Thinking of trading silver for gold, need advice.

Greetings! I have a small silver hoard (mostly U.S. coins, most 90%, some 40%.) that I recently decided to figure out it's actual pure silver weight (using my 2011 Red Book). It came to 5.10567 troy ounces. That is 90% Dollars, Halves, Quarters, Dimes and 40% Halves and 1 40% quarter (the 1976-S bicentenial.) I did not factor in my war nickels (of which I have 3) or my Canadian 80% silver...mostly because I don't know if someone would take the silver value of the nickels into consideration for trade and because no matter how much I google search Canadian coins, I cannot find the pure silver weight of Canadian coins anywhere.

Anyways, I was looking at the US Mint's website and they list a 1/10 troy ounce cold piece for $210. Well, that is one **** of a premium, considering that 1/10 of the spot price is $160.25. Also, they only offer the 1/10 ozt in a proof format..which jacks the price up even more. I figure my silver I have (that I can actually gauge correctly.) is worth $204.23. So, here are my questions:

1) Do you folks think this is a wise decision? The way I see it I would not be loosing any money or value (if I can avoid the absurd premium.) and I would be shrinking the size of my hoard, giving me room for more. Alas, I am no expert.

2) Is there any way that I can get my hands on a decent gold piece for around spot price that I can trade my silver for? Maybe an older mintage? An old 1/4 eagle maybe? I am really unsure of what to do or to expect. I just know that there is no way that I can trade over $204 in silver for $160 in gold, but pay $210 for said gold.

3) Should I add my war nickels into what my current silver holdings are? I know that they are tougher to refine, but they are silver none the less.

4) Can anyone direct me to a site or something that can show my the actual pure silver weight of my 80% silver Canadian coins? I also have 1 50%er. These really should be added into the final tally, but since I cannot find ANY resource I cannot add them in.

5) This may be a really dumb question, but what is the size of a 1/10 ounce gold eagle? Roughly the size of a dime maybe?

Thank you for any and all insight and opinions. I value them greatly.

 

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I may sound like a broken record to some, but I would not get any gold smaller than 1/4 oz because of the premiums as you said. I actually like 1/4 oz because it's a smaller denomination and more liquid. I just checked APMEX and you will pay 6% more premium for 1/2 oz than 1 oz, but only 2.5% more for 1/4 oz than 1/2 oz.

1) I am waiting for the gold/silver ratio to get near 20:1 before I swap silver into gold. Historically it has been there before, and I think it will be there again one day. As such I am putting my money into silver.

2) I have seen these around at my local coin dealers so I'd imagine if you call around it wouldn't be hard to find. Of course they won't do a straight swap, but rather give you their buy price for the silver and their sell price for the gold.

3) To me war nickels are still junk silver, as are Canadian coins.

4) Chip suggested to me in another thread to check the Krause catalog which lists all the various weights of world coins. You can multiply the weight by the percentage silver to get the pure silver weight. I know Redbook has the actual silver weight listed for US coins, but I'm not sure about the same sort of thing for Canadian coins.

5) 1/4 oz is the size of a penny, so I'd imagine 1/10 oz is pretty darn small.

 

Go to this site for all silver coin prices and conversions
http://www.silverrecyclers.com/

 

My 1/4 ounce gold coins are quite a bit larger than small cents. My 1/10 ounce ones are more along the lines of a dime.

 

Great link! Thanks.

 

Also, http://www.coinflation.com has all the silver melt values for US and Canadian coinage.

I wouldn't swap your silver for gold right now. Gold is at an all time high, and IMO, it's not a good time to buy gold right now. Silver may be a different story, I don't know. Silver's been hard to predict.
That being said, it may be a good time to sell silver. I wouldn't sell it all, but you could sell some since it's fairly high.

With your 40% halves, you'll get under melt. With the war nicks, you'll get even further under melt. Call around, see who offers what. If you don't have a dealer in the area that is offering around 80% of melt for the 40%ers, you could sell on ebay. Also, same with the war nicks. A roll of war nicks sells for about $70 on ebay. Under spot, and there's the fees too, but my dealer is offering around $14/roll for war nicks, so it's still a lot better than that.

 

16.5 mm for 1/10 oz. ($5) & 22 mm for the 1/4 oz. ($10) fractionals.

17.9 mm for dime. 21.2 mm for nickel

 

eBay is definitely the go-to venue for selling war nickels right now. At the last local coin show, the strongest buyer was offering something like $1.34 for a war nickel, or just under $54 a roll; on eBay, rolls listed at $75 BIN go quickly, and sometimes they go for $80 or higher.

 

Are your coins uncirculated? The weights quoted in the Red Book are based on uncirculated coins; worn coins can lose as much as 25% of their total weight. If you take your coins to a Dealer (assuming no Key dates in the lot), the Dealer will simply put your coins on his/her scale and multiply by their "offer rate". The offer rate is a "per ounce" dollar amount which takes into account the current price of silver, the 90% content, and dealer markup.

You can call around to various Dealers to ask what their offer rate is (I don't know if that's what they call it, but they have one). I haven't sold bulk coins to a dealer for some time so these numbers are just an example...

If pure silver is trading at $40/Oz, "coin silver" would be $36/Oz. Assuming a $1/Oz Dealer premium (and that's just a guess), the Dealer may offer you $35/Oz.

You have 5.10567 ounces of pure silver based on the Red Book, that should be about 5.673 ounces on a scale. Based on the offer rate above, you could expect an offer around $195-$200.

I assume your coins aren't uncirculated or you probably wouldn't be considering a bulk PM sale. In that case, you should probably weigh your coins before seeing a dealer. If the scale you use only displays avoirdupois ounces, you'll have to make the conversion to troy ounces...

Troy ounce = 31.1 grams
AV ounce = 28.35 grams.


InfleXion makes a good point, you may want to stick with silver until the price ratio gets back within historical norms.

 

Trade for Platinum. It's a sleeping giant right now.

 

It's a mistake to trade silver for gold. The bid/ask spread will eat you alive. If you want gold, just make it your next purchase. But don't buy a 1/10th ounce coin until you see one in person. You might be very disappointed.

 

I think song sums about up how I feel about trading silver for gold.....

[video=youtube;lyl5DlrsU90]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyl5DlrsU90&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

 

Please......Make it Stop......

 

Hahahaha, should'nt have pushed the button.....

 

had to show my son.....the horrors of the 80s..ok back on topic.
I can't say whether or not trading silver for gold is a good investment idea right now, but I am in the process of selling a bit of my silver so I can buy some numismatic coins that I want. Some of which are silver, copper and gold

 

5 ounces is too small to worry about diversifying, we talking like $200 here.

 

at $14 a roll your dealer is a thief.

 

Cloudsweeper makes a very valid point about the bid/ask spread taking a big bite out of your investment.

I agree, and wouldn't recommend it outright, yet looking at GSR history, there have been fewer better times in recent past to make that trade.

 

I've never seen a dealer weigh junk silver coins,, always so many X of face value.

 

Yeah, I think he just threw out a number. He pays more for 40% Kennedys than anybody within an hour drive of me. He asked how much I was looking for, but I just said we probably wouldn't be able to agree on a price. Too much of a spread between 35 cents/nickel and close to melt.