Free Republic

For the first few months of 1980, the silver market had been slipping as newly enacted rules began tightening their grip on the Hunt Brothers’ silver scheme. On March 27 (known as “Silver Thursday”), silver opened at $15.80 and closed at $10.80 as the Hunt Brothers reportedly initiated a massive sell-off of silver and contracts to meet their obligations. Commodities and the futures market crashed on these reports, but rallied somewhat, bringing silver to $12 an ounce within a few days. But the futures contracts owned by the Hunts were predicated on silver at $35 an ounce. What had been...

Nelson Bunker Hunt, the Texan oil billionaire whose cornering of the silver market in the late 70s took the silver price to what is still its all-time high of $50 an ounce has died at the age of 88 in a care home. In the oil boom of the 1980s Mr. Hunt was reckonned to be the world’s richest man, a title held by Bill Gates founder of Microsoft today. Apart from his huge oil investments Mr. Hunt diversified into cattle, race horses, land and other real estate, sugar, banks, art, a pizza chain as well as most famously silver....

Contrary to popular myth, Bunker Hunt didn't try to corner the silver market; he and his brother were the main victims in one of history's biggest swindles. Nelson Bunker Hunt, R.I.P.: The Myth of the Hunt Brothers' "Scheme to Corner the Silver Market" 23 October 2014 “Nelson Bunker Hunt, oil fortune heir whose bid to corner the silver market led to ruin, dies.” So ran the headline of the Associated Press report, as it appeared in the U.S. News & World Report online edition for October 22. Similar headlines accompanied many other obituaries of the famous Texas investor/entrepreneur, and if...

Nelson Bunker Hunt passed away yesterday at age 88 in Texas. Who was he, you ask? Some outlets are reporting he and his brother were involved in a conspiracy to corner the silver market. In 1985, our news magazine reported on what actually happened. Hunt Brothers and the Great Silver Witch-Hunt The New American 04 November 1985 Over a million readers of the Wall Street Journal for October 3, 1985 saw the headline: "Hunts Sell Off Most of Silver Holdings, Taking Losses Estimated at $1 Billion." The bible of American big business reported under a Dallas dateline that the Hunt...