Twenty years ago, the idea that everyone would carry around telephones that were also good-quality cameras was ridiculous. People took pictures with cameras that were loaded with film and took the film to a developer. The processing consumed a lot of silver. Back then, if you didn’t anticipate the emergence of digital photography, you might have expected this source of demand would continue indefinitely.
Instead, according to the Washingtonbased Silver Institute, the use of silver in photography peaked in 1999 and has fallen by almost 80 per cent since. It’s these sorts of technological advances that make predictions about future demand and supply so difficult.