So help me figure this out.

[Jowlz]

I am staying at a hotel on business. When I walk in, there is a table set up in the lobby. The people are running an ad in the paper and buying Silver. Easy enough to figure out. Except. They are paying very close to spot. 12x on coins. I think to myself, how much silver can they be buying. All day long, for 2 days, back and forth to 2 trailers with plastic tubs full!! I ask one of the employees, what they are doing with it. He says, as he hammers an old sterling tea set flat, that they are working for a guy who is just stockpiling it.

Here is what I am unclear on. They had 4 employees, 2 dually trucks, 2 gooseneck trailers. Figure in rental of the rooms, meeting room, fuel etc into expenses. I'm wondering how much risk the owner of this company is taking. I am of the belief that silver will go much higher. I bought loads when it was under $4 an ounce. This guy is buying at really close to spot, with all the expenses. How high would silver have to go for him to make $$. Is there something I am overlooking? It seems to me that spot would have to reach an all-time high ($50+) for this guy to make a good profit.... This makes me curious as I stopped buying when Silver started climbing. I wonder if I should rethink, and start buying again

I am sure that some of the profit comes from people not understanding what they are selling for scrap, ie. Tiffany, coins that are worth more that spot etc... but it still kind of baffles me....

 

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[Shortstack]

There are probably some folks out there who DO think silver will take off; maybe hitting that $50 mark. Then, he might be trying to set himself up to corner the silver market like the Hunt Brothers tried several years ago. Theeeeeeen, he might have some inside info about a new invention coming up that will need a lot of silver.

 

[mercuryman]

We had a similar outfit moving through Nebraska a month or two ago. They ran ads in the papers, and kind of made you think it was the Antiques Road Show. I cant remember what they called themselves though. They were here about a week, and would buy pretty much anything according to the ads.
A friend went out with a bag of Merc dimes, and they offered him .25 apiece at first. He ended up at 1.00 and he walked away. He said they didnt even look at them, just counted them out and offered.
Merc

 

[Shortstack]

Mercuryman:
That outfit is in the Jackson, Mississippi area right now. They call themselves The Treasure Hunters Road Show and they'll buy anything you have that has some history...........according to their ads on the radio and the full page ads in the newspaper.

 

[mercuryman]

Yep. Thats the name of the group that was here too. With a weeks stay in a Holiday Inn here, and paying out for people's "dont-wants", I wonder how much stuff they end up with to break even? I also wonder if they have more than 1 team out there buying.
merc

 

[Shortstack]

SUPPOSEDLY they buy a lot of the stuff as "front men" for private collectors around the country / world. The claim is, if they find some good stuff, they'll call a collector on their lists and get their OK to buy on their behalf. Maybe the profits from that stuff fills in the slack on the profit line.

 

[Jowlz]

I didn't catch the name of this group. I was in Concord, CA when I posted that up. We stayed 2 days. By the time we left there were 3 gooseneck trailers and 3 dually or 3500 GMC Trucks. All brand new.

 

[Silverminer]

I think there is a couple of ways to make money in this model.

Buying Merc's at .25 to $1.00 when melt is 1.30 I think you could make a profit.
If your a coin dealer that can sell specific dates for $2 to $8 would make you smile! ( If you find key dates and sell for larger dollars )

If you purchased $10,000 face value and made between .30 and $1.05 ($3k to $10.5k ) at melt value and much larger at collector prices.

Just my thoughts.
Cheers!

 

[billjustbill]

That same company ran the very large ad as "News Article" covered by a reporter I'd never heard of. They were in Mineral Wells, Tx in March or April.

Last weekend I saw two people that caught my eye at some random garage sales. One lady was looking through old jewelry in a basket. The other fellow, was in a Lincoln Towncar that was left parked in the street and the motor running. I overheard him ask, "Do you have any old jewelry?". Silver prices have hit the grass roots level here in North Texas. Some say that coins and precious metals jewelry are being gathered to be used for Bartering, should times get really, really bad.

Couple those kinds of buying sprees with ads on TV about buying out long term payouts of settlements or Annuities; somebody is betting the dollar is going to remain solid, and when "Things go to Hell-in-a-Handbasket", cash is going to be "King"....

Seeing these types of "grabbing and hoarding" so close to home is a bit scary.

Bill

 

[cdltpx]

My guess is they know the dollar is going to fail when and as it does the value of metals have to go up. Plus with the potential for war these metals will be used in building of weaponry. Also playing a role in this entire bit could be the fact that peak oil is going to cost the price to extract these metals to increase with just the jump in oil prices we are to expect the price of the metal to rise too. Oil is rising in price because it is getting harder to find cheaply the same might hold true for silver they may have already picked the low hanging fruit from the tree. With the use of satellite photographs to locate past meteor strike locations they have uncovered most of the areas where diamonds gold and silver are likely to be found and are exploiting them.