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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 2195196, member: 27832&quot;]You&#039;ll <i>always</i> pay more getting one or two at a time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Think about the <b>seller&#039;s expenses</b>. There&#039;s a flat fee for PayPal transactions on top of the percentage, and if they&#039;re a large seller, there may be a per-auction fee as well. Most importantly, though, there&#039;s shipping, which costs about the same whether you&#039;re sending one or four. If you go up to a flat-rate box (a bit more than twice the price of a padded first-class envelope), it&#039;s the same price to ship a couple of <i>rolls</i> of coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>You say &quot;8.90 is the cheapest price I can find for a silver half.&quot; This makes me think that you&#039;re looking at Buy It Now listings, not completed auctions. Better prices do appear as BIN listings, but they get snapped up quickly. The ones you see when you search are the ones that <i>haven&#039;t</i> sold yet; most of those haven&#039;t sold because they&#039;re priced too high.</p><p><br /></p><p>(Edit to add: <b>Silver halves typically command an additional premium anyhow.</b> Kennedy halves are rarely worn, meaning they still hold their full weight of silver. Franklins also tend to be less worn, and are still popular among people trying to complete sets. Walkers can be more worn, but people like the design. Barbers and earlier issues start to increase in collectible value even when heavily worn. This actually means they were a <i>better</i> investment when high silver melt values erased that premium. Now, it arguably means they&#039;re a <i>poorer</i> investment -- if silver goes up, that premium again disappears; if it goes down, you might fare better with Mercury dimes that still don&#039;t carry much of a premium, but likely would if melt value drops much further. All IMHO, of course.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Search &quot;Sold items&quot;, and you&#039;ll see that quite a few single silver halves have sold for $7.00 or less. Again, though, you&#039;re never going to get ahead buying or selling them that way. If you save your money, even just long enough to be able to buy three or four at a time, you&#039;ll do much, much better.</p><p><br /></p><p>If I wanted to sell you a Franklin half for $7.00 on eBay, I&#039;d be paying eBay 70 cents, and PayPal 50 cents; that means I&#039;m getting $5.80, already close to melt. Now, how shall I ship it? If I try putting it in an envelope with a first-class stamp, I&#039;m already below melt, and there&#039;s a good chance it&#039;ll be damaged or fall out of the envelope before it reaches you. If I send it in a padded envelope, that&#039;s over $2 in postage, and I&#039;m down to something like $3.50 in my pocket. I think you can see why I don&#039;t want to sell at that price. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>My best advice to you, again, is to <b>save your money</b> until you can afford to buy more at a time. Or <b>go to a local coin show</b>, where low overhead means lower spread; at recent shows around here, it&#039;s typical to see people buying at 11-12x FV and selling at 13.5 FV and up.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or, of course, you could go hunting at banks and CoinStar machines. You&#039;ll spend more time, but you&#039;ll almost never lose money, and anything you do find is at face value (or free from the reject slot).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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