Warren Buffett's purchase of almost 3,500 tons of silver in 1997 helped turn Thomas Kaplan into a billionaire.
After the silver bubble burst in early 1980, the precious metal plunged in price from $50 an ounce to below $10, and it was widely dismissed as a bad investment.
"What really put and end to it was when Warren Buffett bought [those] ounces of silver," Kaplan, the chairman of NovaGold Resources, told shareholders this month.
"It became public that he had done this the week when I was…
