#silversqueeze

[Voodoo]

I wonder why they need silver at such high purity. Wouldn't gold be a better alternative?

Nope, remember SIlver has the Highest Conductivity. So whatever the application is they must need absolute best conductivity they can achieve. Impurities would also greatly affect the conductivity at very small levels. I imagine for something like a magnetic sensor (magnetism then induces the current) that the absolute best conductivity would result in the Best sensor / most sensitivity to sensing whatever they are trying to find.

Think of impurities as that Slow Ass driver in the Left lane. Just one stupid Copper ion could back up the whole road.

 

[Voodoo]

I don't buy it. I think the silver for missiles/military demand is an overblown narrative. It's pretty clear that refineries around the world (the western world anyway) are working hard to produce good delivery metal for London (and Perth in Australia making kilo bars for China/SGE/SFE).

When did the good delivery bar specs change? I imagine they haven't changed in purity needed in well, like ever. Plus, if you are running a refinery what customer are you going to listen to and send to first? The one that pays the most and gives you the best margin right? No one will pay more than the military for extremely pure product.

 

[Voodoo]

I went and found the LBMA good delivery bar specs. Ya, this isnt't that hard. Most any bar I have of silver would/should qualify. Would be EASY for a refinery to melt and recast. So I don't buy this as a good reason for the refinery backup. Perhaps it would be a volume issue but melting 3 9's silver to remake bars could be done incredibly fast. Five 9's silver would be 999.99 per thousand silver.

Technical Specifications

www.lbma.org.uk

The permitted dimensional ranges for a silver Bar are as follows:

• Length (Top): 300 mm +/- 50 mm Undercut: 5º to 15º.
• Width (Top): 130mm +/- 20 mm Undercut: 5º to 15º.
• Height: 80 mm +/- 20 mm.

Fineness: the minimum acceptable fineness is 999.0 parts per thousand silver.

 

[pmbug]

I did not save the page where I read it, but there is little actual difference between three 9s and four 9s fineness. I don't think that level of purity of bars has anything to do with the refinery backlog. There is a big difference between 90% or 92% silver and 99% however.

 

[Voodoo]

Trust me.... there is a small difference. I mean, let's do the math for a 1,000 oz bar.

That is 31,103.4768 grams. A 3 nine bar could therefore have a maximum of 31.1 grams of impurities
A 5 nine bar would have a max of 0.311 grams of impurities

So the difference is a maxiumum of 30.788 grams of impurities.
I would not fault anyone for saying that is a relatively small difference. And that is true.

However, if you MUST have that superior fineness it takes a LOT of work to remove those additional 30.788 grams of impurities.

 

[Voodoo]

It gets much more expensive if you need high purity reagents.

You all probably don't want to stack from this place. Here's some SIlver shot with >4 9 purity.

https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/product/aldrich/327050

50 G for a mere $458.00. Who doesn't want to pay $284 / oz?

 

[Ttazzman]

 

[Voodoo]

That's an oldie but a goodie. Strong is Floor.

 

[nickndfl]

$5k per bar now.

 

[Ttazzman]

$5k per bar now.

5k for the small ones....... 50k for the big ones

 

[Voodoo]

Ahhhh, those are 1,000 oz are they not? Try $50,000 per bar.

 

[Cigarlover]

Looks like around 6.2 million in currency.

 

[pmbug]

Looks like 125K ozt to me.

 

[Voodoo]

It is Heavy but if wanted $6 million thats a lot more bang for the buck than a suitcase of toilet paper.

 

[Viking]

Looks like 125K ozt to me.

amateur

 

[KnowWhy]

amateur

It’s a fun hobby….