Thinking about buying some more junk silver soon, but I won't bother if they're still selling it at 14-15x face, since it's silver value is ~10x right now. How much are youall paying? 11.5x? 12x?
I just bought 40 Morgans and Peace dollars for $13 each. Some halves and quarters and dimes for 9 times face.
People should think when buying or selling 90% they are dealing in a different market than Collector Coin Markets. If you were to buy $10 face of 90% for $110 (11X) would you be willing to sell it for $90 because the market has driving down the market to 9x. Probably not, now you may want to be a buyer at 9x so you can now can sell $20 face at 10x. That kind of thinking will allow you to breakeven (You may be in the market for a bigger truck too). What level sellers can move product if they are to stay in business must make some level of profit, maybe as seller in this case 11.75x make sound good, that is the long and short of the bullion market. The question bullion buyers and sellers have to ask how long do I intend to hold and at what level can they can sell what has been purchased. Bullion versus Collector Coins IMO are and must be calculated with a much different intent of time in the market and the worth or intent of ownership. Just because someone wants 14x probably (or they do not understand the market) means they planned the market wrong and what it is going take to sell their stock, not they want to rip anyone off. They just cannot justify the purchase of a bigger truck at this time
tpsadler - My LCS is a pretty big dealer actually with a fairly large online presence as well. They low ball people pretty badly and turn around and mark things up way over priced.
Do you not see these facts as connected? I mean, being "big" with a large "presence" whether online, in person, in print ads or at shows pretty much usually means a bigger buy/sell spread. "Presence" is not cheap.
Went today, and they wanted 13.5x (my dealer is also pretty large, last time it was down below $14 they still wanted 15x), so I didn't buy any. Went to the little coin shop down the road and they only had a few dollars face, so I ended up with that ($4.85) at 10.5x. I'll check the other coin store near my area next week probably, I emailed them and they say they're selling for 11x.
No sales tax in about 31 states. Mine charges sales tax only on paper currency and non-legal-tender medals; not legal tender coins.
It just depends though, many of the big online only dealers actually have pretty low margins. For example at times they'll be paying $.10 over spot for .999 bullion and selling it for .59-.79 over. (a 3-5% spread) Right now Provident Metals is selling their 1 oz "provident metals" gold bar for $1101 and buying it back for $1081, less than a 2% spread. Looks like their best spread on a 1 oz silver round is there "prospector" round being sold for $14.85 in any quantity and being bought back for $14.11. A 74 cent spread which comes out to a little over 5% I'd agree though that having a "presence" can be a strong indicator of a large spread, although it doesn't seem to apply to the same degree to online dealers who for the most part have very competitive pricing. Most of the ones advertising on TV (if not all) have absolutely ridiculous spreads. Probably a similar story (although probably not to the same degree) with most who take out the large newspaper ads.
That's what I paid this past Saturday. Grabbed $4 face of common mercs/roosevelts and am happy to have it. But cooler were these for $0.10 each out of a group of 50 common foreign for $5: