This weekend I went to a retreat in the Poconos for the Men’s Club of our local synagogue and there, I had a chance to speak with a gentleman who works in precious metals industry.  Bruce works for one of the larger metals refiners in the Philadelphia area for nearly seven years and has a unique perspective on the industry. 

Bruce agreed that private gold exchanges are certainly down, as evidenced by the slowing and smaller transactions by many of the Cash For Gold business that have sprung up throughout the area.  He admitted that they are still seeing good volume from Jewelers (retail is in the dump, so now they are buyers).  However, the primary source for precious metals is coming from the dentists.  According to Bruce, they hoard their gold bridges and crowns and collect them at a surprisingly-fast rate in any given month.  He commented that dentists love to invest and so many of them will sit on their scrap inventory for a lump-sum payout.  Bruce’s company has just added several new salespeople to canvas the USA, signing dental offices as gold exchange customers.