During my recent trip to Europe, there were many interesting meetings and conversations. One of the most meaningful was with a good friend and colleague Mr. Eric Lemaire (http://www.24hgold.com/default.aspx).

Eric is a true free-market thinker and has worked at producing true price discovery in the gold and silver markets. Eric suggested that, because eBay was already in existence and is a worldwide system, real price discovery could be obtained.

Staying reserved as I pondered this insight, it did make sense that this certainly is a way to establish what silver and gold are really selling for in the retail sector.

As Eric explained, he thought one of the few worldwide, public pricing systems is eBay, so he had been working on the subject for quite awhile to find a way to extract the price of gold and silver out of eBay.

Eric recently launched the following Web pages:

Gold on eBay, worldwide:

http://www.24hgold.com/english/buy_sell_gold_coins.aspx?co_id=0

And silver on eBay, worldwide:

http://www.24hgold.com/english/buy_sell_silver_coins.aspx?co_id=0

Here is how they work. Gold and silver coins with offers on eBay appear on the page, listed by country. For each coin, you will find:

• Its name, fine weight, and instant metal value.
• The price of last sales on eBay to track the price: average price, premium over spot price of gold (or silver), the implied gold or silver value per ounce, and yesterday's average price for this specific coin.
• The current offers on eBay worldwide, with the respective number of offers. You can click on the eBay buttons to get directly to the eBay page with all the coins for sale.
• Various eBay tools relevant to this coin -- Buy It Now, Newly Listed, Ending Soonest, and Completed Listings.

There is also a link to go to eBay directly if you are looking for something else.

Since eBay is different for each country, we have eBay pages for Canada, the United States, Australia, France, and the United Kingdom.

Eric stated it is his wish that this tool will be useful to anyone who is interested in gold and silver and that it will help people get more physical metal in their hands, which is the key to wrecking the cartel.

Eric Lemaire can be contacted at editor@24hgold.com

I did not have time to get into the actual computer programming that was required for this project, but let me publicly state it must have been a heck of a project. Further, several new Web-based auctions are taking place for the precious metals -- in particular, silver. My current schedule does not allow me to review them all in this week's missive, but I do want to bring to the readers' attention that many new and seasoned precious metals investors are amazed by the spreads that are currently being determined in the marketplace.

Additionally, many investors are moving to the exchange itself to take delivery of industrial-size bars, to obtain silver and gold very close to the quoted New York price and/or London fix.

It is an honor to be,