A lot of experts, including Charles Oliver at Sprott Asset Management, seem to think silver is going much higher.

"That is the time to buy," he said. "I am not sure how high it could go, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it at $22 or $23 by the end of December."

Silver is used in jewellery, but has varied industrial uses, including in electronics equipment. Like many silver bulls, Mr. Christian predicts a big price driver will be rising investor demand for the metal as a "safe haven" because of concerns about inflation, the devaluing U.S. dollar and the global credit crisis.

The recent pullback in price, meanwhile, stems from some industrial users reducing inventories in the face of higher costs, while investors have been taking profits after a strong runup.

David Morgan, a U.S.-based precious metals analyst and writer of resources newsletter The Morgan Report, recommended his clients take some money off the table in March.

"I love silver, but let's be realistic," said Mr. Morgan, who is also founder of Silver-Investor.com. "These things can get over exuberant."

"I see a bottoming process [for the metal] between June and August," he added. "By the end of the year, I see gold over $1,000 per ounce, and silver back over $21 an ounce. I think the fourth quarter is going to be very strong for metals."

Gold for August delivery closed up $13.20 yesterday at $886.30 on the Nymex.

Mr. Morgan's bullish case for silver stems partly from the declining supply of above-ground, investable supplies of the metal as governments such as that of the United States have sold off their stockpiles.

Silver stocks, which he likes and owns, include: Pan American Silver Corp., with a two-year target of $50 (Canadian); Silver Standard Resources Inc., with a two-year target of $40); and Silver Corp., with a two-year target of $16. Among the juniors, he likes Minco Silver Corp., with a two- to three-year target of $5.

Evidence of rising investor demand has been the popularity of the iShares Silver Trust, an exchange-traded fund launched in 2006 and which is now backed by more than 190 million ounces of bullion.

Silver has also attracted wealthy investors like Microsoft Corp.'s chairman Bill Gates, whose Cascade Investment LLC is the third-largest shareholder of Pan American Silver. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bet heavily on silver in 1997, and bought 130 million ounces, but he has alluded to selling this investment by 2006.

Nick Barisheff, president of BMG Management Group Inc. in Toronto, expects silver to rally in the fall because of seasonality patterns tied to the wedding season in India.

"Gold and silver are a big part of dowries," said Mr. Barisheff, who runs the $189-million BMG Bullion Fund, which invests equally in gold, silver and platinum. "My view is that silver will be above $21 (U.S.) by the end of the year."

Silver soared as high at $50 an ounce in January, 1980, when the Hunt brothers of Texas tried to corner the silver market. But that spike only lasted a day, and the average price for silver that year was about $21 an ounce.

Charles Oliver, an investment strategist with Sprott Asset Management Inc. in Toronto, is forecasting silver to reach $40 and gold to hit $2,000 an ounce in four years.

The price target stems from calculating that gold historically trades at a 50-to-1 ratio to silver, even though those numbers can get "out of whack, periodically," he said.

He oversees the $614-million (Canadian) Sprott Gold and Precious Metals Fund, which has 9 per cent of its assets in silver bars and another 20 per cent in silver stocks. He currently likes Hecla Mining Co. and Silver Wheaton Corp.

"We are probably at the higher end than some of our [equity] competitors" in terms of a weighting in silver, he said.