b... back in 1998, Mr Buffet bought (through BH) 20% of the outstanding supply of silver in the world. I believe he has only mentioned it three times within the Berkshire Hathaway annual reports.
...the chairman's letter:
Our second non-traditional commitment is in silver. Last year, we purchased 111.2 million ounces. Marked to market, that position produced a pre-tax gain of $97.4 million for us in 1997. In a way, this is a return to the past for me: Thirty years ago, I bought silver because I anticipated its demonetization by the U.S. Government. Ever since, I have followed the metal's fundamentals but not owned it. In recent years, bullion inventories have fallen materially, and last summer Charlie and I concluded that a higher price would be needed to establish equilibrium between supply and demand. Inflation expectations, it should be noted, play no part in our calculation of silver's value. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/1997ar/1997.html
...and from the Consolidated Financial Statements:
(6) Commitment to purchase silver During 1997, the Company entered into several forward contracts to purchase silver during the first quarter of 1998. As of December 31, 1997, the Company had committed to purchase 111.2 million ounces of silver which had an estimated fair value of about $665 million. Subsequent to year end, the Company committed to purchase an additional 18.5 million ounces of silver. The Consolidated Statement of Earnings for 1997 includes a pre-tax gain of $97.4 million representing the excess of fair value over net cost of the commitments. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/1997ar/consolid.html
...and a little blurb in the 1998 AR:
Last year I deviated from my standard practice of not disclosing our investments (other than those we are legally required to report) and told you about three unconventional investments we had made. There were several reasons behind that disclosure. First, questions about our silver position that we had received from regulatory authorities led us to believe that they wished us to publicly acknowledge this investment. Second, our holdings of zero-coupon bonds were so large that we wanted our owners to know of this investment's potential impact on Berkshire's net worth. Third, we simply wanted to alert you to the fact that we sometimes do make unconventional commitments. http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/1998ar/1998final.html
Also --- You might want to check out David Morgan, he's written extensively about silver:
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
