Silver: About the Precious Metal Silver

We, at Silver Trading Company, believe that silver is the smartest investment of the decade. We are not alone in our assessment, some of the world's leading financial analysts also believe that silver is one of the world's most important commodities, with unparalleled investment opportunity for the future. Silver's unique properties make it ideal and essential for global industry.

There may never be a better time to buy silver bullion than right now. World demand for silver-for industrial, medical and investment uses-now exceeds annual silver production, and has every year since 1990. Above-ground stockpiles are low and are reported to be shrinking rapidly. For these reasons, many feel silver bullion represents an outstanding investment opportunity.

Throughout history, silver bullion has served mankind as a primary monetary metal. It is durable, divisible, convenient, has utility value, and cannot be created by fiat.

Silver's Uses and Increased Consumption:

Unlike its fellow monetary metal - gold - silver is most commonly used today as an industrial commodity. Industrial demand for silver has grown consistently for the past three decades because of silver's many unique properties, including its strength, malleability, and ductility... its unparalleled electrical and thermal conductivity... its sensitivity to and high reflectance of light... and its ability to endure extreme temperature ranges.

Silver's unique combination of characteristics is found in no other metal, and scientists have discovered innumerable uses for it in industry. From telescopes.... solar cells to circuit boards... x-ray films to double-pane thermal windows... watch batteries to silver-plated bearings in jet engines... silver is vital to modern industry, and more uses are constantly being discovered. Even in photography, where digital imaging is becoming more popular, tens of millions of ounces are still being consumed each year.

In addition to its industrial uses and qualities, silver is also used in numerous health care products because of the unique antibacterial characteristics that it possesses. The "Silver Bullet" is used by hospitals to prevent bacterial infections in burn victims. Wound dressings and other wound care products incorporate a layer of fabric containing silver for prevention of secondary infections.

In a world that is showing increasing concern about the spreading of disease and potential pandemics, silver is increasingly being tapped for its microbicidal qualities. In fact, the U.S. Military is now consuming a hundred million pairs of socks per year impregnated with silver, which is about a million ounces of silver consumed per year! And this does not include shirts, shoes, or underwear with embedded-silver material! And you can count on the military to increase consumption of silver-impregnated materials, as silver in soldier's clothing not only eliminates the smells, fungi, bacteria, viruses and icky crap that plague soldiers, but it is actually "a first line of defense against shrapnel wounds, because any of the silver fabric that becomes embedded in the wound 'actually starts treating the wound,' according to the company founder." The clothing itself not only helps heal the wound, but will also maintain a relatively sterile area around the wound by virtue of the remaining protective clothing? And you can be sure that it is not just the American Army that is looking at these products.

Scarcity:

It is estimated that more than 95% of all the silver ever mined throughout history has already been consumed by industrial use. That silver is gone forever, unrecoverable at any price. In 1900, there were approximately 12 billion ounces of silver in the world. Today, that figure has fallen to about 300 million ounces of above-ground, refined silver. This means that at current prices, it would only take about four billion dollars to purchase all of the above-ground silver in the world today.

Of all the silver that is mined every year, little more than a quarter of it comes from "primary mines" - mines whose primary source of revenue is silver. The remaining mines are mostly copper, gold, lead, and zinc operations, which produce silver only as a by-product.