Best Silver for Speculative Gain

If profit is your motive here, your first step is not to buy at an expensive price. Silver goes up and down a lot, which gives you an opportunity to wait for it to come down before diving in.

Most online dealers pay spot and over spot for bouillon coins--a quick search of any of the major dealers will tell you this--so I wouldn't expect or accept anything less. Many will also pay spot for 90%. But you have to shop around.

 

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That may be true but silver doesn't poop on your floor

 

If you want a silver investement play, you can buy shares in the ishares Silver Exchange traded fund: SLV It takes the silver futures market.

It's an easy way in and out silver investement instead of having to buy and sell hard coins.

 

Junk

You gotta love junk silver.
Maybe the best, not the prettiest, but the nicest deal out there.
Actually I think it is pretty.

 

I agree with your observation.

If your in the US I think the best bang for the silver govt issued coin is the SAE. Hands down. Buy at least in complete rolls so you can aim at a bit better pricing.

A good exercise for anyone is to say go to Kitco or Ampex.... look at the sell price and the BUY price for each coin you are considering. Usually the SAE has the smallest spread btwn buy and sell prices.

MSL

 

How do the costs at Ishares compare to pool costs say at Kitco?


But for quick entry and exit... not holding physical is the way to go...
if your holding short term and just looking to buy low and sell high.

Last year (09) I bought and sold a lot of physical silver... the cost of
shipping (as well as the hassle) cuts into your margins.

Looking back I wish I would have put my silver eggs in say Kitco's pool
account wherein the spread btwn buy and sell is often like a dime or fifteen
cents an ounce. Not bad.

And you can do nearly instantaneous transactions. Another plus to pool.

 

Paying attention to the buy sell price is great. But currently at gold dealer.com, Eagles, Maples, and Philharmonics --the three most common silver bullion coins--all have the same buy sell spread: http://www.golddealer.com/bullionpage.html

And at Apmex it is much the same, depending on what particular format of these three coins you are buying: http://www.apmex.com/APMEXTop40/Default.aspx

So I don't necessarily agree that Eagles are the hands-down best buy. Although I do understand why they have their fans. At both places you would appear to do better with some of the rounds or bars; the Apmex 1 ounce rounds have a $.84 buy sell spread, and the 100 ounce Academy bars $.80.

If you look a little further, it becomes somewhat slippery, particularly at Apmex, whose buy sell prices on their main page apply only to quantities over $10,000: if you go to the pages where the individual coins are sold, the spread starts to widen considerably for small quantities. At Apmex, the buy sell difference for Eagles widens to $1.94 if you are buying fewer than 20. Of course the sell price does go down once you are buying larger quantities, but specific buy prices are not listed. One would assume it's proportional, but that doesn't seem to be entirely clear depending on when I check the site. The same applies to the Maples. So in my opinion it is a little more complicated than just Eagles are the best buy, particularly when their premiums really start to go up which they have been known to do.

 

First off I say go for physical silver. If it's worth having it's worth enjoying, and that means being able to have it on hand. How would you intend to liquidate when you realize your profit? That determines whether you buy rounds, coins, or bars. pre-64 junk silver or ASEs are good choices in my opinion. You get solid bullion with a hint of collectability that I prefer to ingots, rounds, or bars. Store em in an album and pray they tone nice, that will get you a collectors premium over spot. I'd consider doing something like Franklin halves or Roosevelt dimes, there aren't much in the way of key dates so you could do a complete set*sans proofs * for around spot prices and still have a nice collection. Collector prices will ALWAYS exceed base metal content, so try to assemble a collection at spot prices. I'd just buy 90% junk and pick out the nicest examples for a collection, then retain and liquidate the other "junk" silver as you see fit. This is a technique that is more involved, I enjoy silver as a hobby as much as an investment. Perhaps you want to do something simpler. ASEs in the green monster tubes are nice, and a solid investment imho.

 

Not sure, never dealt with kitco. With ishares you'd have whatever you broker charges you ($5 to $10 if you get a discount internet broker) plus the expense ratio.

 

A good exercise for anyone is to say go to Kitco or Ampex.... look at the sell price and the BUY price for each coin you are considering. Usually the SAE has the smallest spread btwn buy and sell prices.

MSL[/QUOTE]

Take a good hard look at the shipping/handling charges on this type of deal as usually that kills the advantages.

 

I agree that the buy/sell spread is an important aspect here especially if you are looking short-term. However, for those in it for the long-term, the SAEs are more recognizable, guaranteed in purity/weight, etc., and if you ever had to sell them to the public, they would likely be more easily sold than a generic round. TC

 

Agreed and well put TopCat. However there are those who do not grasp this concept or don't want to cough up the cash. That's OK and leaves more for us to buy!

 

Nobody can guarantee that anything is the hands-down best buy. But ASEs have one more frequently overlooked possibility. Someday, the Mint will discontinue the series and all of the ASEs in existence will immediately start to accrue at least some numismatic value because demand will continue but supply will be fixed. This might be a small premium, or it might be a fairly large premium. Nobody will know until it happens. This probably won't happen with a silver round. A few old silver bars from the 70s and 80s have some collector value. ASEs have much greater popularity and even more potential.

 

How would that work, would you have to look for dates with low mintages, or collect the W ones? Can anything ever get numismatic premiums if minted in the millions?

 

Morgan and Peace dollar were minted in millions and carry numismatic premiums over melt value. Scarcity is important, but demand is too. Lower mintage years will sell for higher premiums, but my expectations is that all will sell for higher premiums to melt value than they do today -- perhaps substantially.

 

It's headed in that direction with the proofs. There was no 2009 proof made and the 2010 proof may never be made also. So how does this impact the collector who has a complete set including proofs? His proof run ends with 2008. That turned off a lot of people and you can read their letters in old issues of Coin World.
However the 2009 regular strikes sold like hotcakes. This indicates the demand is great.

 

I don't know much about the proofs. They already sell at pretty high premiums to melt [and maybe the uncirculated coins will too someday]. If the proof series has ended, it makes it possible for someone to collect the entire run or assemble multiple sets while knowing in advance exactly what is needed. That might attract some collectors who haven't purchased the proofs up to this point because of the open-ended commitment.

 

Ditto - and they gingle, gingle.

 

When silver prices are low, 40% Kennedy halves are the best. You get the full benefit of increases in silver prices, but have a floor under your investment. Obviously, those days are behind us - but they could come again. Just my take.

Now? I like 90% silver coins, purchased from a bullion dealer, preferably halves and dimes. Then, pick through them and pull out the better dates. You'd be surprised what they miss. They don't take the time to check them all.. at least, my dealer doesn't.

 

For those interested in how the Hunt Brothers tried to manipulate the silver market.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_04/laborde012704.html