Well one of the elements of owning physical PMs is that it is very difficult to get panicked out on a dip, like one might on SLV or GLD. I've been buying silver since $6 and have bot at $7, $9, $11, $13, $15, $17, $21, $24, $29 and $35 and with only the single exception of 20 silver dollars at Ag = $40, never paid or really even believed a silver price over $35. I just know the personality of the metal too well and I could see it was in a bubble over $40, even near $40. At $6-$7-$9, I was fully of the belief that one could not then and can not now drag the material out of the ground, smelt it, assay it, weigh it, and coin or ingotize it into a tradeable form for that money. It wasn't at all that it was a precious metal. It was like a slice of baloney for 1 cent. You cannot raise the cow, feed the cow, slaughter the cow, package the meat, and deliver the meat to a market for 1 cent, it is below the cost of production.
And, I also have sold silver, at $18, $28, and $39. Do I regret selling at those lower prices? Yeah, some.
What you say about what might happen in a "raid" where big holders dump large amounts in an effort to drive down prices is I suppose possible. But if you are going to say that is possible, then you should also consider that if we are conscious owners of PMs for EITHER of those hyperinflationary & "preservation of purchasing power" outcomes, then we have traded our USDs voluntarily for that/those eventual outcomes. We do not know and can not know if those outcomes will occur next year or in 2-3 years or....ever. In one sense, we are speculators, but we are not avid sellers on a small incremental price ramp. In my case, sure, maybe I will peel off 10% of my total (which is what I did at $18 and $28 and $39) but I will never be all the way out of silver. And by the way, after selling some at $18 I started buying again. I am not the kind of speculator (at least as far as Ag is concerned) who sells on a spike; I am speculating on the eventuality or the possibility that our current money system will collapse. And that gets to part of my answer to you, which is, all over the world, there are many other people who feel the same way about owning PMs. In 1980, last time this happened, there were not hundreds of thousands of Chinese & Indians (with millenium-long histories of valuing PMs) who could afford PMs. There were no markets in those countries at the time. Now, there are. I am frankly rather surprised at how well silver has hung on to $35. I still believe it will see $30 before it sees $40, but I'm willing to be wrong. I happen to believe that countries all over the world are debasing their currencies in a competitive race to the bottom, and there are more people who believe that today than ever before. And they have the means to do something about it, eg; buying PMs to protect themselves.
So as intelligent (we think!) speculators who are gambling not on a $2 price bump, but on a quadrupling or octupling of value which may take a long, long time, we have to consider that the "raid" you speak of will have an "after" period. In other words, what happens after said raid? If you say that the masters of the universe will dump their silver and then scoop up the silver that folks sell out of panic, then the one who does nothing should make out OK, don't you think? I do not fear such a raid. Indeed, I welcome it, because I believe that after such a raid, if a person is not fully invested (and IMO one should NEVER be fully invested in anything) then the cash I retain will be able to buy many more ounces of silver than it can today. That represents the deflationary period I mentioned in my prior post.
I myself look at the silver and gold I own and I would rather own that metal than the USDs it would take to buy it. I felt that way at Ag $12 and Ag $17 and Ag $24 and I feel that way today. So it's not a matter of the market price.