European Silver Shortage Spreads To UK

[Ares]

On Friday we disclosed that major PM distributor, retailer and trading house BullionVault.com had run out of physical silver inventories in Germany (and possibly elsewhere) and was advising clients to seek the precious metal elsewhere. Today, we find that the UK joins Germany in what is now becoming the second round of the global silver shortage (the first one occuring in May 2010 when it was unclear just how the ECB would deal with insolvent PIIGS). Below is the warning by British BullionByPost notifying clients that the company currently has no silver bars in stock. Inventories are expected to be restocked later in February. In the meantime, as before, we urge customs agents to do a quick check of the cargo hold of all private jets (and time shares) registered to any banker making over $25 million. After all, surely the Tunisian president didn't come up with the idea to flee with 25% of Tunisia's gold entirely on his own.

<img src="http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/havenstein/BullionByPost.jpg"/>

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/european-silver-shortage-spreads-uk

[Serpo]

And just remember when they run out of silver the rice goes down...... ;D

[ShortJohnSilver]

Lots of reasons however that are not stated:

1. Silver has VAT applied to it, while gold does not. As a result it is more expensive to hold silver (since the dealer has to pay VAT up front) than gold, meaning that a sane dealer would not hold vast quantities. Any spike in demand = silver shortage for that country. Ask yourself, is Tulving out of silver?

2. Silver is not as popular as gold in Europe, in my view.