ok....opinion time

Hi, Christie! Welcome to the neighborhood!

There is nothing wrong with collecting silver, but from a numismatic standpoint, collect them because you like them, not as an investment.

The Franklin half dollars are a great set to collect in uncirculated condition. They were produced from 1948-1963, and really aren't that expensive.

Chris

 

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Same goes... if you wish to collect coins, the first step is to discover what interests you the most. You could build off of what your grandfather gave you, or perhaps take a completely different route. I obviously am not sure where you are with this budding interest, but the below links are for a number of free online books that may be of some help to you. Ask questions and take it slow. Welcome to the forum.

https://www.davidlawrence.com/books/

http://www.pcgs.com/books/

 

To be perfectly honest, I can't answer that. I haven't bought anything in quite a long time since I was forced into Social Insecurity. I was buying most of my silver in MS Morgans and 100-200 year old medals when silver was at $5-6.

Chris

 

I actually just read an article that may help you. Here is the link -http://www.coinweek.com/bullion-report/collecting-strategies-modern-world-silver-bullion-coins/
In my opinion I would go with silver eagles because they are still minted from a government so they are at least semi numismatic (are desired by some people by being a coin as opposed to a silver round) , but they do not have a the high premiums that are seen on coins such as the Mexican libertarians and the ones from the Perth mint

 

Just curious. Have any of you precious metals investors gone the ETF route? Why or why not? That's what I did during the last gold rush, fortunately and by luck selling out high. All I had to do was call my investment guy to buy and then to sell. I used the SPDR Gold ETF.

Let it fly, guys. I want to learn something.

 

Your objectives sound like mine. You want the investment, but you also like to look at them. Down my road, I have steered back to eagles on almost everything. I say that because the market for them is about the most transparent of any product other than plain bullion.

That being said, the platinum eagle market is a real stink hole right now. So beware there. Otherwise, gold and silver eagles are always pleasant to look at, and easily priced on the buy and sell side.

I dabbled in SLV when silver was riding a rocket to $50. That's the one time I did pretty well in an ETF. In when silver was $30, out around $44. The day silver jumped up around 8% and SLV didn't budge due to some fat cat demolishing the options on it, I bailed out. Not a perfect market.

I wouldn't touch any of the ETFs right now. It's all fun and games until the metals blow off double digit percentages in a few days. I got a sick feeling we're gonna see that in the near future. As soon as my option expires on GDX, I think I'm headed for the exit.

 

Thinking I going to get me a couple of the Silver Eagles to start......MS...PF....69 or 70?

 

My advice, and others will differ: Do not buy graded silver eagles. They are bullion coins, a convenient way to own an ounce of silver. Proof eagles are a collectible and not a silver investment.

 

Heck, you can buy graded ASE's, just don't expect them to appreciate in value down the road, as most folks consider them bullion.

 

I'm not a fan of graded coins. Good rule of thumb I learned from my dad's failure was that if someone is getting paid to call you on the phone to talk about them, or they can afford to run TV ads, it's likely that you're going to start off quite a ways in the hole and struggle to find someone that is going to give you the graded value some time down the road.

Plain uncirculated eagles (heck even the "dates our choice" too) are darn pleasing to look at. I've got 8 random year eagles between gold and platinum, and they all look like they've never been touched.

 

Oh yeah, except I went short on both the Gold and Silver ETF's back in the crazy days.

 

So,
I made my first purchase today. Some were for my investment purpose....some were because I like the look of them and another was just because I felt I needed some. I purchased three 1oz. silver bars for my investment purpose.....I purchased a 1 gram bar of Gold....(wasn't in the budget for an ounce at this time, but felt like I needed to get started with some gold)...and I bought (I know...I know , they are worthless, but I really like the look of them) several copper bars/rounds. They were VERY heap and I think they loos absolutely beautiful. I also picked up a couple coins (2013 (W) American Eagle Silver Dollar - NGC MS 70....and a 1974 S 50C Kennedy Half Dollar Proof PCGS PR69DCAM) All in all I am very happy with my purchases...and the funny thing, I think I covered most of the opinions and suggestions.....lol. Thank You for all of your input.

 

Recently, I decided to get a little mix. I bought 100 Silver Eagles and $100 face value of 90% silver coins. I tried to get a good mix of coins, with about equal parts of dimes, quarter and halves. In the dimes, I tried to get Mercs as cheap as junk Roosevelts, which I was able to do with some patience. Then my quarters are mostly Washington's with some lower grade SLQ's. Then in halves, I wanted mostly Walkers. I was able to score 2 rolls of XF-AU's for little to no premium.