WHAT HAPPENED TO SILVER PRICES?

I just checked and today, April 19, 2012, the price of an ounce of silver is $31.90. In the past couple of years, silver prices have habitually been above $30. an ounce, but historically this is pretty high.  I started working with silver as a student in 1972, when the price hovered around $4. an ounce.  In between 1792 and 1972, the price of silver didn't change all that much. Then in 1978 or 79 the Hunt Brothers started speculating in gold and silver and the price jumped to over $25. an ounce. I was in graduate school at that time and wanted to make a silver object to enter in a competition and maybe win some prize money.  Since I was broke, I decided to carve up a bunch of spoons my grandmother had given me. I flattened them, cut out some shapes and reassembled them into a patchwork cup. The cup did make it into the competition and I did win a little money for me and my school, the University of Georgia.

After a while, silver prices calmed down again and it became the default metal in my studio. Recently the speculators have taken over the market again and now every time we start a project in the shop, I feel dizzy when I calculate the cost of making it in silver. Just to show you, I borrowed this graph showing the change in silver prices between 1994 and today.  It's great if you are selling scrap, but discouraging if you are a young jewelry maker in school or just starting out. NW
 P.S. My professor in graduate school, Gary Noffke, pointed out my math was wrong in my previous blog on the age of the golden helmet stolen from the Bagdad Museum. It is 4700 years old!