When does stacking become collecting?

I must not be a stacker because I would wrap bubble-wrap around the outside of the safe if I hadn't used it all inside.

 

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It's a good point OP, one many do not think enough about. If you are truly investing in pm, it's acceptability and purity you wish to pay for, not collector premium.

The truth is many a stacker really are collectors, and vice versa. I am buying 19th century gold near melt because I like the coins, but also feel buying near melt is giving me a price backstop.

 

Me too.

Rob

 

I think that this is an overly cynical view. At the end of the day the price of silver will be what it is. It is said that a good education costs money and well so do hobbies.

In the short time that I have been collection bullion silver coins I have learnt more about events over the last 30 years and something about economic cycles. I found a need to expand my use of databases to keep track of my collection of bullion silver coins. I'm taking pictures of coins that are getting better and better results. On from there I'm also learning more about US geography with State and Park quarters and figures such as Susan B Anthony, Sacagawea and US Presidents (as a slight aside, have you seen the education program that goes along with these programs?). I have visited both the Philadelphia Mint and Bank of England and look forward to visiting the Denver Mint in May. Pretty much all because I picked up that first Silver Eagle.

It may be overpriced and not ever likely to have a scrap value above melt, but I got quite a lot of added value from it. And actually when you see the prices some of this silver gets on eBay that may not be strictly true.

 

I agree with you and your level-headed approach as well as commitment and what that has returned on your investment, but there are plenty of others who don't come to your same level of involvement and interest in other areas of collecting and monetary history, or who approached PMs from a biased political motivation responding to economies or out of fear of further financial crisis, surround themselves with a group-think mentality about the security that stacking is supposedly providing them, and so on. But within this narrower mindset, some fall victim to advertising and consumerism, as they had to anything else in their lives before they abandoned it for stacking, only to end up replacing their "investing" with consuming things again which masquerade as collectibles, but which are not perceived that way by coin collectors, for example. Now that the precious metals bull market has softened many bullion dealers and mints, who quickly became accustomed to easy profits from high demand are looking for ways to continue capitalizing on their products and business and plenty of people are willing to follow the pipers tune.

 

You may have seen this on the daily show. If like-minded people get together, they will steer further from the center in their beliefs. Apparently, this applies to liberals, conservatives, and people of different nationalities... and I suspect stackers and collectors too, though he doesn't mention them specifically.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/59kpyq/cass-sunstein

 

The youtube videos of people showing off their silver do seem more like collectors... not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

This is me as well. This is good logical advice. But when/if the pm hits big highs again, will be willing to sell without much hesitation.