Silver coins or silver bars?

Sight unseen, I KNOW the Maple Leaf is what it purports to be. What brand of 'bar' did you get? I have 2 bars marked "BAGS",".999", and the weight to 2 decimal places. They are marketable but not as readily as the mint coins are. I'm upgrading from bars to recognized coins and you might want to consider avoiding the error I made.

 

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Bars marked "BAGS", I don't get it? I have three little bars and they don't say that on them. I have the minter's name, .999 silver, their logo, and the weight. On the back is the minter's logo a bunch of times.

 

The bar is Englehard. It has their makers mark on it, 1 Troy ounce Fine Silver 999+, on the back it just says Englehard.

 

I like the 90% silver. The reason is that sometimes a lot of it isn't junk. It may not have a lot of value over bullion, but can still have strong dates and decent detail. Some dealers, including mine are not going to spend the time putting a common date, well worn coin in a holder, even if it's a collectable coin. Most collectors want higher grade coins and this is a good way to start a collection.
Len

 

Howdy,

I do both and love it. I have some prospectors and 1 and 10 oz ingots but I really focus on the name brand stuff - like JohnsonMatthey or Englehard. It's more fungible. That too is the reason why I like the coins starting with the ASEs. Hell, you can sell ASE's at McDonalds. I like them both as a set in an album and in tubes of 20.

The coin collector in me has a set of eagles, leafs and I'm working on the other modern silver bullion coins - like pandas, kooks, etc.

And I generally love Silver Crowns - this is where my heart lies. Silver crowns from around the world. These are silver dollar sized coin at one time minted by most countries and particularly with the face of their king/queen, etc., 'wearing a crown'. They're some of the most beautiful coins ever minted, have enormous history behind them, and make for a great collection that you can work on forever.

For example, I bought a pillar dollar from mexico in XF so you could really study it. This was what our dollar replaced but not until long after we became a country. The pillars on the reverse are seen today in our dollar sign as the two bars crossing the S. They were denomated as 8 reales and often to help make change, they would be cut into 'piece of eight' with 2 bits being a quarter and 4 bits being a half.

Now does it get any better than this and your grand kids?

peace,

rono

 

I was asking these same questions not too long ago! Now I'm still no expert,but have been on a fast learning curve and pushing myself to learn more. I have invested in a nice pocket scale to weigh oddities and anything that looks funny. I trust most ASE's to be what they say they are,and have bought many of the standard ase's. I decided I wanted a collection of silver that would be nice to look at and be worth it's weight,not to hard to do really,but stay away from slabbed silver and proofs,those are for nusimatic value,not silver value. If you pay a premium for slabbing or proof copys you don't get that back when selling as silver bullion,you have to find a interested collector.
Now alot of guys say stay away from the "art rounds/bars" but I don't,an oz. of silver is an oz. of silver and I've found that while nobody pays a premium for most of them,neither do I,often times 3 or 4 dollars an oz. below spot price,so if spot price goes up and I sell for 3 or 4 dollars an oz. less than the new spot price I still increased my money/value,and also sometimes you find someone looking for a particular art peice and can double your money overnight even if the spot drops.
The ASE's,the Maple Leafs,the kookaburra,and several other well know and traded coin bullion like the chineese panda are all good investment peices in uncirculated condition,but you need to shop around and make a deal on them to really get a good return.
The art bars don't hold much interest for me but if the price is right they can be stored right next to the rounds,remember an oz. of silver is an oz. of silver,right.
Now on my take of the larger coins and bars,I think the large coins are ugly myself,but whatever floats your boat is alright with me,the 10 oz. and up bars comand a lesser price per oz. as you need to find a buyer for a larger amount of silver at once and they'll want a deal,I go with a name brand bar for investment purpose only,the mathy's the scottsdale stacker,and a bunch of others are nice here. No artwork,just nice clear labeling of weight,assayers,purity,and I like them to stack neatly and not take up too much room,no real premiums here just good old fashioned bullion trades and business(buy low/sell high/try to make a profit).
Myself I like the ONE oz. size the best,I can sell one oz. or three oz. or whatever I want to,I'm not locked into a 10 oz. sale,or 100 oz. sale,it just leaves so many options open for my small time operation,now if I was moving hundreds of oz. back and forth every month then a larger size peice of silver would be the way to go.
My own tips for art rounds. buy the Christmas art rounds in jan.,feb.etc. when nobody wants them and resell in nov., and dec. if the price is right,but to me what matters the most is not the art but the oz. of silver its printed on,the melters don't care. I really should not be giving selling advice as I have not done any myself,just hoarding for the future and watching and learning from the big dogs.
Also try to buy stuff you wife likes,it will keep her interested,and help you out when wanting to spend $$ on more silver next week!

 

I'm just curious about what decision you ended up making. Looks as though the suggestions and opinions were good covering I suppose about every avenue to approach this. As you can see what works well for one doesn't necessarily work for another.

 

Well, we ended up purchasing two pieces. One was a Silver Maple Leaf, and my wife picked out a 1oz. bar from Englehard (just a plain one). I looked at some ASE's but wasn't thrilled with them.

We were lucky to find a shop that was more than helpful. I was asking what was available, and they pulled out 3 different boxes full of bullion in different forms. Rounds, bars, 1-10oz bars (he said if I wanted to see a 100oz bar, he would have to dig it out). They had one Maple Leaf, a ton of ASE's, Kooks, various art rounds, etc. He showed us ome junk silver silver in rolls as well.

What was more important to me was that he made it clear that they have bullion in stock all the time. I am planning on making purchases every week, whether just an ounce at least, maybe more if the budget allows.

I purchased the red book, and have been reading looking through it, and have come to like the Walking Liberties. So along with the bullion purchases, I have started my collection of Walking Liberites. I purchased a couple the other night off Ebay. A 1916, plus another date that I don't remember right now.

So I have jumped in, and so far, I think I am swimming.

 

Well good luck and I hope it works out well for you guys.

 

If you are purchasing walking liberties from Ebay using only a Redbook, I would say that you have made yourself shark bait. If you want the coins, go back to the coin shop and talk to the dealer. There is a very high probability that you will throw away money buying overgraded, cleaned or damaged coins without knowing it. Don't expect the seller to tell you.