They don't contain the publisher name, but ISBNs are usually purchased in blocks of 10 or 100 or 1000 or whatever by a single entity, which is often a single publisher or corporation.
However, within the block publishers can assign ISBNs to different imprints.
For ISBNs from the big 5, the number really does indicate the publisher. I think the 5th digit (second after 978) can indicate at least some of the big publishers. Smaller ranges are available for purchase from the brokers. In Canada, the national library will even issue you one for free, if you self-publish.
The ISBN always indicates the country it's from, the United States getting the biggest block, other European nations and Japan getting their own, with Africa, the Middle East, and so forth all getting a block in common.
ISBN prefixes does not always indicate a country. They may be are indeed countries, but others are language areas (e.g. 0/1=English) or "regions" (groups of countries) or even other subjects.
My view of Amazon's decline comes from being a "partner" in their seller and publisher ecosystems for years.
The seller platforms in particular (Brand Registry, Vendor Central, Seller Central, Transparency, etc.) have crippling levels of technical debt. The situation has only gotten worse with Jassy's reckless directive for the entire organization to push into Generative AI (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ceo-and...). So much basic stuff is just breaking down, and seller support is overwhelmed or unable to intervene to fix the mess.
You can see a small sample here involving problems with product attributes (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions?s...). Google "Amazon AWD delays" or "Amazon CSBA problems" or "Amazon remote fulfillment problems" to see examples of programs that are unable to provide even basic levels of the services promised to sellers.
Meanwhile, Amazon has been so greedy with fees since Jassy took over that sellers of all sizes and many small to midsized brands are being squeezed out of existence or driven off Amazon. Its PPC ad platform is completely predatory, loaded with dark patterns and hidden defaults that add billions to top-line revenue while strip-mining the accounts of sellers who often have no choice but to participate in the auctions.
It's clear that Amazon is running scared when it comes to dealing with new competition, including the Chinese shopping sites and the looming prospect of agentic AI and other new AI-powered shopping tools eating its lunch. For the first time ever last month, I saw an Amazon search results (via Rufus) that actually directed shoppers to third-party brand sites. This would have been heresy 5 years ago.
Amazon turned me off selling completely. I was subjected to an obvious fraudulent buyer on a high value item ($5k) and they did everything in their power to make it as painful as possible for me to fight:
- An A-Z claim from the buyer was denied by Amazon for fraud (supposed non-delivery of the item), yet their returns department auto-approved a return for the same order just 12 days later.
- The customer returned a completely different item with documented serial number/weight discrepancies and seller-provided video evidence, yet I was left with no recourse.
- The customer then filed a fraudulent credit card chargeback. I won the first round, but Amazon refuses to participate in second-round disputes - so despite overwhelming evidence of five separate fraud attempts, they sent a generic email and docked $5k from my seller account.
- Amazon then refused to answer any further communications, including basic disclosure of which card issuer was involved or what evidence was submitted - making any independent appeal impossible.
- Every dispute stage (A-Z, returns, chargebacks) required rebuilding the fraud case from scratch. Zero continuity, and zero care for an independent seller with a strong track record of sales and feedback.
Blaming AI for Amazon’s accelerating downturn is a cop-out. This has been going on long before genAI was allowed there. Even now many teams within the products you called out aren’t using it at all.
> Its PPC ad platform is completely predatory, loaded with dark patterns and hidden defaults that add billions to top-line revenue while strip-mining the accounts of sellers who often have no choice but to participate in the auctions.
At least they mark ads as 'sponsored', even though it isn't super prominent.
I always scroll until I see organic results, myself.
They mark some of them. Not all of them. Last article I read said 80% of placements on the search results page are paid ads. And they only mark like 4-5 of them as "sponsored"
If you want to experiment with reported news using untested tools that have known quality problems, do it in a strictly controlled environment where the output can be carefully vetted. Senior editor(s) need to be in the loop. Start with something easier, not controversial or high-profile articles.
One other thing. If the author cut corners because he's too sick to write, but did so anyway because he thought his job would be in jeopardy if he didn't publish, maybe it's time for some self-reflection at Ars regarding the work culture and sick leave/time-off policies.
> One other thing. If the author cut corners because he's too sick to write, but did so anyway because he thought his job would be in jeopardy if he didn't publish, maybe it's time for some self-reflection at Ars regarding the work culture and sick leave/time-off policies.
It sounds like you're implying that's what happened here, but I don't see any of that in the article. Was additional info shared elsewhere?
Edit: oh, I see links to the article author's social media saying this. Nevermind my question, and I agree.
looking at the statement, I find it weird that Benj Edwards is trying very hard to remove the blame from Kyle Orland, Even if he is not directly responsible.
Not weird. Kyle will take a massive career hit, as a result of this.
I’d say that some of the onus is on Kyle, anyway, as he should vet anything he slaps his name on (I do), but it sounds like he really didn’t have anything to do with it.
Despite the aspersions against the company for their sick time policy (which might actually be valid), the other corporate pressure might be to force their employees to incorporate AI tools into their work. That’s become quite common, these days.
He is taking responsibility because it is by his omission his mistake. That is what grown ups do. He probably feels an immense sense of guilt, even if it was an honest mistake.
Not sure how widespread an occurrence in the industry at large, but in two slowly dying publications I'm familiar with, the editors were the first to be let go.
Quality took a nosedive, which may or may not have quickened the death spiral.
All that to say, there may not even be senior editors around to put in the loop.
The good news is that there are 3 senior editors (though none tasked with AI specifically), the bad news is that one of them was the coauthor. Their staff page does list two copy editors (variously labeled "copy editor" and "copyeditor" which is unfortunate) but no one assigned to fact checking specifically.
I think this is entirely plausible lapse for someone with a bad fever, especially if they routinely work from home and are primarily communicating over text-based channels. Personally I'm much more inclined to blame the organization, as it sounds like they knowingly accepted work from someone who was potentially going to be in an altered mental state.
Those are exactly the types of jobs that have been disappearing for years (not because of AI, but because of Internet). Same with editors. I regularly see embarrassing typos in major publications.
It is a very visible indicator of the quality of the whole. If the spelling is frequently not correct, which a reader can detect relatively easily, how many more mistakes are hidden in the content, which a reader can not detect easily? Are these completely independent variables? I do not think so. Therefore, I also assess the reliability of an article based on the frequency of careless mistakes.
What is an even larger warning sign, are cliches used to spice up an article. Ars Technica is hardly to blame here, but the Smithsonian magazine is full of it.
My mother[0] was a scientific editor, and she was brutal. She was a stickler for proper English, as well as content accuracy.
She once edited a book I wrote. It was humbling as hell, but it may be the only "perfect" thing that I've ever done (but it did not age well, and has since gone the way of the Dodo).
> strictly controlled environment where the output can be carefully vetted
I don't know journalism from the inside, though of course it's one of those professions that everyone things they understand and has an opinion about. Realistically, is it especially careful vetting to verify the quotes and check the factual statements? The quotes seem like especially obvious risks - no matter how sick, who would let an LLM write anything without verifying quotes?
That seems like not verifying currency figures in an estimate or quote, and especially in one written by an LLM - I just can't imagine it. I'd be better off estimating the figures myself or removing them.
I can't help but think this is a reflection of the unwillingness of most people to actually pay for journalism online — and worse, the active and intentional effort to subvert copyright, making it more difficult for journlists to actually earn a living from their work.
People don't value journalism. They expect it to be free, generally. Therefore, companies like Ars are put into a position of expecting too much from their journalists.
HN is rife with people with this attitude -- frequently linking to "archive" sites for otherwise paywalled articles, complaining when companies try to build email lists, charge for their work, or have advertising on their sites. The underlying message, of course, is that journalism shouldn't be paid for.
Yes, Ars is at fault if they have a bad company culture. However, the broader culture is a real factor here as well.
I have a copy of Greens printed in the 1990s. It's very extensive and frankly seems like a hopeless exercise to gather them considering how fast language evolves, as well as hyperlocal terms.
Culture as language, culture as dress. Burberry was a ww1 trench coat, the hunting shooting fishing set and then descended to be ambitious working class Essex Chav. Same with slang, polari was gay slang, BBC radio artful in-joke, normalised, now obscure.
Old is new is old. Kids hate nothing more than grandma throwing gang signs they learned from their elders not knowing the elder in question learned it from grandma first.
People probably get phd in the second order differential of slang rate of change.
The breakthrough realization for me was that all businesses are fundamentally similar. They have the same knobs just configured differently. The knobs are things like product, sales channels, marketing, PR, and brand. A jeweler might have high material costs (gold and diamonds), an artist moderate material costs (paint and canvas), and a greeting card company low material costs (paper), but they all have "material costs". These knobs are what you see through the business lens, and when approached this way it is clear that there is nothing magical about being an artist — it is simply a different configuration of those knobs.
Hard, hard disagree.
Art and art-adjacent fields (storytelling in print and film, music, videogame design, etc.) are working with intangibles. The best artists wield qualities such as technique, perspective, charisma, zeitgeist and so on.
They build their creations in ways that they can't truly explain, and the resulting "product" generates emotions in their audiences - pleasure, sorrow, joy, energy, nostalgia, melancholy - and bonds that are so strong that they can't help but be drawn to the works.
Another way of looking at this dynamic: No one needs to listen to a favorite song, or visit an art museum, read a book by a talented author, or replay a beloved game in the same way that they may purchase a light bulb or sign up for a SaaS subscription. Yet TFA is treating art as merely another type of manufactured product.
Businesses have tried to harness art for millennia. Sometimes the businesses succeed. But where they often fail is assuming that art is a fungible commodity that can be created through an algorithm or assembly line, with the creative flame locked down and bent completely to the will of a business executive or technical product manager.
Such efforts from the likes of game studios or a record company or AI are derivative by nature and rarely inspiring. The exceptions are those built by creators whose intangibles still manage to shine through, despite the harnesses placed upon them.
I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who has worked in book publishing, news media, and pop music over many years (including a stint working for The KLF's record label, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932055)
It doesn't sound like you're refuting the central claim. Artists still have to be concerned about marketing, sales (i.e. I made great art, but now need to find someone to buy it if I want to eat), revenue, profit (i.e. I made money, but if I spent more than I made on materials then I didn't actually make money), and so on. It's a business.
What you're highlighting is that art's value proposition is different from the value proposition of typical businesses. But not that artists are somehow free from having to worry about basic economics.
It's not a business. Selling art is a business. Making art isn't a business.
Many artists would rather blow up their careers than make work solely for business reasons.
There's a huge cadre of content creators and entertainers who are happy to do that, but - as the previous post says - their work is typically entirely forgettable. Even when it's commercially successful.
And successful original creators usually have business managers to deal with "basic economics."
The ideal for most artists is complete creative freedom and an open budget. Not many get there, and not everyone who does get there produces something memorable. But it happens occasionally, and it's usually far more interesting than create-to-market content.
> It's not a business. Selling art is a business. Making art isn't a business. Many artists would rather blow up their careers than make work solely for business reasons.
Again, you're arguing a distinction which the author agrees with. From the article:
> Most people who enjoy making art should not try to make it their full time job. When you turn an avocation (hobby) into a vocation (job) you have to do new things you do not enjoy.
I think perhaps you're getting hung up on some semantic quibble rather than focusing on the broader point. "Artist", "professional artist", "artist for a living", "someone who spends most of their hours making art but also needs to eat". Choose whichever term satisfies your complaint. These people need money to live, that's just how the world works.
> He recognized how she transcended genre and belongs alongside (or perhaps, above) writers of highbrow literary fiction.
In the 70s and 80s, Le Guin and other SFF authors were very aware of the literary divide that often regarded most science fiction and fantasy as little better than pulp fiction. Gene Wolfe's essays and speeches in Castle of Days touch on this several times.
What changed was the arrival of a new generation of literary critics, researchers, and readers who knew greatness in some of the SFF works of the era.
I encountered such discussions living overseas. For people who come from traditions from outside the Christian world, few know the differences between the various branches or the complex history or rites or terminology, and tend to lump them all in together regardless of the identity or faith of the person they’re speaking with. This is also true of outsiders regarding Islam, Buddhism, or other religions with long and splintered histories.
TBH it’s hard for many people who were raised in a specific Christian faith to concisely explain many of the differences themselves … I would struggle when asked “what’s the difference between Catholicism and Christianity“ or “Catholics and Baptists” back then.
> The Times is thriving because they've pivoted from being a newspaper to being a media business. The games vertical is the first thing people talk about, but cooking is arguably a better example. The verticals have dedicated users, their own go-to-markets, their own user retention loops.
NYT is taking a smart approach to other verticals, such as The Athletic and some of their podcasts (for tech, Hard Fork). I am hoping they can figure out business coverage eventually.
What surprises me is how almost no other "hard news" brand in the English-speaking world has attempted to follow even a lite version of the NYT approach. It's not like Bezos or the other billionaire owners of legacy media (Murdoch, Soon-Shiong, Henry, etc) didn't have the chops or the deep pockets to invest in a recipe database or a simple gaming portal. Even AARP figured out that simple games are a good way to engage with its users (https://www.aarp.org/games/).
Coincidentally, late this morning I went to one of those traveling roadshows where they purchase precious metals, bringing along a childhood coin collection that I wanted to turn into cash.
I started with a single 1 ounce silver medallion and was given a quote for $80. When I had checked the silver price earlier this morning it was above $115.
I questioned the buyer about the spread and he said the spot price was down, and the smelters were backed up so that was their best offer.
I brought out some other silver coins, specifically liberty head and Morgan dollars. He looked at the app on his phone and said “hold on I gave you the wrong price,” and then said “I’ll give you $35 for each of them,” including the pure 1 oz silver medallion.
I said no thank you and left, miffed, thinking he was jerking me around.
I didn’t realize the price of silver was collapsing.
Chances are, he was indeed jerking you around. Nearly every one of these traveling road show style buyers pay very very very very little for coins. They have no reputation to uphold and are the literal definition of “fly by night” - and by the time you realize how little they paid you, they’re gone.
Source: Am full-time professional coin dealer (who is NOT fly by night!) and have to deal with the repercussions of people getting hosed by these roadshows all the time :(
A very excellent question and totally reasonable thing not to know (congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000!)
I'm speaking from the perspective of US coins because that's what I specialize in but this generally applies to coins all over the world as well:
Prior to (and including) 1964, US 10c, 25c, 50c, (and when they were made, $1) coins were made of 90% silver. We made A LOT of these, so in terms of outright rarity, most are not rare. Today they're referred to as "junk silver" because in terms of collectibility, they're junk, but the 90% silver content means there's some inherent precious metal value (as of this moment on Jan 30, 2026, they have ~approximately~ 60x their face value in silver content, eg $6, $15, $30, and $60 in silver respectively.)
So that's their basal value that fluctuates with the silver market. But the next layer is actual rarity / collectibility -- if a given coin is desirable enough that it surpasses its metal content, you get a different set of values.
Now to your actual question: Do they get smelted/melted down? The answer is...sometimes. They trade somewhat like financial instruments, based on the assumption that you could melt them down (and there's a cost to doing so), so that's how people value the various silver coins. In reality, there's usually enough demand from people who want to hold physical silver in various forms that they don't actually need to be melted down.
There's obviously a lot more to it, but that's the 5c version ;)
Is that more or less than the spot price? I would have assumed that they trade higher, though maybe the non collectibles trade are only a little bit higher.
My experience, I sometimes buy gold coins to make jewelry. I do that because at least here in Belgium, there's no VAT on coins but there is VAT on the other forms of gold that are more commonly used for that. For professionals it's not a problem because they pass VAT but for an individual it's a 20% difference. Also I'm in Antwerp so it's really easy to just bike to a place that sells gold if I want to.
In my case I buy old French 20 francs coins as they are quite "cheap": 1% above spot price of their gold content (they are 90% gold).
Other more recent coins, like Chinese or Canadian ones, sell at a much higher premium (17%, 20%) so I always wonder a bit who they are for. It's unlikely they can be resold for that much of a premium. At least the shops I use just buy them for their price in gold.
Could you talk more about the "recent Chinese coins"? China hasn't had any fiat money containing gold or silver for at least 100 years. So I'm curious what exactly these Chinese coins are.
I don't know the details because I don't really care about gold as an investment, but everything I find says variations of "the 3g Gold Pandas have a face value of 50 Yuan and are legal tender in China.". It would be subject to VAT in Belgium anyway if it was not considered to have legal tender.
And that's the smallest one, I seriously doubt many people buy a 4000 € (30g) coin as a tourist gift.
It is definitely not legal tender. As a Chinese, I've only ever seen such things in tourist souvenir shops for foreigners. If your argument is that a €4000 souvenir is questionable, please allow me to remind you that a €4000 currency coin makes no more sense. If your source is this webpage: https://www.kjc-gold-silver-bullion.com.au/PD/30-g-2023-chin..., I can be almost certain it's a scam because its description is ridiculous.
Bullion coins are typically marked as 'legal tender' (of a nominal value relative to the precious metal content) as doing so exempts them from sales tax in most jurisdictions..... because they are technically "legal tender" (coins) and not bullion.
e.g. British sovereigns are still produced and have a "legal tender" value of £1. Though the gold content of one is currently about £800 last I looked.
> As a Chinese, I've only ever seen such things in tourist souvenir shops for foreigners
Huh, none of these coins are in general use in any country because it would make no sense (their facial value is always largely below their metal value, which is basically constantly appreciating). As a French person I have never seen 20 francs coins in circulation either, and I wouldn't by my baguette with one, but they are still obviously not a "scam", even if their actual value doesn't match their face value. I mean, I should know since I actually buy them, manipulate them, and use them for their gold content.
I think you don't understand how these gold coins work, honestly I don't claim I really understand why central banks produce them either, but they do exist and they seem like a convenient way to invest in real gold (and here comes my initial remark: but why choose the ones that sell for a premium as compared to the ones that sell just for their weight in gold, that I don't understand).
Also a very good question and the answer is also...it depends. The "premium" (delta to spot) on 90% silver (aka "90%") varies with supply and demand. At this very moment with the meteoric rise of base silver, 90% is selling for less than spot. But there have been times when it trades above spot.
The reason is that silver itself is traded on the various international commodity exchanges and those traders are not the same supply & demand sources as the little guy(s) who likes keeping some old silver coins in their garage. So as those supply/demand curves shift, the premium over/under spot price changes as well.
Also I heard that refineries that is companies that take 90% silver or even less in and processes it to something that can be sold on commodity markets that is purer silver are now focusing on well purer silver as that is easier to process. Thus there is less demand on less pure silver. And recycled silver ending with industrial use goes through these companies.
I appreciate you sharing your knowledge! Your layers concept makes sense but I guess I'm just surprised at how large of a layer the market price of precious metals can be—even for "junk silver" coins
So is speeding. There might be some crazy radiation related super science way to determine if a lump of silver came from a specific collection of coins, but once it's melted down, and the impurities driven out, silver is silver and you can't really tell that it came from coins.
HN sometimes is pretty much anal about obeying the government no matter what. Except of course when obeying the government goes against the wishes of our VC Gods.
Collectible coins usually get melted as a last resort, if they stay on the shelf forever. The value of the metal is still in the coin though. Think about it: you could buy a very common coin with the same metal, or a slightly rare one. Which costs more? Now take the rare one and put a huge dent in it. Is it worth less than the metal content then?
The face value of a coin may be driven down, based on the exchange value of the currency itself. A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. This is the dynamic of the Law of Oresme, Copernicus, and Gresham (usually referenced simply as "Gresham's Law").
"The Law of Oresme, Copernicus and Gresham", Thomas Willing Balch
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Jan. - Apr., 1908), pp. 18-29 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793>
More generally, when a product's exchange value differs from its production or use value, paradoxical results occur. Gresham's Law, Lakoff's "Market for Lemons", arguably the Jevons Paradox, the phenomena of wine and audio kit pricing divorced from any defensible consumer capacity at discrimination, and enshittification all seem to fit this with reasonable amounts of shoehorning. Also my own "tragedy of the minimum viable user".
> A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange.
And that means people will buy and sell it for the specie value. The specie value is the value.
Bullion coins like silver can be worth exactly what the metal is worth, or more. Never less than what the metal is worth.
Just because a gold philharmonic coin might be minted with a €100 nominal value, doesn't mean that it is worth that. If you think so, I'll gladly buy all your gold coins for their nominal value.
I believe that you two are not disagreeing in logic, just misunderstanding each others intended meanings.
When you said "a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains", I think you meant "no matter what number is on the coin, its value is always equal to or greater than the value of the metal"; but dredmorbius misinterpreted your comment thinking you meant "the number on the coin must always be a higher value than the metal would be worth if it wasn't shaped like a coin".
AKA when carlosjobin wrote "be worth" you meant "value to sell", but dredmorbius thought you meant "value written on it".
I might be wrong, maybe it's me misunderstanding one or both of you - in which case please correct me - but I'm fairly sure you're both correctly thinking the same thing while incorrectly thinking the other person isn't.
"Value" one of those horribly conflated terms of economics. For starters there are the relatively well-known conflicts between production cost value, use value, and exchange (market) value. The discussion here adds another element: the distinction of notional currency value vs. commodity value of underlying specie or substrate.
The absolute nature of carlosjobim's claim makes it fairly trivially falsifiable, however. Since nominal value is a value, if the face value of a coin is lower than its specie value, its use as currency meets his absurdity condition, "Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains...", but that remains its legal tender face value. As money, that is, an exchange token socially recognised as having a universal value, the coin is exchanged below its commodity value.
As a commodity, that is, metal (or other material) specie, the same item may have a different and higher value, but in this case it's not one which is universally accepted within a given market, but rather is dependent on the specific local market supply and demand of that specie. The coin-as-commodity is also subject to differential valuation based on characteristics --- assayed purity, weight, etc. --- which must be assessed on an individual basis for each coin.
In practice, where specie coin was used it virtually always traded at a premium above the commodity value, known by the term seiniorage, which I interpret as the trust value imbued by the currency issuer. My (unorthodox) view is that seigniorage exists in all monies, and is efectively the total basis for value of fiat systems such as paper or credit-based financial systems. The value of such currencies is a market vote on the trust in the issuing entity (and/or the lack of viable or accessible alternatives).
But again, coin-as-money has a value equal to its notional face value. That the face value may differ from its commodity value can of course occur. My argument is that this makes the exchange one of commodity trade rather than financial trade, and that ascribing commodity value to coin or face value is a misdirection.
Some years back looking into what money is, I realised that the names for virtually all currencies can be traced to either weight (pound, peso, dinar, penny, shekel, kopek, livre, baht, etc.) or division (dime, quarter, cent); or quality (dollar, crown, royal, franc, renminbi), sometimes appears as a signifier of value, e.g., the florin, yuan, or yen. I'd classify toponymic names (e.g., afghani) as referencing quality. There are the odd exception, notably Bolivar, the Venezuelan currency named for Simón Bolívar, though that's arguably a quality signifier.
Nominal value is in name only, IMO.
Which makes it not the value. I can sign my name on a piece of paper and say it's for sale for $5million (nominal value, right?) but it's value is nowhere near $5million, and noone will accidentally purchase it for $5million because they truly thought it was worth that.
nominal: existing or being something in name or form only (Merriam-Webster)
Nominal value of legal tender is in fact legally defensible.
Mind that the problem is actually the inverse of what you describe. It's not that the nominal value is greater than the intrinsic specie value which causes problems with coinage, it's where the monetary value is less than the commodity value of specie, in which case "bad money drives out good". I've already discussed that in detail.
One point worth making explicit is that the receiver of such an under-priced coin would be more than happy to receive it, it's the spender who has to weigh the loss in commodity value against the nominal transactional value, should their counterparty only agree to acknowledge the latter. This brings up the further point that in an exchange, transaction price (whether nominal or commodity) depends on the alternatives available to the parties. A spender without alternatives on price or obtaining desired goods/services might well spend a higher-commodity-valued coin at its nominal value. Should they be aware of that difference, they might well not be happy about the fact, but they'd be forced into the trade by circumstance.
They're incredibly sleazy scumbags. They buy silver coins at bullion-value or below, which is the lowest grade you can get for a coin, making a small profit on everything they buy and massive profits on the ones that are actually worth something as coins rather than bullion. And it's typically elderly people they rip off, who are thrilled to get the price of a cup of coffee for their 1884S Morgan dollar. Never, ever deal with these predators.
> I didn’t realize the price of silver was collapsing.
Wait. It "collapsed" to the price it was on the 9th of january 2026. Which back then was it's all-time high.
FWIW I hold SLV (a BlackRock/iShares ETF on silver, the biggest and most liquid silver ETF in the world) since $26. I noticed the recent craze. So I bought PUTs when it was at $102, protecting me at a strike of $96. These PUTs were pricey but, so far, worth it. But here comes the kicker: I'm financing those PUTs by selling CALLs on SLV (that simple options strategy is called a "collar").
And as I'm a silverbug, I own silver coins too. But these aren't liquid as you noticed.
When you trade paper silver (like the ETF SLV), the price of the market is the price of the market. SLV is not 100% following an ounce of silver's price, but SLV's market price is SLV's market price. It was $105 at close yesterday and $75 at close today and that's just the price of SLV.
I do like that: not getting ripped off by some side-of-the-road hustler.
That dude giving you $80 then giving you $35 is taking a more than 50% cut compared to the nearest low of day. That's quite a rip off.
There's a lot going on here and it's not just the price going up and then going down (see my other comments). Basically, the entirely silver market is dysfunctional at the moment. And it's all about bailing out banks who are getting wiped out by the silver rally.
So when you sell silver at a pawn shop or to a retail dealer, here's what happens in a normal market. You get an instant price, 5-10% off spot hopefully. That dealer then takes that silver and sells it to a refiner in higher volume with a lower margin (to spot). That's their profit. Refiners will convert that silver into bars and sell it to wholesalers and institutional buyers.
But instead what's happening is the refiner needs to hold onto the silver for 7-14 days before it gets smelted and processed. With high volatility, they're not paying out the dealers until it's processed and sold. That's a huge cash flow problem. Instead of instant money, it's money in 2 weeks and you have no idea how much money.
So the retail dealer has to wait and it could be 20% lower or 20% higher in the current market so instead of 5-10% they eitehr have to offer 30%+ less than spot price if they buy it at all. That money tied up has an opportunity cost.
Combine this with a shortage of physical silver to deliver on futures contracts and the refiners aren't really getting the silver they need to satisfy that demand.
So the spot price is fake. Nobody's buying anyway. Low wholesale supply means the prices continue to go up. Banks are haemorrhaging money because they have huge short positions. They have to borrow silver to meet their obligations and the silver lease rate (the price to borrow silver for a money has like 10x'ed) and this is where we are.
Sir banks (at least the sane ones, like JPM) are both long and short on behalf of their clients and simply because they’re dealers and prime brokers all the time and just settle physical, which they also own (because they’re sane).
The banks are not getting wiped out by the silver rally. JP Morgan has not been engaged in shorting the silver markets for years. This is a baseless conspiracy theory, and JPM has also been accused of shorting BTC as well.
The entire narrative is made up and this is really just supply vs demand in terms of silver contracts and shares. I have been actively trading silver since last year and made over $100k and in precious metals (mostly gold) for 30+ years since I first graduated from college so I'm not just an idle spectator.
JP Morgan turned out to have acted as the intermediary for 5-6 major bank clients of it to short the market. They did again what they were fined for and their traders were jailed for years ago.
No, it's a low-effort mix of facts, irrelevancies, misunderstandings, and BS conspiracy theory. Don't believe 90% of the financial information you see on HN.
When the price moves violently up or down, dealers get scared. They need to keep it for an unspecified amount of time to get paid. Maybe the guy was jerking you around, or maybe he was short on cash. $35 for an oz is a terrible price when spot is $90 or something. It hit $120 during this past week and only crashed today, back to the record high from like 2 weeks ago.
He does have to turn a profit on what he's buying. You want spot price? Oddly enough, in California and maybe other states, a pawn shop will give you spot price.
Why California? Most pawn shops suck (see Pawn Stars where they offer like 1/3 of the value on most stuff), but you might find a few pawn shops that want to deal with metals and coins. The best thing to do is to shop around a bit when trying to sell anything.
Pawn Stars is semi-scripted entertainment, not necessarily representative of how real pawn shops operate. The actual prices were were negotiated before the episode was recorded.
But of course there will be a large bid / ask spread on collectibles and small quantities of precious metals. Dealers have to make a profit. Anyone who doesn't like the price is free to sell on eBay or at a local coin show or something.
Pawn shops can sell to large online dealers almost instantly in normal times. They can also sell on eBay easier than you can, as an established business. You can do those things too but maybe you don't want to deal with shipping and other hassles. I've heard really atrocious numbers (second hand) from pawn shops. To give you an idea, one guy went to a pawn shop and basically got offered $35 per oz on silver rounds when it was at $65. The coin shop offered him more like $55 if I remember right. This was in December, well before any big buyers stopped taking it or locking in prices. Even at $65 it looked high, because it was a record high, but tell your friend try to buy it immediately after you and it will be significantly over spot!
PS: eBay charges 14% or something. I also know very well that Pawn Stars is scripted, but the business side is true to life.
I'll never forget when silver went down to $11/oz. I immediately went to my local metals dealer to make a purchase. I watched the two owners through the glass windows carrying a huge tote to the back room.
When they opened the door, they said "so many people came in and bought everything", both sweating and breathing heavy. Lied right to my face. They left out like five generic 1oz silver bars and a small gold coin.
And again, when the price was high, they don't want to pay anywhere near the spot price.
I learned this: silver/gold is definitely not something you buy to "flip", at least in the short term. It's something you buy and hold for as long as you live, if possible, perhaps passing it down to your kids.
However, within the block publishers can assign ISBNs to different imprints.
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