You asked for recollections from those dealers who experienced the Hunt Bros. Silver rush. Heregoes:

In 1980 I worked for Gary Young who had a coin store in Oakland, CA. As silver prices rose andthe media started to cover the story, people began to come into the store to sell. This soon turnedinto a flood of customers lined up outside the store. It was just the two of us and we had to lockthe door, letting only a few people in at a time. I don't think we sold many numismatic itemsat the time because our regular collectors didn't want to fight the crowd.

I was busy cutting up 1959 to 1964 Mint and Proof sets to send the silver coins to a refiner.Metal buckets of coins, jewelry etc. segregated by fineness were picked up regularly for shipment.I remember running a quantity of Quarters just purchased from a vest pocket dealer through a coincounter. For some reason I picked out a 1932 coin and turned it over, only to see an S mintmark. Itold Gary this would take longer than usual as I wanted to look at all of the coins. I pulled outten 1932-S coins. At this time no one was looking at dates, just take the scrap value and run!

Later that year Gary sold his long established store along with a good deal of the inventory toanother dealer. To this day I don't know if this was just sheer luck or calculated markettiming, but soon after his sale precious metals prices crashed and the value of numismatic coinstanked. The store was later closed. Gary bought a ranch in Northern California and basicallyretired from the coin business.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
ARTICLE PROFILES SILVER BARON NELSONBUNKER HUNT (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n44a19.html)