What does it mean to "corner the silver market" (a la Bunker Hunt)?

Question

What does it mean to "corner the silver market" (a la Bunker Hunt)?

Answer 1

you own so much of it that you can dictate the terms of the price you want to sell it at

Answer 2

In Bunker Hunt's case it bankrupted him because when he drove the price of silver up, silver started coming out of the wood work from people who had horded all of the pre-65 silver coins and they flooded the market and he ran out of cash to buy more.  The market collapsed and left him holding the bag.

The was another interesting case of a corner back in the early 1920s.  The president of Stutz Motor Car company was upset with the NYSE members who were trying to drive down the price of Stutz stock by shorting it.  He bought up all outstanding stock in the company and put a squeeze on the shorts.  They could not cover.  But they were members of the NYSE and that would never do to have the members taken advantage of so the exchange de-listed the stock so their members would not have to cover.  They bankrupted the president of Stutz because he had all of his money tied up in Stutz stock which he could not sell.  The moral to that story is, do not fool around with those who have connections.