Warren Buffett bought 3,500 tons of silver in 1997. The purchase helped make Thomas Kaplan a billionaire.

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• 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 taking my silver company public," Kaplan said. "That changed everything."
• Kaplan told Business Insider he personally thanked Buffett at a dinner years later.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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Warren Buffett made an unusual move in 1997 when he bought 111 million ounces, or nearly 3,500 tons, of silver. The famed investor's purchase helped make Thomas Kaplan a billionaire.

"That changed everything"

Kaplan was in his early 30s, with a doctorate in history from Oxford University but zero industry experience, when he founded a mining company named Apex Silver Mines in 1993. Despite his lack of credentials, he received a $10 million investment from billionaire investor George Soros in 1994.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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