To our dear customers – we are in an extremely unprecedented precious metal market, especially considering silver. The result is that we have had to change how we do business temporarily. We are pausing on buying any type of silver at this time, and are having to be extra cautious on gold and platinum. Why? Here is what we are dealing with:
Back in November when silver passed 50$ an ounce, the flood gates opened with people turning in silver of all types. This means dealers became overwhelmed with silver, especially when most retail buyers were afraid of silver at those prices. As dealers, we rely on wholesalers and refineries to take the precious metals we purchase from the public when we cannot sell them direct to other customers. Well this in turn began to overwhelm the refineries and wholesalers as well – at which time they had no choice but to put in limits / rule changes on payout percentages, locking prices and payment timelines.
At first they were just restricting each dealer to a certain amount of alloyed silver per week. Refineries then drastically reduced the payout by 10% more on alloy lots in an attempt to slow people down. Then next thing that occurred is the delay in payment by 5-7 days on silver lots that had to be melted. The refineries and wholesalers paused taking smaller bullion items (less than 5 oz and odd size bullion) and non pure alloy (90% silver coins, sterling silver 92.5%) silver completely. They would start taking it again on and off. Which as a dealer is very difficult to deal with. Many refineries were literally weeks out on dealing with refining lots. Even longer on payments.
Then in the past week (the week of January 26th, 2026) – the ability to lock prices on ANY metal was removed. This means if we buy an ounce of gold from the public and must wholesale it, we are not able to lock the price in with our refiner until they received the metal. Normally you could call and lock an item in to reduce risk. And literally a day later – the big one – not only are locks on any metal type gone, payouts are delayed 7-10 business days. And during this time, a dealers metal is exposed to the market. The refineries will simply pay you when they can get to it at the market rate at that time. This is because not only silver skyrocketed – gold was passing 5000 an ounce, which caused major liquidity issues to ripple through the entire industry.
So at this time – we are watching the market closely, we are desperately wanting to get back to some kind of normal. Our capital is drying up fast and we still have to make payroll. During this time, our regular rates are very difficult to maintain with these headwinds. We also apologize about not taking phone calls during this time, but the amount of phone calls and inquiries we are receiving has simply been astounding. We are trying to respond to everyone as much as we can. We truly appreciate all of our customers patience during this never seen before precious metal market.
Sincerely, Charlie & Angie – Beach Gold Assay
