"if the COMEX is determined to under price its physical metal, then they ought not to mind seeing it leave their warehouse for the popular physical market"

this article by gene arensberg spells out all of the details; what the comex is doing, and how you can take delivery of metal:

ATLANTA (ResourceInvestor.com) -- It is perhaps the ultimate irony in this great crash market of 2008. Exactly when precious metals ought to be soaring on safe haven demand; when they should be stronger than a acre of garlic as a place for people to store wealth away from the hurricane of uncertainty that has become of the forex market (and the bizarre fluctuations of its now hugely inflated fiat currencies); the two most popular precious metals are instead being sold off on the futures markets just like all the other overly-leveraged commodities.

The ongoing deleveraging and intense flight to cash has buyers terrified worldwide. They are locked-up, deer-in-the-headlights fashion, which gives the hedgers and short sellers supernatural strength. It may sound trite, but that will continue until ends. When it ends, for gold and silver, there will very likely be a just-as-vicious rally that will:

1. Seem to be as irrational as the sell-down was, if not more, and
2. Very likely be a rally like the world has never seen.

It is vital to understand that the selloff on the metals is on the futures markets, where the players deal in all kinds of interrelated paper contracts. These paper contracts usually only rarely settle by actual physical metal delivery. It really isn’t very much like the popular physical bullion markets where people actually take the metal home the same day they fork over the cash. But the futures markets do actually have metal that can be bought and delivered. At least they still do so far, but they very well may have a lot less of that metal after December has come and gone.

An Unprecedented Shortage of Bullion

An unprecedented shortage of physical metal currently exists in the popular gold and silver bullion markets. Premiums, the amount paid and charged by bullion dealers over the current spot or cash price, are at the highest levels since at least 1980, and possibly the highest ever seen for popular gold and silver bullion coins and bars.

That’s the bad news. People want gold and silver badly. They are willing to pay much more than the spot price, but they can’t find bullion to buy. They can’t find it because there isn’t enough physical metal available at these drastic, artificially induced, fear and fund-liquidation-caused spot prices.

How utterly ridiculous. The metal’s price is falling even when it is in a physical shortage condition. Yes, that is counter to normal economic theory. Normally when shortages occur the price should rise to the level that attracts more of it into the market. Normally, when shortages occur the rising price encourages capital investment by companies that sniff it out and eventually produce more of it, answering the shortage.

These are anything but normal times, however. Perversely the extremely low prices are causing producers to shut down mines, lay off people and hunker down for better times to come. News services are crowded with reports of important mines going on care and maintenance or shuttering altogether. Think we have a shortage now for gold and silver? Just wait a few months. With all the mine closures being announced now, the shortage of physical gold and especially silver is likely about to become the stuff of legend.

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebb...