Silver Prices Going Up - Miners Respond

Silver prices going up

With numerous elements coming together at the right time, silver prices have been going up, and over the long term that should continue.

Those high silver prices have some Colorado miners hoping to rekindle the state's silver trade.

Several miners are working around the Poor Man silver mine in Idaho Springs. Silver prices are up, with futures in silver going up 27 percent just last month. Silver is now trading at about $15.60 an ounce.

The silver boom is caused by economic uncertainty and the fact that silver is used in solar panels. Some miners who lead tours of old Colorado gold mines say they're also poking around abandoned silver mines looking for new veins of silver.

The Denver Post reported Saturday that several people have filed applications with Colorado to explore or reactivate silver mines.

One of them is Al Mosch. His day job is leading gold-mine tours of the Phoenix Mine in Idaho Springs, but on his time off he pokes around the old silver site.

"I did some serious work in here in the 1980s when silver was at $12," Mosch said. "It crashed to $4 and stayed that way for many years. I just shut it down then."

His son, David, a former Colorado School of Mines professor, prospected a multimillion-dollar gold claim that put him in People magazine in 1975 at age 14. Al Mosch still has a claim in the silver mine, and David Mosch is working on new technology to extract silver.

"If he's successful," Al Mosch told the newspaper, "we could reopen a lot of these old claims."

The United States is the eighth-largest silver producer in the world. Most silver produced is used for industrial applications such as battery-making, or photography, or jewelry crafting, with alternative-energy uses on the rise.

Another silver prospector, Tom Treadwell, is working to clear some 30 tons of mud and debris left in Poor Man's main shaft. He said the enjoys looking for a new vein of silver to revive the state's silver mining industry.

Silver prices going up

Silver News | ETF Securities Has Record 20 Million Ounces of Silver to Back Up ETF Commodity

Silver News

ETF Securities said on Thursday the amount of metal it holds to back its silver exchange-traded commodity rose to a record 20.064 million ounces on June 3, while its palladium holdings also hit an all-time high.

ETFS Physical Silver (PHAG.L) has added 2.3 million ounces or 12.7 percent to its holdings in the last month, according to data released by the company.

Holdings of its ETFS Physical Palladium product meanwhile rose 13,677 ounces on Wednesday, lifting them 4.7 percent to a record 304,635 ounces.

Exchange-traded funds, which issue securities backed by physical stocks of a particular metal, have represented a major source of demand for precious metals in recent years.

Silver News