You can’t find coins or rounds this old anymore, nor can you buy at sport anymore.

100 OZ bars aren’t uncommon nor are they hard to produce nor are they expensive to produce because they don’t require a whole lot of expensive machinery that is required for making rounds.

Physical silver spreads are about a buck per ounce right now, even for 100 OZ bars – this provides a very lucrative opportunity for making money if you can produce silver rounds or 100 oz bars which don’t require much in terms of equipment to make in comparison to rounds. All you need to do is take delivery of silver on a futures exchange, upon delivery immediately sell short to lock in the price, then make silver rounds aplenty.

But no mint is doing this.

Why aren’t they? It’s not just governments not doing this, it’s anybody.

The COMEX and the physical will have to come back into agreement with narrowing spreads, but it’s sure interesting waiting all these MONTHS for it to happen. You’d think with the Federal governments so far in debt, they’d be dying to be making free cash, but they aren’t. Shortages happen when commodities are undervalued relative to the true market value. Just let the price float, and you’ll see decreased demand for the product until supply = demand.

You can’t find any silver anywhere at spot now. None, unless you do a futures contract and take delivery, and the pretty much cuts out anybody that doesn’t want to buy 5,000 oz of silver or more as a brick – that’s a $70,000 commitment, and also you need to report the purchase to the IRS when you do that, thanks to the Patriot Act. Did you know that the Patriot Act had that in there? I bet you didn’t know John Edwards helped write it either.

So in my experience, yes it’s been hard to come by. If you’re a buyer, you should pick up some while / if you can. Whether hte shortage is in the actual metal or in manpower like you suggest – the shortage is real.