Last week I drove around the San Francisco Bay Area like a madman trying to locate the last supplies of pre-1965 90% silver as well as gold coins. This is an example of how it went:
"Hello, do you have any 90% silver?"
"Yes. It’s going fast though."
"Okay, I’ll be right down."
20 minutes later I arrive. During that time, three people had come in and purchased everything they had (which wasn’t much in the first place.) Same story over and over again.
I finally located both gold and silver, and was lucky to pay only a very small premium over the price I was seeing just a few days before, prior to the serious supply crunch.
It’s difficult to imagine any free market mechanism that would explain a falling or even flat silver price when the demand so obviously exceeds the supply. I tend to agree with Chris here… something fishy is happening. I’ve seen commentaries elsewhere which suggest manipulation is occurring by banks holding large short positions in silver. Apparently two U.S. banks recently increased their short positions by 450 percent and controlled 25 percent of the market.
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s enforcement division is now investigating the silver market.
See here for more info: http://arabianmoney.net/2008/09/26/best-outlook-for-silver-since-the-days-of-the-hunt-brothers/
BTW, apmex.com had 90% bags of silver yesterday "in stock" (I didn’t call to confirm, but they said clearly on their website that they were out of stock up until yesterday). If you’re still looking, you might want to check them out. Sell price is at 10.35 right now. Probably a better price that you’ll get locally - assuming you can find any.