I thought you might like to know that late last week we started to see some shortages in physical silver. Here's what happened:

"On Tuesday of last week, we experienced the largest volume day in the history of the Old Glory Mint. When the dust settled, we had taken orders totaling more than 2 metric tons of silver. We had no problem buying silver to fill those orders. However, the next day, and through the end of the week, a few of our suppliers started warning us that they were running low on physical silver, and a couple of them had sold out."

"Although our mint is well prepared to meet demand during short-term market squeezes like this one, we did start checking around with some of the major refineries, other suppliers and even some of the larger dealers around the country to see if a widespread shortage was developing. Everyone we talked with at both the wholesale and retail levels had seen a dramatic increase in demand at about the same time we did. We found that many refiners were experiencing heavy order volumes and production backlogs. Many dealers were sold out of most or all of their larger silver bullion bars, while others had no silver product available at all except for the ones that carry the highest premiums."

"The last time this sort of thing happened was approximately two years ago, when supplies dwindled to the point that almost nobody had anything available to sell (you might recall that even Kitco had nothing available for sale on their website for quite a while). Even though the price of silver itself didn't seem to move much during the shortage, the real price (the "premiums" on the street) that we and others had to pay went through the roof because of the lack of availability of physical silver. In my mind, the fact that the "market" price of silver didn't go into orbit back then is only attributable to the lid that 'da boyz' kept on the market."

"This time, I don't know that they will be able to keep the lid on. If they can't, then silver prices (and premiums) might be headed "to the moon" sooner than many of us think. Since typical turn-around times for mints are 3-13 weeks, when situations like this occur, it could be weeks or months before dealers are able to restock. In the interim, the squeeze will be on, and silver prices and premiums may head much, much higher than what we are seeing right now."

"Thanks for everything, Ed, and keep up the great work!"

Reed Larsen, General Manager
Old Glory Mint