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Events/Price shock · 1980

Silver price collapse after the Hunt silver squeeze

Price shock, March 1980, United States.

What happened

On 28 March 1980 the CFTC voted not to use its emergency powers to suspend silver futures trading as prices plummeted.1,2

Why it matters

It led to tighter position limits and a CFTC report to Congress in 1981.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. Sunshine silver mine fire

    The fire is the main modern US hard rock mine disaster.3,4

  2. Silver price collapse after the Hunt silver squeeze

    It led to tighter position limits and a CFTC report to Congress in 1981.1,2

  3. City of Potosi inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.5

  4. Kutna Hora inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.6

  5. Sullivan mine closes

    MINFILE records Sullivan as a continuous producer from 1900 to its closure.7,8

  6. Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine inscribed

    UNESCO World Heritage listing event.9

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Where next

Events

An example ofLeadville silver boomFrom Leadville's boom of 1878 to the squeeze of 1980: silver has swung hard before.1ExamplesNixon ends dollar convertibility into goldAfter gold floated in 1971, silver futures had their own crisis in March 1980.1

Sources

  1. History of the CFTC in the 1980s US Commodity Futures Trading Commission
  2. New York City (item Q60), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Fact Sheet 95-8: Historical Data on Mine Disasters in the United States US Mine Safety and Health Administration
  4. Sunshine Mine (item Q7641530), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  5. City of Potosi added to List of World Heritage in Danger UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  6. Kutna Hora: Historical Town Centre with the Church of St Barbara and the Cathedral of Our Lady at Sedlec UNESCO World Heritage Centre
  7. MINFILE summary: Sullivan (082FNE052) British Columbia Geological Survey
  8. Sullivan Mine (item Q7636415), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  9. Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Centre

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0); Gold prospectors constructing a long box with a filter for panning gold. Process print after H.M. Paget, 1899., Henry Marriott Paget (Public Domain Mark 1.0); The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).