A DILEMMA IN SILVER

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1936, Page 5

A DILEMMA IN SILVER

In a half square mile of the City of London, America stopped buying silver one afternoon recently. The handful of London bullion brokers who deal in it as a commodity received orders during the afternoon from the Far East to sell twenty-one-million ounces. The United States failed to make a bid for the lot. For the first time since 1914—in the early days of the war—the London bullion brokers met at 6 p.m., after their day's work was over, and decided that no price could be fixed. The news hit the great American silver producing States just before lunch time. These states have romantic names with a pleasant lilt . . . Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Utah, and Idaho. The Londoner rushing for his bus at 6 p.m. had no cause to bother much at what the London brokers had done. It does not affect the little fellow here. Big houses buy and sell silver, hardly ever the individual. A speculator needs to buy at least half-a-million ounces of silver to make it worth while.