Physical Silver Buying Dynamics

It looks like the official sources grossly underestimated the amount of Indian silver buying in 2013.  When the Indian Government put restrictions on gold imports in 2013, their citizens switched to buying silver.

Thomson Reuters GFMS estimated that total Indian silver imports would be 5,200-5,400 metric tons in 2013.  However, Koos Jansen at InGoldWeTrust, recently published an article stated that the Indians actually imported 6,125 metric tons of silver in 2013.

Koos located the total silver import figures from India’s customs department DGCIS.  The 2012 & 2013 figures were taken from Koos Jansen’s site and data for 2007-2011 are from Thomson Reuters GFMS.

Indian silver imports hit a record 6,125 metric tons in 2013 due a huge amount brought in during the last month of the year (DEC = 825 metric tons).  6,125 metric tons are nearly 200 million oz of silver.

U.S. Mint Continues To Sell “ALL” of its Allocated Silver Eagles

As I mentioned on Monday, the U.S. Mint put a limit of 1.1 million oz of Silver Eagles for their Authorized Dealers to purchase this week.  Yesterday the U.S. Mint updated their sales figures to 959,500.  I thought this might be the first week that the total allotment of Silver Eagles may not be sold.

However, the mint just released their final weekly figures:

I gather one or several of the Authorized Dealers bought the remaining 140,500 Silver Eagles today to sell over the weekend… because it may turn out to be quite interesting with the situation taking place in the Ukraine.

I still receive emails from readers who are concerned about the paper price of silver.  My response is to tell them to STEP AWAY from the Kitco screen and get some exercise.

If we had record silver imports by the Indians in 2013 and continued purchasing of every Silver Eagle allotted by the U.S. Mint… what happens to physical silver buying when things really get BAD IN THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM & ECONOMY??

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