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Adam Sharp: 'Trading sardines' and paper silver
By Adam Sharp
Daily Reckoning, Baltimore
Friday, December 12, 2025
There is an old trading story about sardines, and it's surprisingly relevant to silver today.
During the gold rush in the late 1800s miners were striking it rich in remote parts of Alaska.
But supplies were scarce and expensive. Eventually a large market for basic goods developed, and some suppliers spent more time trading food for profit rather than selling it for consumption.
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Sardines were in high demand, and the price of a can supposedly soared 10x at one point. A micro-bubble developed. It got so bad that people were mostly trading the tinned fish rather than eating it.
One day a hungry miner paid through the nose for one of these cans. He opened it and was surprised to find horribly rotten fish. He stormed over to the traders' shop and demanded to know what was going on.
The trader told him, "You fool! Those are trading sardines, not eating sardines."
Today there is a dynamic in silver markets somewhat similar to the old sardine story. Paper silver contracts like those traded on the Comex exchange outnumber physical silver by perhaps 200 times. ...
... For the remainder of the commentary:
https://dailyreckoning.com/trading-sardines-and-paper-silver/
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