Silver hits $19.28 per ounce!

For those of you who don't watch the price of metals regularly and for those of you who wonder why silver and gold cost so much these days:


The prices of both metals (when adjusted for inflation) have been setting all time highs lately. Today gold hit a record $1212.50 per ounce and silver hit $19.28 per ounce!

Because I frequently buy silver, I try to watch for good buying times. When I started buying sterling and silver, the price was only $14-something an ounce. The price of silver was only about $5 an ounce in 1998, after having bottomed out at under $4 an ounce in 1992. (These last numbers are not adjusted for inflation but it's cool to note what inflation and demand actually do to the numbers.)

Here is what $115 of sterling silver looks like today:

Approx. 6 oz of sterling silver, .925

These three 16 gauge sheets were made from my scrap tonight. Roger melted my scrap in the crucible and poured it into the ingot mold. I rolled them out only 3 times tonight before annealing to this state. There's lots of more rolling to come next week, my final week of class, before I can use these.







And just in case you are still curious, here is what $100 worth of Precious Metal Clay looks like today:

Obviously sterling goes a lot farther than .999 fine silver. The cost of precious metal clay is expensive because of the technology---not just the fact that it's pure silver. Also consider that the cost of traditional metal forming tools are more expensive when working with sheet metal (they are usually metal themselves), as opposed to the ease of soft formation of metal clay before firing. There is the expensive cost of the kiln, too, and after firing, the finishing tools are the same.

Anyhow, thought you'd possibly like to know. These are the times when my desk job as a nerdy Registered Rep coincide with the cool artist side of me---and can I bask in the pure bliss of it all!