Don't know if this is a cue to stock up on film...

cmacd123

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Silver set to soar on Samsung’s solid-state battery breakthrough – analysts

The Kitco News Team brings you the latest news, videos, analysis and opinions regarding Precious Metals, Crypto, Mining, World Markets and Global Economy.
kitco.com

"
(Kitco News) – Gold has had a breakout year as the yellow metal surged to new heights above $2,500 while its grey counterpart, silver, has struggled to keep pace, but that could soon change, according to one analyst, as silver demand is expected to increase thanks to one new technological development from Samsung. "


"
According to retired investment professional Kevin Bambrough, Samsung has developed a new solid-state (SS) battery. The inclusion of silver as a key component, combined with the increasing demand for electric vehicles, means that demand for the grey metal will soon increase. "

"“a typical EV battery pack containing around 200 cells for a 100 kWh capacity could require about 1 kg of silver per vehicle.”"
 

koraks

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You'd have to figure out how strongly the cost of raw silver affects the cost of film (and/or paper). Of course, that's still a different question from how strongly a film manufacturer or reseller thinks they can make you believe how strongly the silver price affects the price of their product.
 

brbo

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News of a battery breakthrough!!!!11!one1one1eleven!!




(I'm patiently awaiting a day when there is no battery breakthrough announced...)
 

BAC1967

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Just what we need, another battery technology that uses precious metals. There are other technologies that are in the pipeline that use very abundant materials, like Graphene-Aluminum.
 

Ivo Stunga

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And when will one of the announced pipedreams be viable and hit the market?

And did the dawn of consumer electronics around 80s rise the price for gold (contact plating and all)? Or made it more abundant/less valuable therefore? Or kept everything the same?

Gold Price History: Highs and Lows

Gold prices have fluctuated over the past century, reaching lows in the 1970s and inflation-adjusted highs in the early ’80s. In recent years, they have been on an uptrend.
www.investopedia.com
 

loccdor

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runswithsizzers said:
Does anyone know how much silver it takes to make a roll of black and white film? I think maybe less now than previously, but no idea about what the amount might be.
Click to expand...

For Tri-X it's 0.37 grams for a 36 exposure 35mm roll, currently costing $0.35 or about 4% of the retail price of the roll.
 

xkaes

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I knew it was very small, but I didn't know the details. THANKS.
 

pentaxuser

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Yes if I recall it correctly, the representative from Harman, Simon Galley, did seem to put a lot of emphasis on the rise in Silver's price shortly after the banking crisis of late 2008/9 in explaining Harman's general price increase

pentaxuser
 

Don_ih

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I'm glad to see the world has finally paid attention to my grade 5 science fair project, when I made a battery out of silver dimes and pennies.
 

MattKing

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It is more likely to have an important effect if a sudden increase in demand makes it harder for small users (such as film and paper manufacturers) to access reliable supplies in a timely manner. Yes an effect on price, but more a problem with disruption.
 

Agulliver

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Briefly putting aside the recent £10m investment Harman has made in new confectioning machinery....

Their accounts show that for years their single biggest expense year on year is purchasing silver. IIRC it's silver nitrate that they buy a large quantity of every year. I also buy silver nitrate in very much smaller quantities (about 25g per year) for my school laboratories. The price has shot up sickening amounts.

It is likely that the % cost per roll of silver content has increased, because the price of silver and it's compounds has skyrocketed. But it's still likely not the most expensive component.
 

GLS

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Agulliver said:
I also buy silver nitrate in very much smaller quantities (about 25g per year) for my school laboratories. The price has shot up sickening amounts.
Click to expand...

Be glad you don't have to work with iridium.
 

pentaxuser

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Agulliver said:
It is likely that the % cost per roll of silver content has increased, because the price of silver and it's compounds has skyrocketed. But it's still likely not the most expensive component.
Click to expand...
What counts in terms of adding to film or paper costs is surely what percentage of total material costs is affected by a silver price rise of X %? So does anyone know, as opposed to inspired guessing, what effect in percentage terms a known rise in the price of silver actually has on film or paper?

pentaxuser
 

Sirius Glass

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Any reason is a good reason to stock up on film, so one might as well use the cost of silver.
 

pentaxuser

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koraks said:
Pretty much the last thing you'll be able to extract from the grip of a dying manager's fingers will be the cost breakdown of their product. So inspired guessing is probably as far as we'll ever get.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree Your statement looks like an a propos variation of that famous Charlton Heston statement about giving you his gun when you pry it from his cold dead hands

Not wishing to start a gun debate but the analogy which may be appropriate in terms of the likelihood of obtaining the info in this case seems a good one

pentaxuser
 

MattKing

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Release of such a cost breakdown would give competitors a huge market advantage.
The cost of silver for a roll of film is still unlikely to came close to the cost of buying the backing paper for a roll of 120, much less the costs of confectioning the roll, and getting it through the distribution chain.
 

pentaxuser

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I accept the above Matt but if an increase in the price of silver is, as I think you imply above, a fairly small element of the total cost of making film or paper then perhaps companies such as Harman would be giving away very little away if it were to say that the price of silver is a relatively small element in the total cost

Maybe Simon threw the price of silver "into the mix" only as an element in his giving us what seemed to him to be an example of the kind of price increases that meant that Harman had to increase its price as it was an easy to grasp example but at least if there was an admission of its real contribution being relatively small it might temper the tendency to give warnings to "stock up" on film due to the increase ín price of silver.

Yes there was the famous "Silver Thursday" of course in 1980 and that lives long in the consciousness and subconsciousness for many years but it's the "upside" of such speculation that survives rather than the demise or downside of the Hunt Brothers failed attempt to control the price of silver


pentaxuser
 
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GLS

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MattKing said:
The cost of silver for a roll of film is still unlikely to came close to the cost of buying the backing paper for a roll of 120, much less the costs of confectioning the roll, and getting it through the distribution chain.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the cost of all the other ingredients (for colour film, numbered in the hundreds) that make up the emulsion.
 

loccdor

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I think with the chemical knowledge of many of the members here, they could come up with an experiment to strip popular films of their silver, separate it, and weigh it. It would be interesting.
 

koraks

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loccdor said:
I think with the chemical knowledge of many of the members here, they could come up with an experiment to strip popular films of their silver, separate it, and weigh it. It would be interesting.
Click to expand...

It's not very difficult to do in a reasonably well-equipped lab. However, what's the point? Silver loads are known within reasonable bandwidths for a variety of materials. There's very little to be gained trying to determine it more exactly for a given film or paper. You might be able to improve your guess w.r.t. the cost buildup of film or paper by a few percent, but you'd still be stuck with bigger uncertainties. Think of the actual average price paid by a manufacturer (e.g. Harman) for their silver nitrate. Note that this depends not only on supply contracts, but also purchase (actually, invoice) moments. Or the actual yield (c.q. waste) in film and paper manufacture.

I can see how it might give a new impetus to long-standing debates about silver loads in e.g. film, but these didn't really go anywhere before and I'm sure calculating more exact silver loads isn't going to make one bit of difference in that regard either.

There's very little relevant information for the likes of us to be gained from this kind of experiment.
 

brbo

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MattKing said:
Release of such a cost breakdown would give competitors a huge market advantage.
Click to expand...

Huge market advantage?!

All of the companies that I was or still am in touch through a company where we help them make sense of their data are MUCH more concerned about figuring out what their OWN actual product cost breakdown is than what their competitors' product cost breakdowns are.
 
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