Word: silver
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...past two years the price has been high enough to permit the U.S. to begin to unload its huge supply. Last year the U.S. was able to sell off nearly 20 million oz., had to buy only 1,000,000 oz., since U.S. silver producers were able to get a higher price in the free market...
...London, on the world's biggest free silver market, the price of futures in silver last week rose to 92⅞? per oz. This was a mere quarter of a cent over the current price, but it represented the biggest futures spread in 19 years. The fraction was small, but in the tight silver trade it was a lot. It was also a warning signal, as London silver brokers Mocatta & Goldsmid Ltd. put it with characteristic British understatement, that "those, who take a longer view are inclined to foresee a deficiency of silver." Consumption of silver in industry...
Unlike gold, whose recent London price spurt bedeviled the U.S., a rise in the price of silver would be good news to the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury's vaults have had an unwanted silver lining ever since the Silver Bloc of Western Congressmen pushed through the Silver Purchase Act in 1934. That Depression-inspired law requires the Treasury to buy silver at an official price whenever U.S. silver producers want to sell, until its holdings equal 25% of the federal monetary reserves. The official price was set above the free market price and has since been raised twice...
...Silver Hoard. With this guaranteed subsidy, U.S. silver producers overproduced, and the Treasury was forced to spend hundreds of millions collecting silver. By 1943 the U.S. had a gigantic silver hoard of over a billion ounces. It had so little use for it that during the war the Treasury lent some to private industry for such mundane purposes as electric-conducting bus bars in aluminum plants...
Despite these high prices, many low-yield U.S. silver mines proved unprofitable and shut down. Today about three-quarters of all silver mined in the U.S. is a byproduct of lead, zinc or copper mining. In the past decade the world's consumption of silver has oustripped production, although the supply is increased by melting down and reusing the metal...