One Gram of Silver
Silver hit a record and film got more expensive, just like in 1980. But a roll holds about a gram of silver, and the bigger risk to film may be the old machines that coat it.
Wren and Theo · 20 min · 13 Oct 2026
About this episode
In January 2026 silver passed a hundred and twenty dollars an ounce. A few weeks later Kodak Alaris raised film prices by up to thirty-nine percent and named silver as a reason. It sounded like 1980, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner silver and the New York Times reported that photo prices were rising with it. Then Ilford's maker, Harman, raised its US prices too, and said the cause was tariffs, not silver. Wren and Theo try to work out which story is true.
Along the way: how photography once bought about a quarter of the world's silver, why every colour photo you own was made with silver and kept none of it, the recycling business that hospitals and minilabs ran out of sight, and how Kodak got through the 1980 squeeze. Then the arithmetic, which points away from the metal and toward a few old coating lines and a fragile chemical supply chain that the film revival depends on.
Hosted by Wren and Theo, from real reporting. Supported by ShotBreak.
Sources
- pellica.app/blog/film-prices-2026-guide/
- petapixel.com/2025/12/29/will-skyrocketing-silver-prices-make-photo-film-even-more-expensi
- analogphotoday.com/photography-news/kodak-alaris-2026-news/
- pellica.app/blog/ilford-tariff-price-increase-2026/
- silverinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Final_Price_Sensitivity_of_Above-Ground-Sil
- silverinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/World-Silver-Survey-2026.pdf
- silverinstitute.org/silver-industrial-demand-rose-11-percent-to-post-a-new-record-in-2023/
- analogphotoday.com/art-news/film-roll-cost-anatomy/
- analogphotoday.com/art-news/film-coating-capacity-explained/
- pellica.app/blog/film-supply-chain-fragility-2026/
- 125px.com/docs/unsorted/kodak/J210.pdf
- 125px.com/docs/unsorted/kodak/J212.pdf
- p2infohouse.org/ref/31/30567.pdf
- p2infohouse.org/ref/29/28716.pdf
- stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/245536
- priceonomics.com/how-the-hunt-brothers-cornered-the-silver-market/
- abajournal.com/magazine/article/panic-1893-hunt-brothers-1980
- nytimes.com/1980/02/11/archives/photo-prices-rise-with-silver-du-pont-in-second-place-blac
- mcnygenealogy.com/book/kodak/highlights-v33-1.pdf
- mcnygenealogy.com/book/kodak/highlights-v33-2.pdf
