I heard this story mentioned on TV this afternoon. They said the find could be worth $500 million.
In their dreams, before marketing expenses
Let's say they have 17 tons of silver and pretend it is coinage instead of bars for simplicity. Let's say that represents half a million coins/items for simplicity. Let's say they broker a deal with a major grading/authentication service and only pay $25 per item delivered back for marketing. That is $13 million in authentication services, delivery, handling, and insurance alone. Perhaps they cut those costs in half.
How much would you pay for an ounce of cleaned up silver ?
They need to get about $850 each for these (not $1000 because I know they have some gold to go with it to raise the rest of the figure to $500 million).
Really, how much stupid money is there really out there ? After the real estate correction ?