Silver Prices

With silver prices heading upward, I thought I would take a look at the history of silver pricing. How much has it really fluctuated?

The price of silver is driven by speculation and supply and demand, like most commodities. It is affected by currency fluctuations, inflation fears, and geopolitical risks. Silver prices can be extremely volatile. For instance, in January 1980 the price of silver was $49.45 per troy ounce (ozt) but by March of that same year, it had dropped to $11 ozt.

More recently, the average annual price between 2010 and 2015 for one ozt has varied like this:
2010 - 20.19
2011 - 35.12
2012 - 31.15
2013 - 23.79
2014 - 19.64
2015 - 15.68

So it’s difficult for silver artists to predict the cost of their supplies, especially since most of us are not economists. So what do we do?

Of course, we try to stock up when prices are low. At the beginning of this year, silver was about $14.50 ozt. As of today, it is $16.95 ozt. That may not seem like a big difference, but when I am producing jewelry I sometimes use an ounce or more per day. It adds up.

Another thing we do is save all of our scrap silver, such as the little pieces left when cutting out a shape. Some people melt and reuse it, others sell it to a refiner for cash. I sell it back to my supplier and use the money to buy more silver. I just recently sent in some scrap silver and received over $300 for it.

What are some ways that you try to save money in your hobby? Tell me in the comments.

Cat
www.ckmetaldesigns.com

School Review

I didn't keep up with posting from school like I meant to. As it turns out, I was disappointed with my school experience.

The jewelry fabrication semester didn't teach me anything that I didn't already know. I was looking forward to learning new skills, and that didn't happen.

Then came stone setting. All of the stone setting was done in cast rings. There was no instruction in how to hand-fabricate my own settings. So that was disappointing too.

All in all, I felt it was a waste of a lot of money.  I think I may give the William Holland school a try when I have saved up some more money.

Cat