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It’s time for my annual slagging off of silver.

Why now?

Because, according to one of my WhatsApp chats, it’s breaking out.

Silver is always breaking out. It never actually does.

Was ever there a metal with as much potential as silver? Probably not.

Was ever there a metal you could so wholly depend on to let you down?

If there is, I’m not aware of it (though these past 15 years, platinum has been running it close).

But maybe, just maybe this time is different.

Really?

Let’s start with a bit of gossip from the front line.

I have three mates who are CEOs of silver mining companies, as you do. All three of them, based in Latin America, have reported back with the same story.

Typically, a miner would pay a company — usually a refiner — to take ore off their hands, treat and smelt it, so it can be sold. So-called off-take agreements would usually amount to $120–180 per tonne of ore. But, at the moment, refiners aren’t charging anything. Somebody is subsidising it all.

Could it be that humongous, commodity-guzzling nation that begins with a C, I wonder?

It wants silver for all those solar panels Ed Miliband is buying.

The way things are behaving and moving at the moment, it’s starting to feel like we are moving into a proper commodities bull market. Maybe 2021–22 was just the appetizer.

Stop! Don’t get excited. It’s silver we’re talking about here.

The case for silver runs roughly as follows:

We are in an age of currency debasement, therefore you want to own hard assets. In such an inflationary environment, the monetary metals — gold and silver — perform best. Silver has been money since forever. It is natural money etc etc.

Let’s just address that before we move on.

Gold is still used as money in the store-of-value sense of the word. National banks keep it. Institutions keep it. Individuals keep it. Gold’s role was always more store of value than medium of exchange. Historically, we used silver, copper and nickel for all but high-value transactions.

Silver was not used as a store of value to the extent gold was. Its function was more, as I say, as a medium of exchange. That role has long gone. The gold rushes of the 19th century did for silver.

Long story — it’s in my book, which comes out in August — but to cut it short, the vast increase in gold supply enabled nations to abandon silver. In the case of the US, it was the Co