I haven't read all of the thousands of posts (my page said that there have been 8717 new posts since I last showed up here). But, I have to say that from what I've read. the price is not going down unless gold does. Someone, somewhere, decided that the price of gold isn't too high; the price of silver is too low, and needs to be linked to gold so that they rise and fall together. It's absolute bullshit, but that's the market for ya. The market is a herd of sheep driven by a pack of squirrels.
Of course this is really bad news, but I guess it will test our attachments and show how committed we are. Are you willing to draw on dried animal skins with burnt sticks? If not, why did you get into this thing anyway? Photography just made drawing different, not even easier. Just different.
I bought a French easel last year, and I'm glad I did. What will I do with my darkroom? Should I convert it back to a contractor's trailer? With plumbing and wiring? That ought to be worth something to somebody.
When I barbeque chickens in the summertime, I wrap grape vine clippings in aluminum foil (several layers) and put them in the coals. Makes the greatest drawing charcoal!
Now that I have been forced to think about this: Back in the 1970's I could buy a box of 100 sheets of SW Agfa Brovira for about $12. When the Hunt bros. cornered the silver market, that same box went up to about $30, if I recall correctly. That was a lot of money in those days. When the Feds forced the Hunts to divest, through anti-trust action, the price of Ag returned to normal (about $5-$6/Troy Oz. at the time), the price of that box of paper dropped to about $22. I have boxes with stickers on them to prove this, should the need arise. Well, actually, the later ones are DW, but I think you probably get the point.
Photography - silver photography - IS commodity, and we aren't going to escape it. Unless...