I went to VBCE (http://www.vbce.ca/rates/precious-metals) this afternoon to get some gold and silver. The VBCE site was down most of the time this morning, hit by huge volume checking for gold & silver prices. When it's back up, they took down the live price table, but it was still sloooowww! When I arrived at VBCE Vancouver downtown office, I was surprised that so many people were waiting in line.
Back in 2009, when silver dropped from 20 to 9, I called VBCE a few days later and was told there's none left. I visited J&M coin store (http://www.bullioncoinsandbars.com/). They could only sell me silver maples at 16 ($7 over spot!).
I won't make the same mistake this time. It appears I'm not alone. A group of three eastern Indian guys were buying a few 5 and 10 OZ gold bars. A young Chinese guy bought 2 gold maples with US dollars. An elderly man bought another 2 gold maples with Canadian dollars.
Then it was my turn, I asked for gold eagle, none available. So I settled for one gold maple at 1460, and a tube of 25 silver maples at 27.5 each ($5 over spot!). I still kept quite a bit of reserve cash just in case it drops lower.
2013 is an interesting year! So much has already happened. H7N9 FLU spreading, North Korea sable rattling, Cyprus bank accounts stealing, gold & silver manipulation. Mayans maybe right on 2012 after all. 2013 could be the beginning of the end.
