Retail tightness

What silver actually costs at the counter

London vault data arrives two to three months late. What a buyer pays over spot today, and whether the coin is even in stock, moves first. This page tracks a fixed basket — 1 oz American Silver Eagle, 1 oz generic round, 10 oz bar, 100 oz bar — at the same dealers, all-in, with the spot price recorded at the moment of capture.

Retail tightness index

0 = loose, 100 = very tight

Median premium

11.5%

over spot, all-in

Out of stock

of basket items checked

By product

1 oz American Silver Eagle11.5% premium · 0% out of stock · 2 quotes

Dealers in the index

First Majestic (First Mint)published product data
Gainesville Coinspublished product data
Hero Bullionpublished product data

3 dealers contributing quotes. Dealers that block automated access are not listed, and no figure is shown for them.

How this number is built

The same four products are priced at every dealer, so a dealer's Silver Eagle is never compared against another's generic round. Prices are captured all-in — unit price at one unit and at twenty, plus shipping — and the payment method is recorded, because the cash or wire price dealers advertise runs three to four percent below the card price. The spot price at the moment of capture is stored with each quote, so premiums are computed against the spot the buyer actually faced.

Stock status is tracked as carefully as price. Dealers hold headline premiums down for optics and simply run out instead, so the share of the basket unavailable is often the truer read on physical tightness. The index combines the two: premium level at 60%, stockout rate at 40%.

Any computed premium outside −2% to +80% is treated as a broken page layout, discarded and logged rather than written to the series. Captures identify VaultDrain honestly, respect each site's robots.txt, and are spaced out; we publish only this derived index and link out — never a mirror of anyone's catalogue.

Legal & compliance

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Prices, exchange rates, vault inventories, and supply/demand figures come from third-party sources and are shown for information only. They may be delayed, estimated, revised, or wrong, and some figures (including historical vault snapshots, retail prices, premiums, and monthly forecasts) are illustrative estimates. Data labeled live may still be delayed by its provider. Vault categories and availability do not prove that metal is unavailable for delivery. Verify all figures with the named primary source before relying on them.

Triple-digit dates, price paths, ratios, days-of-supply figures, and other forward-looking statements are hypothetical scenarios, not forecasts or guarantees. Past performance does not predict future results. To the fullest extent permitted by law, VaultDrain provides the site “as is,” makes no warranty of accuracy, availability, or fitness for a particular purpose, and is not liable for losses arising from use of the site.

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