Following is part two of an article that was published at the investment website earlier this month. Only a few minor edits have been made for its reproduction here.

Silver Bullion, the SLV ETF, and Silver Bars

Like gold, the relative prices for the various forms of silver bullion have also undergone some significant changes over the last year or so. As was the case for gold during the last review, there wasn't much to see in either the basic price chart or in the review of differences between the prices but, in this update, the separation between physical bullion (in green) from both the spot price (in blue) and the SLV ETF (in red) can be clearly seen below.
Note that, in the chart above, the green line now clearly rides "on top" of the other two curves, whereas, it had been even with or below the other two curves for most of the last two years.

Looking at the differences between these three prices in 20-day moving average form below (to filter out the noise) reveals that nearly all of the relative changes in silver prices can be attributed to the way CNI has been pricing their silver bars. In fact, the spot price compared to the SLV price (in blue) has been relatively stable - up from just a few cents per ounce to about 15 cents per ounce over the last year, roughly an increase of about 0.5 percent, which is in line with the fund's stated expenses of 0.5 percent (see the iShares website for details).

Questions that are repeatedly raised about the SLV inventory aside (see Ted Butler's latest commentary for more on this), these fees are actually quite a bargain when considering the problems associated with storing large amounts of silver.
The reason for the big move upward in the 100 ounce bars at CNI (in red and green above) is simply due to a pricing policy change at CNI which does not necessarily exist elsewhere.