you know, I've been buying COMEX bars. My contact man to help me source a new supply of COMEX bars reports to me that Kennecott wants over $3/oz. over spot for 1000 oz. bars, AND you have to show them 3 years of audited finanancial statements! Clearly, I won't be buying 1000 oz. bars from them, and I will stick to my usual two sources.
MY NEW AUCTION:
24 Bags of 90% U.S. Silver Coin:
http://www.seekbullion.com
I'm auctioning 8 individual bags in 8 different auctions.
Then, 2 bags, then 3, then 5 bags. That's 18 bags total of Roosevelt Dimes.
Then, 6 bags of 90% silver Quarters, in one auction.
My 90% Auction ends Monday, October 20th, Noon Eastern time, or 9AM, Pacific.
So, it's a series of 12 auctions scheduled, running over the course of 13 minutes..
Here's a picture of 20 of my bags for this auction: (they crushed the folding table, right before I warned it would happen) (See, nobody listens to me!):
http://silverstockreport.com/images/20bags90.jpg
I can ship immediately upon receiving the wire transfers from the customers, after the auction. Wires must be sent within 24 hours after the auction's close!
About 90% bags:
Definition: 90% US Silver Coins come in "bags" of $1000 face value, which consist of 10,000 dimes, or 4000 quarters, or 2000 half dollars. The coins were regularly minted, circulating U.S. silver coinage dating 1964 or earlier. Usually, a "bag" is split up into two or four actual canvas sacks to make it easier to carry. The coins exclude silver dollars, which are another product. The silver is 90% silver, the rest, the other 10% is copper, to help harden and toughen the coinage. There is 0.72 of an ounce of silver in each $1 face value, or 10 dimes, 4 quarters, or 2 half dollars, but the industry counts it as if it's .715 ounces, due to coin wear. A full $1000 bag weighs about 54.5 pounds. The most common form is quarters, about 70% of the time. 20% of the time, you get dimes, and 10%, half dollars. Seems that the dealers hold back the dimes and half dollars because they might be more interesting.
I wrote about 90% silver back in May, when 90% silver was among the cheapest form of silver out there.
90% US Silver Coin Bags, $1000 Face May 31, 2008
But one of the best things about 90%, is that they don't make any more! It is now among the highest price silver out there. This changed about 2 weeks ago!
PRICE INDICATION:
Fidelitrade was rumored to have "about 1000" bags for a long time this year. It appears they are running out, or are very close. They used to have a spread of about $300 per bag, among the lowest spread in the industry. It's changed. Look here:
http://fidelitrade.com/products/product_list_top.asp
The spread has increased to over $2500 between their buy and sell prices!
Right now, they are selling at $9873 per bag! Divided by 715, that's $13.80 per ounce.
Right now, silver spot is $9.69/oz.
So, fidelitrade's bags sell for $4.12 per ounce over spot, or a premium of 4.12/9.69 = 42%.
The other industry leading wholesaler is Tulving.
http://tulving.com/goldbull.html#silver
Tulving is selling 90% for $4.99 over spot. At $9.69, that's $14.68/oz.. That, times 715 = $10,496 per bag from the internet's other leading wholesaler!
Given the premiums, which show a desperate market need, I will sell out of most of my bags of silver, and I don't anticipate ever being able to buy any more. I will buy COMEX bars instead, and I will keep about 10 of my best bags for myself, in reserve.
Every rich man ought to have AT LEAST ONE BAG, just in case times get really rough. A bag of silver dimes holds $1000 face value of silver, which is 10,000 dimes!
A dime used to be a day's wage in many places and times in most of human history.
A Silver Dime Worth a Day's Wage?
History Shouts 'Buy' Louder than Anything Else
http://www.silverinscripture.com/articles.php?id=1
If a man works 250 days a year for 40 years, that's 10,000 days worked during a lifetime. Think about that bag of 10,000 silver dimes, and what it really represents.
AUCTION FORMAT:
I did something new this auction, since some people were confused about how proxy bidding works. I set the proxy bid increment at $1.01.
In a normal auction, if you are sitting there, bidding on anything, as you begin bidding, you know, in advance, how high you will bid, but you don't reveal that to the other participants, you just start bidding, and bid higher and higher, until you get to your "reserve" price, the highest you want to bid.
The online auction works the same way. You just put in one bid, your reserve bid. This bid is hidden from all others, and if yours is the highest, you become the leading bid, but your top bid is not shown. Then, the software takes over. If another person bids higher, but not higer than your price, the web site automatically bids for you, just enough so that you automatically bid over their bid, immediately, but never over your bid price. They are told that their bid did not win, but their bid pushes up the price you'd have to pay.
I decided to set this bid increment at $1.01. I made it an unusual number, specifically so that people can detect and understand when an automatic bid has taken place, and easily see that.
It's not deceptive for the system to "hide" the top reserve, or proxy, bid. People do that all the time during auctions, they don't "show their cards" so to speak, that's a normal feature of auctions.
You don't have to enter a high reserve bid right away. You can always enter a higher bid later.
The bidding system at seekbullion.com uses PROXY BIDDING!
WHAT IS PROXY BIDDING?
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-proxy-bidding.htm
How to bid:
First, register at http://www.seekbullion.com!
Proxy bidding at seekbullion.com works similar to ebay.com, however, the "bid increments" at seekbullion are much smaller.
The high bid wins, but is never what is paid. The second highest bid mostly determines the price!
The highest bid is always hidden from view. The bid you see is nearly always the second highest bid, plus a small increment over that, due to the automatic proxy bidding of the highest bidder.
For example, if by the auction's close, one person has bid $10,000 for a bag, and the next highest bid is $9000 for a bag, then the auction software lists the highest bid as $9001.01, and the person who bid $10,000 is the highest bidder, but will only pay $$9001.01. The person who bid $9000 will not win, and their bid is only used as a base for the automatic proxy increment bid of $1.01 over that price.
Thus, it's like each bar is bid at least twice at very near the price you see.
This really prevents price gouging, because the bids have depth--at least two buyers are willing to pay very similar prices.
If you want a free market in silver, then please tell people about the auctions at:
http://www.seekbullion.com
Sincerely,
Jason Hommel
www.find-your-local-coin-shop.com
www.silverstockreport.com
www.miningpedia.com
www.bibleprophesy.org
-- Posted 17 October, 2008 | | Discuss This Article - Comments:
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