$10 million in Silver Bars strewn across the Interstate
January 7th, 2013
I’m sure we’ve all fantasized about an ATM glitch that sends $20 bills spilling out into the street. Panic ensues as people scramble for fist fulls of green paper, trampling one another. Remember the first Batman movie, when Joker (played by Jack Nicholson) dumped money on Gotham City? It’s utter chaos. But what if it was real money, like silver?
For starters silver doesn’t flutter about in the air as long as paper. It crashes to the ground with that signature *ting* every good silver bug has learned to recognize. It’s also pretty hard to grab fist fulls of silver. Coins maybe, but not bars.
An armored trucked headed from Rochester to Queens, NY did just that. It crashed along Interstate 81 and spilled out its cargo of $10 million in silver bars.
It happened Monday last week at 7:30 in the morning in the town of Barker (no relation). The driver reportedly fell asleep at the wheel, and the truck slid down an embankment off the Interstate. Of the three people in the truck one was injured, possibly with a broken leg.
Amazingly the truck busted open, littering the side of the Interstate with silver bars. I say “Amazingly” because I thought those armored bank trucks were made of sterner stuff, but carrying that much weight, I guess it’s more likely the silver broke out than the crash broke in. I bet a truck carrying $10 million in paper would have been just fine.
Based on the photos those looks like 1000 oz bricks to me. At current silver spot around $30 that’s about 312 bricks, each weighing about 70 pounds. That’s about 11 tons of silver, rough estimate. To give you some perspective, that’s two average adult male elephants. You try getting an elephant to go from 60 to zero in 1 second and see if he doesn’t smash through whatever tin can you put him in.
It’s a pretty good metaphor. If you think of the controlled economy as an armored truck, when this thing crashes paper money crashes with it, but silver breaks free. It has economic momentum.
Still, a 70 pound brick is a hard thing for a greedy mob to run away with. If it had been $100 bills strewn across the Interstate you can bet some of the loot would have found it’s way into the grasping fingers of the cops who helped clean it up, but it’s hard to hide a silver brick under your coat.
I’ll bet they recovered every bar. Just another way silver is a superior store of wealth.
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