Reno, Nev. (COLO) – It’s surprisingly quiet here in northern Nevada Coin.
There is a queue around the counters as customers are probably waiting to sell their silver and gold.
As it says on the sign outside, Northern Nevada Coin buys gold and silver. Gold is more than $5,000 per ounce. Silver is more than $ 114.00 per ounce.
That’s music to the ears of Northern Nevadans here in the Silver State.
“It’s Nevada,” says Reno resident Bill Gardner. “This is the Carson City Mint. This is a Virginia city. There’s a lot of silver around. Flat wear, plate wear, silver dollars. There’s a lot of that stuff floating around.”
The Northern Nevada coin owner says the lines start during the day and end around noon.
But the traffic remains constant. Clerks weigh coins, jewelry, or other items that contain gold or silver. That weight will tell you how much money is owed to the customer.
A man told me that he sold the gold he had bought years ago. He says that the wait was rewarded.
Financial experts say that due to uncertainty and slow economic growth in the US, people are either buying or selling these precious metals.
Some are expecting the price to keep rising – others are cashing out, not wanting to miss out on the maximum amount they can get for their goods.
“So many people have been waiting for it to get out there, now is the time to cash in,” says Alan Rowe, president of Northern Nevada Coin.
But Rowe says there are downsides to all this.
The unprecedented means that precious metals refiners cannot keep up with the amount of silver coming to them. Instead of a 30-day turnaround for businesses purchasing silver to get paid, it could be three times that.
To add insult to injury, banks may only be willing to lend so much to refiners.
“Think about dry laundry,” says Rowe. “You’ve got a place where water is allowed to flow. But usually the water doesn’t flow there. All of a sudden, we’re here in torrential rain. Everyone is here at the same time. It’s flooded. And if you hit a choke point, a bridge or something else – something’s got to give.”
Rowe says there are coin businesses that have stopped taking gold and silver because they can’t wait for customers to pay for their initial layoffs.
And he says there’s no way to tell if this is the beginning, the middle or the end of skyrocketing gold and silver prices.
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