Learning Corner: Silver in Other Languages

Language		Language		Language		Language
Afrikaans:	Silwer	Finnish:	Hopea	Latin	Argentum	Scottish Gaelic:	Airgead
Albanian:	Argjendi	French:	Argent	Latvian:	Sudrabs	Serbian:	Сребро
Amharic:	ብር	Friulian:	Arint	Limburgian:	Zèlver	Serbo-Croatian:	Srebro
Arabic:	فضة	Galician:	Prata	Lithuanian:	Sidabras	Sicilian:	Argentu
Armenian:	Արծաթ	Gan:	銀	Lojban:	rijno	Slovak:	Striebro
Asturian:	Plata	Georgian:	ვერცხლი	Low Saxon:	Sülver	Slovenian:	Srebro
Azeri:	Gümüş	German:	Silber	Luxembourgish:	Sëlwer	Spanish:	Plata
Basque:	Zilar	Greek:	Άργυρος	Malay:	Perak	Swahili:	Agenti
Belarusian:	Серабро	Guarani:	Itatĩ	Malayalam:	വെള്ളി	Swedish:	Silver
Bengali:	রূপা	Gujarati:	ચાંદી	Manx:	Argid	Tajik:	Нуқра
Manipuri:	প্রাটা	Haitian:	Ajan	Maori:	Kawata	Tamil:	வெள்ளி
Bosnian :	Srebro	Hakka:	Ngiùn	Marathi:	चांदी	Tatar:	Kömeş
Bulgarian:	Сребро	Hebrew:	כסף	Min Nan:	Ag	Telugu:	వెండి
Catalan:	Plata	Hindi:	रूप्यम्	Nahuatl:	Iztāc teōcuitlatl	Thai:	เงิน
Cebuano:	Silver	Hungarian:	Ezüst	Norman:	Ergent	Turkish:	Gümüş
Chinese:	銀	Icelandic:	Silfur	Norwegian :	Sølv	Ukrainian:	Срібло
Chuvash:	Кĕмĕл	Ido:	Arjento	Occitan:	Argent	Urdu:	چاندی
Corsican:	Argentu	Indonesian:	Perak	Persian:	نقره	U.S.A :	Silver
Croatian:	Srebro	Irish Gaelic:	Airgead	Polish:	Srebro	Uzbek :	Kumush
Czech:	Stříbro	Italian:	Argento	Portuguese:	Prata	Venetian:	Arxento
Danish:	Sølv	Japanese:	自然銀	Quechua:	Qullqi q'illay	Vietnamese:	Bạc
Dutch:	Zilver	Javanese:	Perak	Ripuarian:	Silber	Welsh:	Arian
Erzya:	Сия	Kapampangan:	Pilak	Romanian:	Argint	Yiddish:	זילבער
Esperanto:	Arĝento	Korean:	은	Russian:	Серебро	Zhuang:	Ngaenz
Estonian	Hõbe	Kurdish:	Zîv	Sanskrit:	रूप्यम्	Zulu:	Isiliva

http://www.mindat.org/min-3664.html

 

The Most Dangerous Man in the Mid South: The-moneychanger.com

I cannot take credit for finding this unbelievable article.  Kirsty Hogg, author of Gold Wars gave me the reference. This article should be required reading for anyone who barters or is thinking of bartering with PMs.  Since there is a demand for such legalized bartering, or paying for goods and services with silver and gold, everyone should read what happened to this man when he tried to do that very thing.   The article is entitled "The Most Dangerous Man in the Mid South?" and can be found at the-moneychanger.com/articles_files/dangerous.phtml.

Silver Predicted to Outperform Gold This Year

Investors were buying PMs today seeking the safety that the shiny stuff brings over a pandemic of struggling currencies. The EU's multibillion-euro bailout for Greece is sketchy on details and now Spain is at risk for losing its triple-A credit rating from Moody's along with the U.S., U.K., France and Germany. If the EU continues to follow the precedent that no member of the eurozone can be allowed to default, many analysts are anticipating further euro debasement and subsequent inflation.

That is thought to cause today's silver price jump.  Silver increased $0.23 per Troy ounce to close at $17.34.  Also, today there was  a very interesting video on TheStreet.com that I recommend everyone watch.  In this video, Alix Steel reported that David Morgan, founder of Silver-investor.com expects that silver will outperform gold by as much as 30% this year.  The link to the video is here.



A book on silver investing by Harvey Snyder
Investors which way to go, silver: Truly one of the best hedges against inflation

How and to Whom Should You Sell Your Scrap Silver?

I thought long and hard about even writing this article. Since I buy scrap silver, and I have other friends in the business. I hope this educational piece does not come back to bite me on the rear. The answer to that question should be no one, unless you are using the proceeds to buy a better grade of silver.  I understand that most of the people who follow this blog have an understanding of the way buying and selling precious metals works. This post is not really aimed at them although it might help them if they are not familiar with the pennyweight (dwt) portion of the Troy system. This post is primarily aimed at the visitor who does not understand how to trade in precious metals. I am particularly adamant about this for two reasons. One may seem a little bit selfish, but I assure you those who know me know I am not selfish. I do believe in capitalism, and I believe that everyone who has a business is entitled to make a profit. However, when the taking of profits becomes so excessive at the expense of others who are less experienced in the business of precious metals, I just call it greed. By now I am sure you are saying to yourself “is he gong to get reason number one. Well, here it is.

I buy scrap silver and gold. I prefer silver and anyone who has read my blog knows why, but I will also buy gold. When I buy scrap silver, I will offer what I believe is a fair price for both parties. This leads me to my second reason. I do not like to see people getting ripped off by the “Cash 4 Gold” dealers or the “Gold Parties” like the Tupperware parties my mom used to host. I did market research when I got into this business to see what the competition would offer a customer for gold or silver. The first time I checked a dealer for prices, silver spot was around $18.00 a Troy ounce. There are 31.1 grams (g) in a Troy ounce. That means .999 silver was $0.58 per gram and Sterling (92.5% pure) would be around $0.54 per gram. The dealer told me that he paid $0.25 per gram, less than half price. I do not remember what his prices on gold were but similarly they were about half of the melt value for that karat. At that time I was paying anywhere from $0.41-0.45 per gram for Sterling. I figured 20-25% of the melt value was enough for me.

To make things worse, I did a little investigative reporting last nght by going into a dealers store. I took a few piece of 14k jewelry with me. To start off, they do not use grams as a unit of measurement, they use pennyweights (dwt). I am sure this is purely to confuse the customer. Few people that are not in the business know how many grams are in a troy ounce, but even less knows how to use pennyweights. A pennyweight is measurement in the Troy system equaling 24 grains or the twentieth part of a Troy ounce (there are 12 ounces in a Troy pound. One dwt is equal to 1.55517g. The price they were paying for gold was $14.00 per dwt of 14k gold and like wise10k gold wad $10.00 per dwt. The spot price for gold was $1101.50 per Troy ounce for .999 or 24k, which mean 24k gold melt value would be $35.42 per gram rounded up, and 14k gold melt value would be $20.66 per gram or $32.13 per dwt. This means that they are paying a good bit less than half of the melt value; they are paying 43.6% of the melt value.

Now, I am not telling you this to get you to sell your gold and silver to me. I am just trying to help you make an educated decision. Just because the “gold man” has a nice office in a strip mall does not mean you are going to get a good price for your PMs. Imagine what the rent on that office must be, you are paying all of his overhead expenses. You are better off finding an independent (like me) that has very little overhead expenses and can pay 70-75% of the melt value. I may even be shooting myself in the foot here but if you cannot find someone willing to pay you a fair price, sell it on Ebay. I buy scrap silver very often on Ebay, and many times I will lose an auction because, regular folk are buying up all the PMs they can, and paying very close to melt value.

I am going to leave you with one more piece of advice. Before you part with that piece of scrap silver of gold, think about our current administration that is spending us into a black hole of debt that we will never be able to get out of. The fiat currency we use now will one day be worthless, and that gold ring or silver spoon you hold in your hand may one day buy your groceries. That is all. Buy silver, buy soon!

One Reason Why Silver Prices are Manipulated

I have been saying for a while that silver is undervalued and its price is being artificially manipulated. Why would someone try to keep silver prices down, you might ask? The best example is demonstrated by industrial applications of silver, which there are many. If you use silver and its cost goes up, you will not make money if you cannot increase your selling price. When any commodity's price go up, companies who use the commodity as a non-substitutable component in their product, but cannot raise their prices to meet the commodities price increase will end up losing out (unless they are able to keep the price artificially low). "This is why gasoline stations close despite increasing oil prices. They cannot increase their prices very much, at the same time the big oil companies increase the prices to them. The reasons they cannot rais fuel prices very much is that competition between stations creates price pressure downwards and consumers are somewhat price-sensitive, even to gasoline, which doesn't have a mainstream alternative (TheStreet.com)." This is a really good example why the price of silver is being artificially held down. However, I believe there will come a day when silver becomes in such demand and becomes so scarce that the man behind the curtain will no longer be able to contain the price of silver. I just hope I live to see that day; but, at least my beneficiaries will be well taken care of. Now I will give credit where credit is due. I do not plagiarize, if I use another's article I give them full credit. I was already writing this article and saw some good examples in a general article on commodities on TheStreet.com. I did use their example and cited them as a reference. Buy silver while it is low!

Why silver premiums?

Premiums on PMs such as silver are supposed to cover mining, refining, and minting costs. A good example of how much mining costs can be can be seen in Silver Standard Resources Q4 report. This mining company reported a (Dec) loss of $0.13 per share. The Pirquitas Mine produced 1.1 M ounces during the year. Since December 1, 2009, the date of achievement of commercial production, the mine produced to year-end 545,600 ounces of silver at a cash production cost of $8.99 per silver ounce. Total cash costs, including transportation, treatment, refining, export taxes and royalties, were $16.57 per silver ounce. During the month, the company sold 460,100 ounces of silver at a realized price of $17.49 per ounce. This kind of loss may not be typical of all silver mining companies but just shows many of the costs of getting the shiny stuff to us. Now, dealers have to make a profit also but some of their tack-ons can be outrageous. A good place to find information on the best dealers and mints (besides here) is the FB group “Silverbugs.” It is not public, so you have to ask an admin to allow you access. We are pretty lenient in our restrictions, but we DO NOT allow any marketing schemes. Check us out!

Silver Up On News: Greece's Plans and Jobs Data

An article on Forbes.com reported that silver futures moved higher this morning as the Euro strengthened against the US dollar, and an employment report showed improvement in the U.S. jobs picture. Silver spot price was up to nearly $17.40 per Troy ounce around noon today. The high this year was $18.44 on January 11th.  Today's price was the highest since silver fell to $17.68 on January 21st and continued downward to bottom at $15.14 on February 8th (Kitco London Fix).  Greece's plans to rein in its debt gave strength to the Euro and thus weakened the US Dollar. Furthermore, the ADP jobs report stated the U.S. private-sector employers cut 40,000 less jobs in February than in January.  To read the entire article:
Gold Rallies As Dollar Dallies
Greenback falls on Greek belt-tightening, provides boost to metal prices, stocks.
By MarketNewsVideo.com

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/03/gold-barrick-anglogold-markets-equities-silver-marketnewsvideo.html?partner=email

Two Silver Mining Companies Updated -Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance: In Play
"Silver Wheaton announced that attributable proven and probable reserves more than doubled in 2009, to include an increase of 431 million ounces of silver. The company announced that attributable proven and probable reserves more than doubled in 2009, including an increase of 431 million ounces of silver for a record of 875 million silver equivalent ounces. Over the same period, attributable measured and indicated resources increased by 72%, including an increase of 141 million ounces of silver to a record 366 million silver equivalent ounces. Attributable inferred resources increased by 4%, including an increase of 12 million ounces of silver and 50,000 ounces of gold, to a record 408 million silver equivalent ounces. Silver Wheaton acquired 25% silver production from the Pascua-Lama project for the life of the mine, as well as 100% of the silver production from the Veladero, Lagunas Norte and Pierina mines until the end of 2013, these mines were responsible for much of the Wheatons's total reserve growth in 2009."

"Silvercorp Metals (SVM) reported results of a new Technical Report updating the resources and reserves at its silver-lead-zinc projects in the Ying Mining District in Henan Province, China. The report is the first to establish Proven and Probable reserves at the district of 63.4 mln ounces of silver.  Inclusive of the mineral reserves, the updated in-situ mineral resource estimate at the district is 69.0 mln ounces of silver in the Measured & Indicated categories and an additional 87.7 mln ounces of silver in the Inferred category."

I think a lot of this silver is being bought up and used by industry as fast as they can mine it. Even the US Government did not mint some coin proofs this year for lack of silver reserves. Where do you think all of that silver is going?