Yes, Silver is being manipulated! Listen to this expert:

Link

It seems no one is able to do anything to prevent this, or catch the manipulators doing it. I have seen estimates for a bottom price for silver as low as $10 per ounce. It is going to take awhile for the world markets to settle back down from the mess they are in. Hint -- keep an eye on what is happening in China and the other Asian markets.

Silver being used by Investors

Hi Everyone-
Here is a really good (recent) take on how Silver continues to be manipulated.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Lewis/2013-08-15-The-Unbearable-Lightness-of-Being-Long-Silver.html
Since most of this activity centers around 'paper' silver (the equivalent of air) and is connected to people investing in silver for profit, it really doesn't matter to me as a craftsman because I only buy metal. Like he says in this article, 'silver seems cheap'. It is! And it will probably stay that way for awhile longer, so get your stash stocked up while it is affordable.

Get some Silver, the price has dropped.

Thanks to you new folks who just subscribed to my blog and thanks for hanging around to all of you who are still subscribers. I haven't posted anything in quite awhile, I have been away from my bench, pursuing other creative things like music and sewing.

Today I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you haven't noticed -- SILVER spot price is all the way down to $22.75. You can see that in the chart on the right side of your screen. This price is very affordable to us craftspeople, so it is time to buy.

An interesting thing occurred during the past few years -- due to the SILVER price getting so high, many people turned to Copper and other less expensive metals for their production. Since I am a Silversmith, enjoy soldering, know how to bezel set stones, etc, I am not that crazy about a lot of the work I have seen on Etsy, Pinterest and other websites. However, I have seen some really interesting pieces and I hope the artists who developed these techniques will start using SILVER again. I am referring to the Bohemian style jewelry that is proliferating right now -- twisted wire, lots of beads, simple construction, NO soldering, etc. Since the price of SILVER is low and these techniques are fast and furious, I don't see why the quality of work can not come up by switching back to SILVER and still be affordable.

I plan on starting a new production run soon. When the SILVER spot price was $45+ an ounce, I just couldn't justify using up my stock for the ROI I would get for my finished work. The spoiled public will only pay so much for silver jewelry and there is no way I can get my prices down to match what is available as imports, regardless of quality. Now that the price has dropped I can eek out a profit again, while maintaining my quality and design standards. 

So thank you to the World Banker guys (who are constantly ratcheting everything up and down) for focusing  on other commodities like Oil, Bonds, etc and allowing the SILVER price to go down. I appreciate being able to get back to work. So get some SILVER and get busy! =)

Please comment!

Estaban

PS I have a couple of Jewelry related Boards on Pinterest -- check them out if you have time:
http://pinterest.com/stram99/jewelry/
http://pinterest.com/stram99/my-jewelry/

Time to get some Silver

Okay, I have posted about this before (last time Silver was hovering around $12 ounce) and I don't mean to be redundant, but NOW is the time to increase your supply. Logically a lower commodities price would indicate a stronger Dollar, but there are so many factors in what causes them to go up and down that it is beyond my time limits to stay current with the reasons why on a daily basis. However I do check Silver daily and I have noticed a fairly large drop in price in the past week. Will it stay this low? I don't really know but today's price ($15.26) is the lowest it has been for quite some time and I don't really see it going too much lower, so again, get some while the getting is good.
If you haven't read some of my previous posts about how cool it is that because we are craftsmen we actually get metal when we buy Silver (many investors get paper) you can read those if you want.
It is also a good time of year to get going on all your projects. It really isn't too early to start making your collection that you will sell next Christmas. Maybe you don't work that far ahead but I do. Just consider this a heads up and good luck with your work.

Price for Bronze PMC

Sorry it took me so long, but I just checked the price for the new Bronze PMC and it is relatively cheap compared to Silver PMC. The Silver PMC (.999 silver) is around $45 for a 25 gram lump while the Bronze is only about $35 for a 200 gram lump. Wow! That is quite a difference.

Like I said in my previous post, I am personally not that interested in producing jewelry made from copper, brass and the like. However, this is a breakthrough in my opinion and I will definitely be getting some and checking it out.

I just completed teaching a PMC class and as always the 25 gram lumps were slightly prohibitive because they just disappear too fast. At almost 50 bucks a pop the creativity is stifled a bit. Using this new Bronze PMC should allow more freedom to experiment and ease some of the economic tensions that new students have.

Actually, the Silver PMC still intimidates me when I hold that bubble gum size wad in my fingers. I remember the first time I experienced PMC -- I thought 'this is great, but I want a 5 pound bag instead of this little tidbit'. But that is just me. Since I have a pottery degree and understood what clay will do 30 years ago I was very excited by PMC and the possibilities. When I heard CLAY, I thought alright! But then I realized the economic disparities between PMC (precious metal clay) and clay, lost a lot of my initial enthusiasm and reverted to my more conventional silversmith methods.

So if you haven't tried it, get some Bronze PMC and go wild. Once you get some great results let us all see what you've done. Send me a photo and I'll post it here on this blog.