Interesting[I think]
Silver is an the second widely most used industrial commodity after oil.
Industrial manufacturers CANNOT accept paper or fiat for a commodity that is critical for the production of their products. The supply of physical silver is so small too, that if a few multi-billion, or even multi-million dollar market participants came in and started demanding large sums for PHYSICAL delivery, the market would go ballistic.
It has also been my assertion all along that Apple, Samsung, or Google might someday demand delivery of 6 months to a years worth of physical silver, will have a VERY hard time getting it, and if they do, could trigger a chain reaction among other manufacturers to do the same. The way some of those consumer electronic goods attack one another, it would be the perfect strategy - buy up all of the critical commodity, with which they cannot produce their products, to gain a competitive edge in the market.
Now the really fascinating part of this phenomenon is, if the global economy tanks - it will likely be due to some kind of monetary instability - increasing the MONETARY demand for silver, increasing the price.
If the economy IMPROVES, technological advancements will substantially increase the the INDUSTRIAL demand for silver, increasing the price. In my line of work, mobile computing is THE advancement of the next decade - and you CANNOT build a cell phone or tablet without a few grams of silver.
There are 5 billion cell phones on the planet. If each one has 1-5 grams of silver in them, that's 160 million to 800 million troy ounces of silver. The average cell phone is used for 5 years than thrown away, and it's too economically un-viable (at these prices) to recover the silver inside it.
With silver, it's really a long term win:win scenario either way you look at it.
Here's an interesting site to look at, the annual silver supply/demand chart:
www.silverinstitute.org/site/supply-demand/Industrial demand and photography make up almost have of the total demand - and very little of that consumption will EVER be recovered.