# Is Silver About to Drop In Value?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 30, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214 "2003-03-30T14:36:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214/1 "2003-03-30T14:36:19Z")

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I just saw a new digital camera, with a high-quality color printer. The pictures that this combo is capable of are truly breathtaking…and this is all done without traditional silver-based film/paper. So, seeing that photography accounts for \>70% of the silver consumption in the USA, willdigital photograpy render silver worthless?  
I remember when the Hunt brothers tried to manipulate the world silver market-the stuff went as high as $32.00/oz/…so should I be shorting silver futures now?😕

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214/2 "2003-03-30T17:26:34Z")

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Can you give a cite for the statistic about 70% of the US consumption being by the photographic industry? And you might consider more a _world_ consumption rather than US.

Shorting any commodity which is as low as silver(in terms of its average price over the last 15 years) would be dangerous.

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214/3 "2003-03-30T19:20:29Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Photography is among the top uses of silver, accounting for nearly 30 percent of world silver demand annually.

[http://www.silverinstitute.org/news/pr0799me.htm](http://www.silverinstitute.org/news/pr0799me.htm)

The problem with shorting silver in the expectation that the price will fall is that the same thought has occurred to everybody else, so the price already takes into account the expectation.

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-silver-about-to-drop-in-value/165214/4 "2003-03-31T15:50:15Z")

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I remember when the price went up cause of those brothers but when it dropped, Kodak didn’t lower their prices, as I thought they would. I was taking a photo class when it happened.

Isn’t silver mostly used for black & white photography, which isn’t influenced by digital cameras?