Silver Above Ground

Silver Above Ground at end of 2012 Overview: Total Silver Mined 3000BC-2012AD: 49 Billion ounces or 1537000Tonnes Irretrievably lost 3000BC-2012AD: 25 Billion ounces or 789000Tonnes Silver above ground end of 2012AD: 24 Billion ounces or 748000Tonnes Nick Elway, Hagarth, and Byzantium helped create this report Silver above ground is: Industrial recoverable at high enough price. 3 Billion ounces or 93000Tonnes Note 1 Silver in coins. 2.5 Billion Ounces or 79000Tonnes Note 2 Silver in bars and rounds 1.4 Billion Ounces or 43500Tonnes Note 3 Silver in jewelry and silverware 17.1 Billion Ounces or 532500 Tonnes Note 4 The best work we could find on Silver Above Ground (through 2005) was David Zurbuchen’s 2006 article (22) Zurbuchen’s Overview was Total Silver Mined 3000BC-2005AD: 49 Billion ounces or 1537000Tonnes Irretrievably lost 3000BC-2005AD: 25 Billion ounces or 789000Tonnes Silver above ground end of 2005AD: 24 Billion ounces or 748000Tonnes Silver above ground 2005 is: 2005 Industrial recoverable at high enough price. 4 Billion ounces or 124000Tonnes Note 1 &nbsp2005 Silver in coins and medallions 1.2 Billion Ounces or 81000Tonnes Note 2 2005 Silver in bars and rounds 1.4 Billion Ounces or 43500Tonnes Note 3 2005 Silver in jewelry and silverware 17 Billion Ounces or 499500 Tonnes Note 4 Conclusion:1.Silver is NOT scarcer than gold. If we use the consensus Gold-above-ground number of 166000 Tonnes and our number of 748000 Tonnes, then the ratio is 4.5 silver ounces above ground for every gold ounce above ground. For those that disagree with including silver jewelry and silverware in the silver total, please be reminded gold jewelry IS in the gold total. 2. There is no significant amount of silver in government or banker hands. 3. The more we looked for silver in coins, the more we found. Note 1) Industrial recoverable at high enough price Zurbuchen’s estimate in 2005 was 4 billion ounces This report’s estimate of 3 billion ounces is a guess that higher prices since 2005 made recycling more profitable and reduced the industrial recoverable by 1 billion ounces. Note 2) This report counts 2.5 billion ounces in coins based on the belief that coins since 1990 have not been melted and that circulated coins from before 1964 In general suffered a 50 per cent melt. The guess of melt is based on asking around at the coin club, where the most common guess was 35 per cent so 50 per cent was chosen to be conservative. These coins are counted here: Canadian Circulating 1940-1967(14) 3208 Tonnes minted assume 50% melted 1604Tonnes Canadian Silver Maple, Olympic, Wildlife 1988-2012 2788Tonnes Indian Rupees(17) 1912-1945 Minted Rupee - 24,400 Tonnes 1/2 Rupee - 1,909 Tonnes 1/4 Rupee - 1,849 Tonnes Total 28,158 assume 50% melted 14076Tonnes US 90 percent non-dollar Coins Morgan 1878-1921 657 million minted -270 million melted Pittman act 1918 = 387 unmelted Peace + 190 million = 577 million @24.057 gms = 13880 Tonnes assume 50% melted 6940Tonnes Dimes, Quarters, Halves 1916-1964, + state proofs Minted 2628 Million face @22.5 silver grams/dollar 59000 Tonnes minted assume 50% melted 29500Tonnes US 40 percent Coins Kennedy Halves 65-70 and Eisenhower dollars 71-74 Minted 819 Million face @avg 9.5 grams per dollar 7500 Tonnes minted assume 50 percent melted 3750Tonnes US Silver Eagles and ATB 1986-Feb 2013 10844 Tonnes Mexican Libertads897Tonnes Mexican Olympic 25 Peso436Tonnes Mexican Circulating coins 1918-1987 10684 Tonnes minted assume 50 percent melted 5342Tonnes Philharmonics 2008-2011 +2012 est 1519Tonnes Britannia 1997-2012 42 Tonnes PerthSilver coins 1990-2012 1164Tonnes TOTAL IDENTIFIED SILVER COIN ABOVE GROUND SO FAR 78900Tonnes THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY ONCE-CIRCULATING SILVER COINS FROM EUROPE, ASIA ex-India, AFRICA, PHILIPPINES, AUSTRALIA, CENTRAL AMERICA, or SOUTH AMERICA Note 3) Silver in Bar and bullion form was not really countable. The number in this report is left at Zurbuchen’s 43500 Tonnes This may be broken out at the end of 2012 as Silver ETP holding(2) 19000Tonnes Comex holding(10) 5000 Tonnes LBMA Holdings 2300Tonnes Shanghai holding(10) 34Tonnes Perth Mint allocated good-delivery storage(8) 194 Tonnes US Mint storage 19(3) or 220(7) or 489(24)Tonnes Identified Total approx 26600 Tonnes Unidentified bullion 43500 – 26600 = 16900Tonnes Note 4) Silver in Jewelry and silverware is “everything else”, including industrial stocks and any other meltable silver we couldn’t locate. The USGS Silver statistics table (23) Last updated November 30, 2010 shows industrial stock of 3550 Tonnes at the end of 2009 (1)https://www.cmegroup.com/education/files/cpm-silver-market-lacks-legs-20...(2)https://www.goldcore.com/goldcore_blog/silver-investment-demand-surges-3...(3)https://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2012AnnualReport.pdf(4)https://www.coincommunity.com/us_coin_facts/ and "2012 North American Coins & Prices" 21st edition Krause Publications (5)https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/atb/?action=mintageTotals(6)https://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/american_eagles/?action=sales&year=...(7)https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silver/mcs-2013-silve.pdf(8)https://www.perthmint.com.au/pool_allocated_bar_listing.aspx(9)https://www.perthmint.com.au/investment-bullion-bars-and-coins-mintages....(10)https://www.investmenttools.com/futures/metals/Base_Metals_Inventory_Lon...(11)https://www.free-bullion-investment-guide.com/austrian_philharmonic_silv... and https://www.muenzeoesterreich.at/eng/download/annual-reports(12)https://silverbullionworld.com/britanniamintage.html andhttps://www.kitcomm.com/showthread.php?t=108363(13)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Silver_Maple_Leaf(14)"Charlton Standard Catalogue: Canadian Coins" 67th edition 2013. (15)https://silveragecoins.com/en/details.php?item=2086(16)https://typesets.wikidot.com/coin-library-mexico(17)"Collecting World Coins" 13th edition. Circulating Issues 1901-Present by Krause Publications. (18)https://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/zurbuchen011506.html(19)https://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/ds140-silve.pdf(20)https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1251/2004-1251.pdf(21)https://demonocracy.info/infographics/world/silver/silver.html(22)https://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/zurbuchen052006.html(23)https://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/silver.pdf(24)https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silver/myb1-2011-silve...