Forty-Eight Hours
Editor’s note: This story is based on actual events. Names and identifying details have been omitted.
Last week, a prominent Tampa Bay couple learned a gold & silver fortune they had “deposited” with a dealer could not be located. After months of delay, they were stunned when the dealer admitted, “We don’t have your coins.”
Their lawyer didn’t blink. He was meticulous, relentless, and in the best sense, an ankle-biter. As the court battle intensified, the dealer used delay tactics. The document trail proved the clients’ ownership, the judge grew impatient, the attorney chomped down hard.
Then the court issued an unusually forceful break safe order. Authorities would enter and inspect the premises. All the couple’s property was to be surrendered. If no metal was in the safe, all hell would break loose.
The dealer began negotiating. He had the platinum coins, but none of the $2 million in silver, they had deposited. He produced a huge quantity of replacement silver: generic, privately minted one-ounce rounds rather than the better, more marketable pieces originally entrusted.
It was not ideal. Silver value was plummeting and was costing the couple money daily. After consulting counsel, they accepted a settlement.
There was one brutal condition: thousands of ounces of replacement silver had to be assembled, released and removed from the premises within 48 hours.
My phone rang again. “Can you store it?” they asked. “And can you sell it?” Ordinarily it would have been manageable, but the silver market had seized up. Refineries were backed up. Dealers had stopped buying silver; or had bought at enormous discounts.
The clients trusted us. Their lawyer trusted no metals dealer. Our attorneys devised a plan to protect everyone. In an unusual step, we put $500,000 with the clients’ attorney in advance; the couple retained off-duty law enforcement; an armored truck was arranged. On Friday morning, pallet after pallet of silver was loaded under supervision.
The next problem: Friday night. When unusually large consignments arrive, we normally move them directly into nearby banks. But the court’s deadline did not care about bankers’ hours. The metal had to leave ASAP, and the bank vaults would be closed for the weekend. For several nights, the silver would have to remain in our building.
We have a concrete-block vault room and approximately 64 cameras. For this shipment, that was not enough. We hired 24/7 security: one marked car and one unmarked car, plus an employee slept in the store.
Meanwhile, I called bullion buyers across the country. The value was falling while we talked. Every hour mattered. Finally, a respected dealer agreed to buy the silver but only after every round was inspected, found pristine and placed in the proper tube. The couple’s net, with market discount and our modest commission, was $1.6 million.
Not the peak value they wanted, but it would end the nightmare.
Our staff opened every container with soft gloves, checked thousands of rounds. The original dealer had packed haphazardly in the rush to satisfy the court. We sourced proper tubes, repacked them all and prepared six heavily insured shipments.
Only five arrived! The sixth, containing enough silver to wipe out our profit and cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars, vanished.
Next week: The missing box, the battered delivery, and the true meaning of “worth.”
