Some interesting comments out of Silveraxis.com. This Silver washout is unprecedented and reflects a near wholesale collapse in confidence in the paper-pricing mechanism. There is no real physical to be had at a price any where near current levels but there is lots of paper! OI is stable but if only the Cartel is buying long at such low levels then the Crimex is kaput. What an embarrassing dichotomy to the Cartel who have done their work so well to the point they have nearly lost control of their ability to manipulate the POS via Silver paper markets. Their greatest fear by far is losing control of Gold next. Something nasty is afoot here, brewing in the background. I'll try to locate as much physical in the Ottawa Ontario area Friday and let you know how much I can pull together, if anything at all. Bet ya I come up empty-handed, even though I've been a loyal customer for years.

AUGUST 13 2008 8:05PM - Confirmed: As of this afternoon CNI is sold out of all silver but the 90% bags. Thanks LC! If anybody knows of a source that still has inventory, please let me know. Tulving is now sold out of everything as well except for 90% bags of Half Dollars (less than 10 left) at 20 cents over spot and they also have in quantity the 2008 silver Philharmonics, which is the first true bullion coin in silver with a face value in Euros. At a premium to spot of $1.89, the Philharmonic purchased from Tulving with silver more than 2 dollars below its 200 day moving average is a very interesting option. Heck, if I was buying these days I'd pick up 500 of them to go with 500 Maple Leafs and 500 Eagles. And I'd do that every year. Say, that's not a bad idea. Unfortunately, the U.S. Mint is apparently going out as far as Christmas on dealer allocations of the 2008 silver Eagles, so if you don't have yours yet you might be out of luck (and you might be out of luck even if you did already order but haven't received them). One last thing, many dealers are also out of a number of gold bullion items so this time it's not just silver.

AUGUST 13 2008 4:15PM - It looks like many of you have taken my and other stalwart bottomfeeders' advice and bought silver at these stupid levels, with the result being that bullion dealers are once again sold out of just about everything. For example, www.tulving.com only has 1 oz. generic rounds and 90% pre-1964 junk bags of U.S. coins at the moment. Meanwhile, it looks like www.APMEX.com has limited supplies of silver Eagles but the minimum premium is $4 per coin. More importantly, they just announced yesterday that they are seeing a gold and silver shortage in the secondary retail market. Yet at least one dealer, CNI (www.golddealer.com), shows it has inventory with decent premiums. But how deep is the inventory, I wonder? If some of you aim to find out, please let me know.