Is it just the midwest..?

I live pretty close to the dead center of Missouri. (Otherwise known as 'Statesesota.') Here, people are absolutely going IBS over silver bullion. Here is what doesn't make sense about it:

A: People are paying as much as $8 over spot for silver rounds/bars. Not just Eagles, etc.. But backyard bars too. I'm getting $3 over spot WHOLESALING them to a bigger coin shop in another town. I'm paying a dollar over spot to the customer.

B: The coin shop I wholesale those to can't even get any silver bullion from all the various suppliers they typically order from. They keep getting "we're sold out" and "we have no idea what century we will ever get any more." Their retail trays are constantly empty.

C: Spot price isn't moving much. It's actually down two dollars since the last time I looked.

Is it just where I'm at that people are going insane over these things? It would have to be, I think. Otherwise, spot would be at record highs!

What do you guys think?

 

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Well, on the other side of the Mississippi here in Illinois, it's shifted to gold...because most LCS are out of generic silver. Closest LCS just has ASE (including a monster box of 2022 they're sitting on) and some 90% (including a big bucket of Roosies) left. They just sold their last three bars today at $30/ea.

On a side note, I was also told they (the owners) are being charged $14 premiums over spot just to buy more ASE...which is just insane.

 

Well, I'm also from MO. But I don't keep up on things much. I know premiums on silver online have been crazy for quite some time now.
Columbia is the nearest town to me that has a coin shop. I stop in there on occasion. He says he has trouble keeping anything in stock. Gold, silver, good collectible coins, etc.

I've gotten lucky that he had pre-33 gold on a few occasions in the past when I was looking for some, and he didn't hit me as hard on price as any of the online bullion dealers would. Many other times he doesn't have any, and says the precious metals and coins alike are selling as fast as he can track them down.

I haven't paid much attention to the silver market these days, specifically because of the price/crazy premiums.

 

Isn’t Missouri the shown me state? Show me how you can buy at $8.00 over spot and make a profit.

 

I seriously doubt thats actually true, but a great sales line to inflate prices

You can literally go online and buy them at retail for that price

 

I have no idea how the other shops are doing it. I honestly don't. My experience, in my shop, is I pay 16 times face for 90% and sell for 20 times face. Most of the people who sell them to me soil their diapers screaming that I'm robbing them. Most of the people I sell them to soil their diapers screaming that I'm robbing them. I don't even mess with the dollars - $4 is NOT worth the headache. They drop mushroom clouds in their diapers over those things.

No, you CANNOT buy for 8 over spot and make a profit. If it was possible, I would DEFINITELY be doing it. If I offered 8 over spot, people from around world would be bringing me wheelbarrows full of them! lol. However, I am being paid 3 over spot (for Eagles) by another shop, so they have to be getting more than that.

Also true about online. Anything made out of silver is bringing an absolute fortune. Well, on eBay anyway. It's nuts. I've never been able to sell jewelry before. But I can't seem to keep any silver scrap that's not demolished. I dump it on my desk and it's like hungry hungry hippos.

In case you're going to ask, I bought bullion at 90% and sold at 100% from day one. Until the recent craziness. I still do gold and platinum that way.

 

Back on 4/3/22 I mentioned that I usually offer 90% of spot for silver. Other
members seemed to think I was low balling. I’m not a pawn shop, LCS or a bank. Spot was $25 at that time and wandered over $26 for a couple weeks. Now it’s at $22.78.
Since this kind of swing occurs often I’m sticking to 90% of spot for anything I buy. If someone wants more I give them a couple LCS options within 10 miles. They usually call me back.

 

Except that it is true. At least from wherever they’re buying them (I’ll ask today, because I doubt you’ll take my word for it or their word for it.)

The owners actually HATE selling PM right now, because it’s the same conversation over and over and over. The same conversations with people who ask questions and either never let them finish the answer or people who just don’t listen to the answer, so the conversation just keeps looping and looping. Literally watched one of these yesterday. 45 minutes, manager had to leave three times. I feel like I can SEE him developing an ulcer.

Everyone wants silver, seems like half don’t even know why, they are just buying out of fear - and then they get mad when they find out physical silver is different from the spot price they see online.

Yes, you can absolutely find cheaper deals - but you have to at least have an understanding of what you’re doing and know where to look (plus be in the right place at the right time.)

 

They can say whatever they want, thats the retail price for ASEs. They're either just buying them off eBay/retail from a big seller or they're pumping up the number. It's pretty obvious which would be more likely

That part I get. Physical silver is a horrible investment that has huge penalties/premiums both buying and selling but people really want it. It's never really going to do what it needs to to make it worth it.

 

Their quoted price comes from buying them from another STL dealer (one of the Mints authorized dealers) - I believe this smaller LCS cannot buy them directly from the Mint any more.

 

There's no STL authorized purchasers from the mint. The LCS could almost certainly never buy them from the mint. There's 10 companies listed at this time in the USA that can buy bullion.

https://catalog.usmint.gov/coin-programs/bullion-authorized-purchasers.html

People can make their own choices but stories are just stories

 

Spot price is determined by the seller, some are honest some are not, but the good thing you can always shop around

 

.

 

Spot price is based on futures contract trading. A magical, mystical, always changing paper value. Not a precise valuation.
Local availability and demand can cause large premiums for the physical metal.
https://www.jmbullion.com/investing-guide/pricing-payments/spot-prices/

 

Reply to all you guys

Heavy Metal:

I've always offered 90% since day one. If they throw a fit I tell them to kick rocks. If they want to deal with grown adults throwing tantrums like children all day and get a gun stuck in their face every other time they turn around for less than 10% proffit, then more power to them. They can open a shop right next door to mine and I'll quit buying all together - I'll tell everyone that walks in my place to go over to theirs's. And just laugh when I come in one morning and see police tape over their door and them being wheeled out by the coroner. The level of entitlement is INSANE.

stldanceartist:

I know that song and dance very well. Since very early in my career, the only two sounds I hear when a customer comes in is the door opening and the door closing. I don't hear a word any of them say. I've got a rolodex of canned responses in the "autopilot" part of my brain.

baseball21:

No metal of any kind is a good *investment.* Short or long term. You can either make money flipping it or, if you have the resources, you can buy a ton when spot is relatively low and squat on it for a decade or more. In the latter case, there are a zillion other things you could do with that sum of money to make a ton more in the same amount of time.

You can dodge the penalties by not buying from and selling to businesses. Like any casino game, the math is in the house's favor. You can avoid having to be in the right place at the right time by chance: Post on craigslist or somewhere your target audience will be looking that you'll be at a certain location at a certain time. (That's how all those 'hotel buys' that where all the rage a while back worked). If you target the right demographic, they'll show up. Buy at a price you're comfortable with. When it's time to sell them, advertise them on places like FB marketplace. Buyers will come to you. As long as you're not completely obscene with your price, the stuff will sell itself. It takes a little effort (and common sense to stay alive), but money can be made with the stuff.

(I know less than nothing about how the mints work)

Heavymetal again:

That's the most accurate explanation of how spot works I've seen yet! Pure alchemy as far as I can tell! If you told me a magic 8 ball was involved, I wouldn't doubt it. Not that I take it as the gospel, but I look at Kitco for whatever they use as bid for buying and ask for selling. Whether or not it's "spot" on, I still make my 10ish%. Sucks when it takes a nose dive five seconds after I buy it though..

Side note - does anyone remember when Platinum was $500 per troy a little while back for reasons unknown?

 

Does that 10 per cent include shipping in it Too ? 90% silver coins, $11 each for the franklins, $3 each for the 1916-1939 Mercury dimes and $3.50 for the Barber dimes, plus $5 S&H. kind of a to much for me on the dimes as for franklins depends on date and shape or (proofs.)

 

So, I'm definitely late replying to you. My apologies. I haven't shipped any metals since The Nucleo Exchange was a thing. Before it got jankey and went tits up. I've not had the gonads to trust the mail man or the buyer outside of that platform. I've sold tons of video games on amazon over the years, before Amazon went turbo woke, but that's a whole other unrelated story. What happened with those scams, the buyer would pay, wait for a tracking number to be provided, then do a charge back on their credit card. That way, I couldn't do anything about it, and they'd get the game for free. With the video games, I didn't pay jack for them, and I didn't buy any that would sell for more than $30, so the loss was acceptable.

I did want to sell metals through the mail, though. But, even if there where no scams, my ten percent would first get cut down to 7.2% by the card processor, then whatever it cost to actually ship it. Which would be weight, plus extra to send it registered. I had one package of pretty high dollar coins (for me anyway) get stolen from a USPS hub on their way to NGC. I had so much invested in those coins that it almost put me out of business. I had to sell some of my guns, some tools and a few other things just to pay the bills for a few months while I recouped from that loss. Some slimy, sack of garbage government employee not worth the oxygen they suck, but well deserving of being burned alive in front of their entire family, got high as a kite for free for at least a couple of weeks if they knew what they stole. But they probably just traded them to their dealer for half a handful of pain pills and a straw.

Wow, guess I'm still bitter about that, lol.

Anyways, I'd have to charge as much or more than JM Bullion if I did online. And, to be truthful about it, JM Bullion has a pretty good and well known reputation as far as I know - so there isn't any reason to buy metal from anybody else if the price is relatively the same. JM's a safe bet.

 

I don't know if it's just your location, BUT I'd be making that my second job.
Back up the truck for a 10% minimum profit for as long as it holds.

edited to add this topic is at least 3 months old.
Maybe it's better now?

 

I stopped at a coin shop in Wichita Ks last week. Hardly anything on the shelves. They said way more buyers than sellers.
They did have a bucket of 90% they were selling for 20x.

 

Buyers as yourself are seemingly unrealistic about the real market. Here is an ad I placed for years (up to a couple months ago) for raw Pre-1933 Gold coins on Craigslist: "FOUR RANDOM VF-AU RAW INDIAN $5 GOLD <$675/COIN - $2,675
~.97 total ounces of TPG certified authentic details Fine Gold in the 4 coins at a generally believed lesser premium than eBay raw comparable coinage. The coins are sold as raw or AT PRESENT details condition in a TPG holder. The sample image shows a Very-Fine certified condition. I'll guarantee authenticity at a time when counterfeits are commonly offered, sold at a price significantly lower than ligitimately found advertisements.

I can also bring a NGC graded VF/better coin, to show the offered coins have better presentation than the "comp" graded specimen.

The market value of these coins quickly changes, where several buyers requested this "package" ($2675), which I can supply direct or through eBid where I have a ~4 digit "feedback".

N**** B***** is listed as the meeting place, but the place can be changed to suit common convenience between seller and buyer."

Virtually everyone came with a mental image of MS70coins, and expecting key dates, but when they were shown CDN "Greysheets" and eBay comps., they generally left from my distant (a robbery meeting in an urban location, with a squad car within ~100 feet, altered my meetings) meeting location with coins advertised.

I offered several mail order purchase, and full payment return plans.

I'd purchase your 10% U.S. Gold comparable coins!

JMHO