March 27, 1980: Silver Thursday

Herbert (left) and "Bunkie"

March 27, 1980: Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt -- sons of right-wing fanatic oil billionaire H.L. Hunt -- try to corner the silver market. A subsequent steep fall in silver prices leads to panic on the commodity and futures exchanges.

They used their family fortune, over $5 billion at the time their father died in 1974, to jack the price of silver up to $50 an ounce. There was a silver frenzy: People who had all-silver U.S. dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollar coins minted up until 1964, before the switch to a silver-copper mix, sold them for far above their face value.

But the Federal Reserve then took an unusual step: It strongly encouraged banks to stop making loans for speculative activity. When it became clear that the government was after the Hunts' scalps, their credit dried up. Concerns that the Hunts might not be able to meet margins with new loans and would go under, pulling several brokerages and banks with them, put further downward pressure on the price of silver. The price dropped to $11 an ounce.

The economy, already hurt by high inflation and high interest rates, soon went into recession. The brothers lost nearly everything, although they were able to rebuild their fortunes. "Bunkie" Hunt later admitted, "A billion dollars ain't what it used to be."

Lamar -- yes, that's the Lamar Hunt who founded the AFL and the Kansas City Chiefs -- died in 2006, Bunkie in 2014. As of March 27, 2022, Herbert is still alive. (UPDATE: He died in 2024.)

This event, known as "Silver Thursday," inspired the scheme in the film Trading Places of the Duke brothers to try to corner the market for frozen concentrated orange juice. Sabotaged, they ended up losing $394 million, or about half of what the Hunt brothers lost. The $1.1 billion they lost in 1980 is worth about $3.95 billion in 2022 money. (The Duke brothers' $394 million loss in 1983? About $1.15 billion.)

It took until 2019 for the price of silver to get back to where it was in 1980.

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March 27, 1980 was, as stated, a Thursday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 103-101 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 117-100 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Bullets, 118-111 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Denver Nuggets, 143-95 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.)

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 97-95 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the San Diego Clippers, 96-93 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* The Boston Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-2 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Detroit Red Wings, 10-1 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Don Luce and Danny Gare each had 2 goals.

* And the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.