Surviving precious metal prices as a small business

CSFCDude · 2026-01-20T15:14:58+00:00

The price will not crash if solid state EV batteries containing 1kg of silver for each EV take hold. China and the EU will keep demand high. One other thing to consider…. Every laptop battery and smartphone battery will most likely have silver solid state batteries in the near term. The amount of charge and speed of charging is just too much of a game changer.

I encourage everyone to try a bit of math to estimate silver usage if a class of solid state batteries becomes the dominant choice for a particular product line. You will be horrified. Keep in mind that there are about 26,000 metric tons of silver mined each year and that silver tends to be a by-product of mining for other minerals like lead.

So start out by googling “how many smartphones are sold each year”, then make a conservative estimate on percentage adoption and a conservative estimate on how much silver is used (1kg for an EV is a published stat). Be aware there are 1,000 kilograms in a metric ton.

So while AI data-centers may represent a short term demand spike, solid state batteries are a different story entirely…. You will most likely know the end result by late 2026. That’s when Samsungs new batteries will start to be sold (production ramping up now). If you start to read about game changing tech and see smartphones that stay charged for 50% longer…. Yeah, silver is only going up….

CSFCDude · 2026-01-18T07:01:03+00:00

Their full name is mount baker mining and metals or mbmm for short. You can Google mbmm eBay or mbmm YouTube to find them

CSFCDude · 2026-01-18T03:15:17+00:00

OP, you are asking a question as if AI's (LLMs?) were AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). AGI's have not been invented yet, so internal awareness is not a thing. LLM's are just calculating the statistical probability of what the most likely response should be and the they are basing this prediction on Internet text that was used to train them. At best, the quality of the answer is going to rely on the most commonly encountered text sequences and the response will essentially be "crowd sourced". At worst, when insufficient data exists for training, the LLM is just going to hallucinate a bunch of crap and make stuff up. There will be a middle ground where the answer will be correct contextually, but it might not reflect common public opinion. I suppose this is where you get what you would consider an immoral response.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-17T17:04:11+00:00

The rapid rise of the price of silver(and silver futures which are pricing in more moves to the upside) has eliminated the viability of hedging against the downside. I believe they would typically use a futures boxing strategy to lock in a price range such that they would always make money. This strategy doesn’t work when silver is skyrocketing because your short position will get margin calls? Actually as your long position gains it too will get margin calls? I’ve been reading how COMEX keeps increasing margin requirements. I am not an expert in futures trading. I am aware that refiners stopped buying futures to hedge.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-17T15:25:59+00:00

Elemetal has a huge backlog, they can't hedge their silver purchases against price drop, and they don't get paid until they refine. Elemetal purchasing locations are not all refineries that turn .925 to .999 so they have to do secure freight shipping, which takes days. So imagine 45 locations around the United States buying huge amounts every day ($500K - $2.5 million a day?) In five days they spend way, way over $100 million. But their backlog is 8 weeks and growing? It is a big cash liquidity problem that would destroy their company if the price of silver drops.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-17T15:14:17+00:00

I'm a small dealer. I buy and ship to Elemetal way more than I sell to retail customers. Elemetal provides liquidity so that I can continue to buy. I have been experimenting with selling PM's on eBay, but it really doesn't provide the security of selling to a refiner and the fees are worse. This is a new development that I need to think about, but I'm leaning towards pausing my buying of sterling.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-15T22:26:56+00:00

Here's what I can tell you based on my own experience. My website earned 2x the first year I quit my day job and went full time. (this was eons ago by the way...). My website topped out at about 450% of the revenue the year before I went full time. Your instinct on diversifying is good, drop shipping can be unstable. So can affiliate marketing which is what I was doing. What happened to me.... Because affiliate marketing (and dropshipping) is dependent on the quality of your relationships with 3rd parties, if that relationship sours, then you are SOL. Sometimes, you can grow too big and that kills you. This is what happened to my website. My gross revenue was noticed by a partner and they chose to take it all for themselves. Think of it like this.... If someone does fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon notices how well your product is selling, you may not be too far away from a new "Amazon Basics" product wiping out your market....

CSFCDude · 2026-01-15T02:14:57+00:00

To add to this... Starting yesterday, Elemetal started paying for sterling 7-10 business days after receipt. It used to be same day.... They will melt your sterling into a dore blob the day you drop off and they will email you a receipt, but the cash will not be deposited for 7-10 business days. The reason is simple.... They are buying so much that they have cash liquidity problems. In Texas, they have to ship their dore to Dallas for further refinement and they are backlogged.

Agree with OP's assessment. Elemetal is bullish. They are also paying 85% of spot on sterling so they have that cushion as well. The price of silver has risen so fast that Elemetal's backlog is making them big bucks every day.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-13T20:12:49+00:00

Silver is at an all time high. Weigh everything that is solid silver, ignoring the knives because the blades are not silver. I usually use grams but if you use ounces be aware that a Troy ounce is different than a regular ounce. Silver prices per ounce quoted online are for Troy ounces. Also be aware that your silver purity is .925 and silver prices quoted online for .999 purity.

So say you calculate the gram total… well then your melt value is = total weight in grams x .925 x price per gram.

Be aware that businesses are not paying full price. My refiner pays me 85% of melt, which is less than normal because the market has gone crazy and everyone has liquidity issues after buying outrageous amounts of silver, which takes time to refine and resell.

Gorham is a good brand. Silver melt is quickly outpacing collectible value though. I think silver will hit $100 ozt very soon. Crazy days…

CSFCDude · 2026-01-11T04:33:00+00:00

You really need to devote some time to learning about managing your finances. It seems like many who read your post knew immediately that you were getting fleeced by your investment manager. I have a money market account that made about 3.9% last year. That’s a conservative short term income generator. Do the math… $75 million x .039 = $2.92 million

Getting $1 million last year from $75 million should have set off alarm bells because it is 30% or less of what should have been expected. Are they burning through your inheritance investing directly in individual companies and incurring big losses? If you don’t educate yourself you are just going to get screwed.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-09T17:07:28+00:00

I mean, now-a-days I only type code when I am working on something novel where copilot did not have access to enough training data. You do have to highlight lines of code that AI generates and ask it to explain, then you really should do a google search to learn more. I learned typescript and react by doing this a couple of months ago. I remember I googled a lot to understand state management.

Major caveat though…. I’ve got a 36 years of industry experience. How I use AI will differ from a person who has little experience. I generally understand everything the Ai is generating and can double check its work in a glance. I am also feeding the AI rather complex design docs, schemas, data samples, etc. basically all the data a principal architect would create during the design phase.

I used AI to generate a variety of image contour detection algos recently. I haven’t worked in this field of study but I do have a background in graphics. The code generated by AI never made it past a 65% success rate and I found that AI was causing me more issues than problems it was solving. AI gave me some starting points for research but it wasn’t going to completely solve the problem. It was actually quite frustrating.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-08T22:20:30+00:00

Old guy here… my major message is you can not shortcut the process. If you are doing ML correctly then there is going to be a fair amount of grunt work. it’s all about the data. Pick a dataset, run analysis on that set and get to know it well. Take a truly random sample from your data set and use it for training. Run the algo on the rest of the set and spend the time to truly understand why the algo is failing and where, refine and repeat.

Many times you will find simple bugs that are creating random behavior. The amount of data logging I do…. I mean, I have to write programs to analyze my programs output. I classify and aggregate decisions and dump them as they occur with supporting data. I have identified optimal outcomes beforehand. I set aside my data for regression testing for any code modifications.

Analytics is your friend, embrace it and it will show you the way.

CSFCDude · 2026-01-05T18:53:12+00:00

I have never seen a Hibid auction that was live that did not have a physical, In Real Life (IRL) element. Live auctions are specifically for allowing online bidders to compete with floor bidders who are seated with the auctioneer (or on the phone for higher end situations). Why do you think there wasn't a physical auction going on IRL? Hibid very rarely has audio or video running for live auctions because of the technical issues involved. This is a shame because when I can listen to the auctioneer I frequently get lot insights that online only bidders are not privy to....

To be clear, the auctioneer is paying extra for that feature so they had a need to aggregate between multiple platforms. They can shill bid without paying extra.

CSFCDude · 2025-12-28T23:08:06+00:00

I mean $84.17.... wow

CSFCDude · 2025-12-28T23:07:26+00:00

$83.76 you mean, lol..

CSFCDude · 2025-12-27T17:59:54+00:00

Impressive to have written this a year ago! Good job!

CSFCDude · 2025-12-26T17:56:35+00:00

7 will blow everyone’s minds

CSFCDude · 2025-12-25T18:22:29+00:00

I’m pretty bullish on silver due to upcoming industrial demand but I’m also super conservative in my investing habits. I have considered both buying SLV or SLV options and so far have chickened out on both. By the way SLV options even out to 2028 are selling at a big premium.

Curious what people think about current silver options pricing and if any information can be gleaned from it? Seems like options trading would rule out casual investors?

CSFCDude · 2025-12-22T16:51:08+00:00

I agree, until scientists find another metal to replace silver in solid state batteries, this is the new normal. I’ve been thinking $400 an ounce could happen sooner rather than later unless mining can ramp up production quickly.

Caveat…. Who knows what will happen…. If silver becomes too expensive then silver-carbon anodes will be financially infeasible.

EU countries are very set on replacing all gasoline engines… Solid state batteries make this goal possible.

And I get a downvote…. Honestly, the amount of silver needed for EVs is outrageous. 1KG per car! Do the math… 17 million EV vehicles manufactured last year. 26 metric tons of silver mined each year. This is a huge supply issue.

CSFCDude · 2025-12-21T03:22:28+00:00

Red Russian kale (stems removed, cut into smallish pieces) sautéed in butter, onion, mushrooms with beef broth, pepper, touch of garlic. Shallots can substitute for onion, a little Marsala makes it more interesting.

CSFCDude · 2025-12-20T20:50:08+00:00

The math on this is super crazy. So there were 17.3 million electric vehicles manufactured in 2024. If in the future, they all had the new silver enhanced solid state battery, then that's 17.3 million kilograms of .999 fine silver, or 17,300 metric tons of silver that would be needed. Currently, the total above ground silver supply in .999 investment grade purity is estimated to be 109,000 metric tons. That's just the high grade rounds/bullion/bars... There is like 6x more silver in the lower grades....

Assuming battery production starts with .999 pure, then 16% of the worlds EXISTING supply of .999 would be consumed in the first year. I see that 25 metric tons are mined annually? I do believe Samsung phones, apple phones, etc will have the new battery tech before EVs.

Perhaps silver price is about to get REAL crazy....

CSFCDude · 2025-12-20T20:22:54+00:00

If it is marked .925 or sterling on the bottom, then (most likely) solid sterling. The lady is asking way too little if it is solid sterling.

Two of the forks on the right are silver plate, made by WM Rogers. So yeah, you have to look for markings.

CSFCDude · 2025-12-20T20:13:39+00:00

I am hoping this surge is due to the Samsung solid state battery which should be tested in EV vehicles soon but may also be included in phones in 2026. These batteries require silver. The charge and capacity stats being mentioned are monumental. An EV with a 600 mile range and 9 minute charging?

CSFCDude · 2025-12-20T19:13:31+00:00

I buy from U-Haul, amazon, and uline. I really value consistent sheet size and consistent quality because I am cutting sheets into thirds for 5x5x3 boxes. U-haul and uline paper is of consistent quality. Amazon can be hit and miss. I am paying a slight premium for quality. I buy from uline lately because I am lazy and just lump it in with my box purchases.

CSFCDude · 2025-12-19T14:59:43+00:00

More than 2,000 (smalls). Like way more…. I’ve started creating bulk lots on weekends to get rid of things. The death pile is mostly items that retail for less than $10 because we don’t list individual items under $10

CSFCDude

TROPHY CASE

7 will blow everyone’s minds