Silver dropping has ground my sales to a halt...
So I'm sure anyone following the market knows that silver took a huge drop this past Friday. Something like 30%.
I've had hardly any sales since this happened, but was selling tons of silver before.
Here's the problem... lots of buyers purchased their silver at the top value and now their orders are arriving (or arrived recently) and they're realizing the coins are worth quite what they paid for them.
Going along with the market and what the market does to sales it's kind of like being on a bipolar roller coaster. For the record, I did know Silver was going to drop, and pretty hard, however I did not know when that would happen or how far it would fall, or if it would continue to fall after the big drop (that part remains to be seen).
There was no stopping people from going nuts buying silver. I raised prices every couple of days on batches of items, and people would come along and buy 5-10 things worth hundreds of dollars. (All this silver was purchased under $34 an ounce, that was around when I stopped acquiring new silver because it was becoming expensive and I didn't want to be caught with a bunch of silver not being worth what I paid for it), so now it can fall a lot and I won't lose money... I'm also almost out of silver to sell. We melted a whole lot of non-collectible stuff once it hit $50 an ounce.
I don't know what's going on at my shop where I work (the B&M store). I haven't been in much contact with them in the past week. I took a big fall on the ice and hit my head a couple of weeks ago so it's limited on what I can do and it's taking all my energy to keep up with packing and shipping customer's orders. I did not want to be on time away with sales being so good.
I do know a few things though relating to the store (and other silver sellers, we were at a coin show on the weekend and I talked to lots of other dealers there). The first thing is it's been an effort to keep repricing stuff as the market is volitile and it kept changing, so trying to keep pace with it was an effort.
Smelters have stopped taking silver from most of their customers, but the big silver dealers were able to send stuff to be melted on a delayed payment plan. They take the silver, and in 8-10 weeks they pay us, but if the price drops, then we paid a high price for silver and get paid out a lot less when we finally do get paid. (I guess the smelters have to make their money somehow, but it's no longer send your silver and get a cheque right away).
I do know a number of dealers stopped buying silver from the public, so people hoping to cash in on their very expensive silver that gained a lot of momentum are SOL on getting any money for it because no one's buying. At the coin show the dealers' coins are still priced for last week's silver (I guess they spent all week repricing for the show on Sunday), but then it dropped, so it resulted in lots of angry customers complaining about prices and wanting a "deal" because "silver has dropped". One dealer told the customer "it's not as low as it used to be".
C.
silverstatetreasureboxes
·7 months ago@sin-n-dex
Are you OK from that fall?
I'm just floored about silver, I always followed prices on gold and silver and checked daily but when you have your gut ripped open you kinda feel lousy.
Sure hope you didn't receive a concussion "C".
sin-n-dex
OP7 months agoMy head is OK, my big mass of hair and all the scrunchies I was wearing broke my fall so I only "lightly" hit the back of my head. My back is another issue. They did not see any cracked ribs but there is muscle damage. They all it a "chest wall injury" which I've been told normal healing time is 6-8 weeks.
I'm a trooper though and went back to work after being off for two days (couldn't get comfortable no matter what, might as well keep myself busy, I do like my job). I have weird nerve pain in my arms that I'm going to get checked out. It started 2 days after the fall. I'm getting better but now that the major injury is not so painful I'm noticing lots of little pains while bending or stretching.
Thanks for asking though... I seriously thought I was going to have to do time away, but emerg sent me home after a few hours and told me I could continue to do whatever if I felt like it. Got all those packages dropped off and spent the rest of my evenings that week packing orders to keep on top of things. Everyone was in a big hurry to get their silver coins.
C.
12345jamesstamps
·7 months agoWhen the announcement of the new Fed Chair came out last week(I think Friday) by we know who...that is when gold and silver dropped so low in years.
And the new Fed Chair will take effect in May...so there's no telling what might happen more until then.
I have to laugh at all those who bought those gold bars at Costco(I think that was the store.) a while back...and wonder if people will be selling them off on eBay if not already before May.😀
sin-n-dex
OP7 months agoI got all my silver while it was really low and stopped buying when it started steeply rising (probably stopped buying a bit too soon though). So I'll go along for the ride... but it feels like a bipolar roller coaster to deal with all the ups and downs relating to selling silver on eBay.
C.
stephenmorgan
·7 months agoRemember what happened to silver in 1980?
sin-n-dex
OP7 months agoNope, I was 1 years old in 1980. However I did hear about it going up to $80 an ounce or something (not sure if that was CDN or USD), and the dropping to like 3.50 an ounce. I also remember around 1998-1999 when it was sitting around $8 CAD an ounce ($5 USD at the time). I purchased many coins for my collection that were silver between 1998 and 2003. I stopped purchasing when the price started to rise. I still have the coins, they will always be worth more than what I paid in 1998.
C.
dirk12955
·7 months agoI was in the business as a collector on 1979-1980 and went full on coin and bullion dealer
in 1981 and did that for some time.
The Hunt brothers in 1978-1980 manipulated the silver market and tried to actually
control the market by buying up all they could get.
Topped out at about $52.00 early 1980 and stagnated for years till it dropped
to a low at round $3.60 in 1991
They couldn't support that as there was absolutely no shortage whatsoever
of Silver in the form of .999 or .925 or 90% coins, Or 80% 40% or whatever.
The same as there is no shortage today. Speculators and other
people that should know better have "Chased" the silver and gold markets to these levels.
On the one hand, I'm no longer in the business and have no dog in the fight.
But with nearly 50 years of experience and having sat back and
observed these markets.....
Ain't no way silver will sustain these prices. There's too much available.
My opinion.
sin-n-dex
OP7 months agoI knew it was going to drop, and predicted sometime soon, just for what you said, no way to sustain such prices.
There were times while it was going up that people weren't buying (as per the B&M store where they deal in bullion), then it kept going up and people started buying if they could get it less than melt. If all those customers who bought in January got their stuff and quickly sold it or put it in their collection to keep, I don't think I need to worry about returns.
I did get one guy that was being fussy about what decimal of a gram the medallion weighed for the purposes of buying bullion (I don't deal in bullion, I sell coins and medals to collectors, I would be happy if all the bullion people would not buy things in my store, they cause me the most post-sale trouble). The coin in question was weighed and the weight was listed in the title, but there were specs online saying it weighed 1 gram less than what my scale said. Buyer wanted a refund on the 1 gram of silver because it didn't weigh as much as I said (but then admitted he knew the true weight as per specs before he purchased, so it was just partial fishing refund scheme).
All of that is why I don't want to sell bullion or deal with bullion buyers. I am happy to sell coins to collectors and have done what I can to ensure my store is filled with collectible items. I ditched all the German, Austrian, Bahamas, etc silver when the silver price rose well above the collectible value, it didn't make sense to try and find collectors for those since it was only bullion buyers who were interested (and obtaining them for less than bullion, therefore I felt I was better off just melting all of that).
C.
stephenmorgan
·7 months agoA little info about the Hunt brothers.
https://silverprices.us/history/silver-price-1980/
tobaccocardyahoo
·7 months agoAn auctioneer who runs weekly bullion auctions sent out emails today Buy The Dip.
deltilogical
·7 months agoInteresting times. Coin sellers at the Charlestown NH show Saturday were trading carefully at these prices with bigger spreads but everyone seems to think it will head back up after washing out weak hands/profit taking. People were buying and working on their collections as usual. The large difference between Shanghai and NY is still in place, but I don't see Chinese buyers running around the bourses buying everything in sight with the $20 ounce difference. It is hard to know when so much of the trading is digital and no actual metal changes hands.
If the new Hyundia battery works out right (using a reported 1 kilo each) , it will require tens of millions of kilos when they build all the ev's over the next few years. It is not clear if the silver is retrievable.
A lot of people made a lot of money during this churn, and Uncle Sam will take a chunk of that...hmm...
sin-n-dex
OP7 months agoI'm making it down to the B&M store tomorrow to have a chat with the owner about what he thinks about the market. He follows the market very carefully and he might suggest this is just a "correction" (which means big changes, but temporary).
I did sell off a lot of my silver though, so the market changing won't affect me so much going forward. I'm not planning to acquire any new silver even if the price dips. I don't trade commodities. I melted anything that wasn't collectible and continued to list coins people might like in their collections.
C.
meme6253
·7 months agoSilver & Gold took a big dive.