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Message:: [QUOTE="adric22, post: 1569613, member: 38146"]I thought I would just create a small history of the thought process that has brought me to where I am.  I was completely ignorant of bullion investing up until about a year ago.  I figured if I shared my experience it might help others. <img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk277/adric22/IMG_0590.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> I had been looking for something to invest my money in besides my 401K. I knew I needed to save more money for retirement but if I put it in a bank it usually gets spent eventually.  Even if it didn't, inflation would eat it up over time. Also It seems my 401K has been losing more money than it has been making.  Not only that but it is boring and hard to get excited about investing.  I knew some people that bought antique cars.  But you have to have a lot of space to store those. Plus I don't have that kind of money. But, one day I realized I could buy antique guns.  So I bought some WWII era guns and have had some enjoyment in messing around with those. I figured they were a more fun investment because I could actually admire them while they were in my posession and even shoot them on occasion. But I realized when it came time to sell those guns it would take a lot of time, effort, and research to determine what their value was.  Plus it would be hard to find a buyer willing to pay the correct value. I had a small coin collection that my father had given me a few years back.  I never had much interest in that and I knew selling it would be a major pain for the same reason as the guns.  It would require a lot of research on each coin to determine what the value is.  So I was not interested in coins. Then one day I was looking for something on eBay and accidentally came by a 1-ounce silver bullion bar.  I guess I never realized you could buy bars that small.  I always imagined the giant gold bars you see in movies being stolen out of Fort Knox or something.  So this got me thinking.  Its pure silver.  It is easy to determine the value because it has the weight printed right on it and all I need to know is the current value of an ounce of silver.  So I began to buy various little bars of Silver and also dabbled in some copper, nickel, and titanium.  That is until I realized I'd never get my money back on those due to the huge premium on those base-metal bars.  There was still one thing bothering me, though.  I'm kind of a neat-freak and I wanted to be able to store these bars in a nice, organized way.  But they were all different shapes and sizes.  So I began to look for bars that were designed to be organized in some sort of container.  I realized the Pamp Suisse and a few others would do this, but it was very space-inefficent being the way they stack.  I realized coins would stack nicely inside of those "coin-safe" square tubes.  But I didn't like coins.  One day I decided to pull out that old coin collection my dad gave me and look through it.  I realized there were quite a few "American Silver Eagles" in there.  When I examined them more closely I realized they were actually labeled with "1 troy ounce" just like a bullion bar.  Then I realized that the ASE was essentially what I had wanted all along, it was just bullion and not a "collectible" coin.  Plus, they will fit nicely into storage cointainers.  So I bought some containers and began to buy ASEs.  After a while the ASEs became sort of boring.  I wanted something else.  I could only afford about $100 per month, so Gold and Platinum were pretty much out of the question.  I had become somewhat aware of "junk silver" but I didn't really like it.  I think honestly the main reason is because all of it I had seen so far was tarnished, dirty, and ugly looking.  But I had some of it in my coin collection that i had inherited.  One day I read an article on how to clean that stuff.  I know a lot of people say not to do it, but I realized it was just silver bullion.  So I cleaned it by soaking in acid for a few hours, then using baking soda, water, and a toothbrush.  WOW!  The stuff was shiney and bright looking!  It looked great!  So I began to purchase all kinds of junk silver quarters, dimes, halves, war-nickels, etc.  As soon as I receive them, I clean them.  I bought little coin-safe containers for each one.  I used my label maker to make nice looking labels explaining what was in each tube.  After a while I started to re-think my 401K situation.  I made a decision to cut my 401K from 6% to 3%.  Partly because my company doesn't match the full 6% anyway, I think it is around 3%.  So I am taking that 3% and having it deposited into a separate bank account.  I have that linked to my paypal account.  So every time money is deposited into that account, I go on eBay and look for good deals on bullion. So now I'm spending about $200 per month on bullion.  Still not enough to consider Gold or Platinum.  But I've been able to expand into other interesting coins such as old German silver coins and Eisenhower 40% coins.  So here's how I am working things now.  My goal is to fill up all of the tubes of different types of coins.  Some are already full.  So I don't buy any more of those for now.  When I fill up a new tube, I will move on to another type of bullion coin.  I don't buy any bullion coin unless I plan to put it in a tube and fill that tube up with identical coins.  So when I'm all done I'll have at least 1 full tube of each type of coin.  So the point is that investing has now become fun for me.  Where before it was not.  [/QUOTE]

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