ancona
Praying Mantis
I called my friend and LCS owner yesterday to bullshit a little bit, and he said folks have been steady streaming in to buy silver. Most of them want the biggest bang for the buck and are buying Sunshine, Buffalo and other generics, but he said a lot of folks want quality and are asking for ASE's and junk. We talked about the pre-Christmas trend of folks coming in, selling and asking him to "hold on to it if you can, because as soon as I get my W2, I'm going to do my taxes and buy this stuff back".
Of course he's a pretty good guy, and did hold some stuff for a few good customers, and as far as he's concerned, he's making the vig on either end so it's all good. When I asked him what the percentage of sellers versus buy was he said that hands down, there are three buyers for every seller on average for the whole of last quarter.
He went on to tell me that there are four items he cannot keep in the shop, because they are gone as soon as he gets them [standing orders and stuff]
1. Kooks
2. Libertads, which command an eleven dollar premium!
3. Philharmonics, which carry a [I think] 6 dollar premium
and
4. Maples
I found it odd that his customers do not seem to look on-line for these products, but he said, "Lots of folks are paranoid as hell about doing these transactions on-line because of the permanent electronic paper trail, and they know they can get them on-line, but prefer the anonymity of the LCS, who keeps ZERO buyer records. As a matter of fact, he only knows most customers by their first name. He only knows my last name because our firm removed the asbestos containing pipe insulation from the chiller lines in his shop three years ago, and he met me at the pre-construction meeting.
All in all, a very interesting conversation as well as a statement about the undocumented movement of metals in the country. I wonder how much private gold and silver is un reported/under-reported and how much is really in the hands of folks like us?
Of course he's a pretty good guy, and did hold some stuff for a few good customers, and as far as he's concerned, he's making the vig on either end so it's all good. When I asked him what the percentage of sellers versus buy was he said that hands down, there are three buyers for every seller on average for the whole of last quarter.
He went on to tell me that there are four items he cannot keep in the shop, because they are gone as soon as he gets them [standing orders and stuff]
1. Kooks
2. Libertads, which command an eleven dollar premium!
3. Philharmonics, which carry a [I think] 6 dollar premium
and
4. Maples
I found it odd that his customers do not seem to look on-line for these products, but he said, "Lots of folks are paranoid as hell about doing these transactions on-line because of the permanent electronic paper trail, and they know they can get them on-line, but prefer the anonymity of the LCS, who keeps ZERO buyer records. As a matter of fact, he only knows most customers by their first name. He only knows my last name because our firm removed the asbestos containing pipe insulation from the chiller lines in his shop three years ago, and he met me at the pre-construction meeting.
All in all, a very interesting conversation as well as a statement about the undocumented movement of metals in the country. I wonder how much private gold and silver is un reported/under-reported and how much is really in the hands of folks like us?