Silver more scarce than gold?

[jim4silver]

In my semi-constant evaluation of the gold and silver markets, I am always wondering if I should have more gold than silver, more silver than gold, all gold, all silver, or none of either. I ran across an interesting article posted on goldseek.com. The link is posted below. The author seems to state that there is less silver available than gold. And that it has been estimated that silver will be the first element in the periodic table to become extinct (by 2020).

If this is true, it makes me want to be more silver-heavy, especially since silver has industrial uses and it gets used up unlike gold, which is more recycled for the most part.

There is also that whole gold confiscation issue. I don't think it will happen, but if it does then silver would be better to own. I don't believe there would be a silver confiscation. The big dogs (governments, central banks) I feel consider gold "money" more than silver, even though silver was used in coins here for so long. Therefore, if they confiscated a PM to make their currency more desireable, I would think they would do it to gold instead of silver.

I have read in some posts/articles from time to time that silver was confiscated in 1933 like gold, but that is BS in that we had silver currency circulating until 1964. It took a presidential executive order in 1974? by Pres Ford to make it legal of us to own gold bullion again. I guess they could try to confiscate silver if they think they need it for industrial uses perhaps.

Any thoughts?

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverInvestor/1249613056.php


Jim

 

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[oneeye]

Interesting premise. Below are some quick thoughts:

• By scarce, do they mean "readily available" silver or total silver reserves in the world?
• Are manufacturers moving off of the use of silver due to this so-called shortage or impending "extinction"? If the 'extinction" conclusion is accurate, I believe manufacturers that are using silver as a raw material today will be exploring new alternatives by now.
• I belive that a desperate government would try to ban ownership of anything that would be a suitable substitute for their currency. While I agree gold would be the first target, if things are to that point I suspect silver and platinum would be close behind.
• While the US Govt. did make it illegal to own gold, many citizens ignored that and kept gold. I have living family members that have told me the stories. This should point us to avoiding "recordable" or "registered" transactions.

Great topic. Thanks for posting.
Dan

 

[JohninCT]

There is way more silver available than gold and always will be. If you put all the mined pure gold in the world into a cube it would measure the length of a football field and about 20 feet high. Silver would cover this many times over. The thing that brought silver down from the old 30 to one ratio with the price of gold, is the lack of need for silver, the ratio now is at 62 to one and varies up 20 points or so. We hardly use film anymore since digital cameras, and that was the biggest use of silver, then dental work is using a lot less silver also. Lack of demand is the lower price. Interesting that China now is selling silver in bar form, but it's people might not go for it in a big way. Go to any U.S. coin shop and you will see lots of silver for sale. The one advantage of silver is in profit. It is a lot easier for silver to double in price than for gold to double in price. Plus you can easily buy small amounts of silver to put away with no big dent in your savings. This current rise in gold has no stability to it and it can easily come down $50+ in one day. The main thing now that has it rolling good, is 'demand'. Lots of people want to buy it. When they slack off, so will the price. How high it will go is hard to estimate. Politics look bleak, business is bleak, housing is still bleak, unemployment is still high, so the rise looks good for now.

 

[jim4silver]

There is way more silver available than gold and always will be. If you put all the mined pure gold in the world into a cube it would measure the length of a football field and about 20 feet high. Silver would cover this many times over. The thing that brought silver down from the old 30 to one ratio with the price of gold, is the lack of need for silver, the ratio now is at 62 to one and varies up 20 points or so. We hardly use film anymore since digital cameras, and that was the biggest use of silver, then dental work is using a lot less silver also. Lack of demand is the lower price. Interesting that China now is selling silver in bar form, but it's people might not go for it in a big way. Go to any U.S. coin shop and you will see lots of silver for sale. The one advantage of silver is in profit. It is a lot easier for silver to double in price than for gold to double in price. Plus you can easily buy small amounts of silver to put away with no big dent in your savings. This current rise in gold has no stability to it and it can easily come down $50+ in one day. The main thing now that has it rolling good, is 'demand'. Lots of people want to buy it. When they slack off, so will the price. How high it will go is hard to estimate. Politics look bleak, business is bleak, housing is still bleak, unemployment is still high, so the rise looks good for now.

Everything you say is true (except I have heard that for gold it is a basketball court-sized cube, not football field). However, much of the silver from the past that has been mined gets used up and is not recycled-thus it is gone forever. Most of the gold ever mined is still above ground someplace.

Also, much of the industrial silver usage now is in electronics-computers, cell phones, refrigerators, TVs, medical instruments, etc, not photography. As citizens in nations like China and India, etc, get wealthier (as they have been compared to us), they will want to buy more electronics and gadgets, which will all require more silver that will eventually not be recycled (unless the price goes way up from here).

I like gold better than silver based on how it looks and feels, but I force myself to keep my holdings at approximately 50/50 value wise, because I believe that the ratio will go much lower than 60 to 1 at sometime in the next 5 to 10 years, and I will then convert the silver into gold or sell it outright.

Jim