Whats the best way to buy silver bullion?

90% silver halves generally sell at a discount to spot price, definitely much cheaper than buying ASE's or Maples. And I'm talking Almost Uncirculated coins. Only down side is that they are 90% and not .999 fine and you will likely not get nearly as much selling, as you would have selling your ASE's. "buy with a premium, sell with a premium" Both have benefits.

 

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I would buy Mexican bullion. In my opine they are the best.

 

I am starting to get into the silver coins and ASE's but my favorites seem to fall into the art bars - president, american scenes, historic events, etc just seem to grab me. I can usually get them off ebay for a couple bucks over spot, I've even seen a Coca Cola 75th anniv go for double spot though.

 

With ASE's and Maple Leaf's you can't go wrong.

 

I like the ASEs and Mexican Libertads (like Ripley), but most of my silver is Kennedys. I'm not buying right now, just holding.

 

I started out buying ASEs and Maples, but have since moved to private mint rounds like Buffalos due to the lower premiums: http://www.providentmetals.com/1-oz-999-fine-silver-rounds-buffalo-design.html

I'm in full blown accumulation mode right now and I'm looking for the greatest quantity of ounces for my dollar. A $10K investment will get me 17 more Buffalos than ASEs at Provident Metals. And I've got serious doubts that I'll be able to recoup the value of those 17 ounces in the future based on some anticipated premium for the Eagles. Just make sure to buy coins that are easily recognized. I usually pass on the "Merry X-Mas 1989" rounds at my coin shop that are selling for the same price as the Buffalos. I've also been told to stay away from the Chinese Pandas because they are counterfeited at a higher rate than other coins. Confidence is everyhting when it comes to money, whether it's paper or metal.

 

Agreed… I hate to say, I stay from Chinese stuff altogether, because of that problem. Once bitten twice shy.

 

If you're talking actual bullion (.999+) silver, I'd opt for the 1.5 Euro pieces. They basically sell at spot.

I personally buy foreign silver (of one North American country and one non-NA country) for my coin silver fix. Many times you can still get both at significant discounts to spot.

 

I suppose the definition of 'best' is open to interpretation, but to me it means affordable, good resale value and ease of sale, high purity, and coming from a reputable manufacturer.

I would go for higher weight than the 1 oz because you pay more of a premium for them, although 1 oz'ers can be good for collectibility and smaller values of exchange (junk silver even smaller), but not from a melt standpoint. Were I going strictly for monetary gain I would get 100 oz bars, but 10 oz bars would be easier to sell if you were dealing with the average Joe. APMEX and Northwest Territorial Mint are two of the reputable shops in the US that I like. They both have higher premiums on the web than some others, but if you buy over the phone I know NWTM will give you increasingly better discounts for larger purchases. This is probably not uncommon. Otherwise I like coin shows because you can usually shop around for good deals. I also love the Canadian coins and their .9999% purity where as ASE's are .9993% and many others are .9990%, but that probably won't make a big difference to most people.

 

I also like silver art bars. It makes buying silver fun IMO. I am more into collecting the very rare (and very expensive) silver art bars especially ones that have mintage numbers of 500 or lower.

It is the norm for 1-oz Coca-Cola 75th anniversary silver art bars to sell at high premiums over spot on ebay because 1.) It is Coca-Cola and 2.) Quite a few of them are rare. There are a select few that will sell for $100's over spot. If you can find a Coca-Cola silver art bar locally at a coin show or at a local dealer, then that might be the best route to take if you want to buy one and pay only .999 generic silver premium for one. Keep in mind that it will be easier said than done because based on my experience, the Coca-Cola silver art bar cities are hard to find locally. Most of them are found on ebay for a collector's premium.

 

Here it is in a nutshell and I hope I don't say what someone else already said but here goes. Buy American Silver Eagles, ungraded and unwanted in the hopes that you get a good deal!! That said, I only have a couple because I have other smaller collections of silver that I happened upon more than started. The bottom line is any silver you get at a killer price, grab it and don't slab it!!

 

Put me in the Morgan and Peace dollar camp. You can buy average circulated, or even close to BU in some of the most common dates for very close to melt with maybe a tiny premium(I've got a local dealer who sells them to me at less than $1 over melt).

Add to that the fact that they are legal tender, have some numismatic interest factor, if not outright value and for me it's a no brainer.

The other way to play these is to go to your local coin dealers and buy some of the more scarce dates/mm, or BU coins for which the premium hasn't caught up with the recent runup in silver.

What I mean by that is that you can still find a lot of BU coins that were selling for around $30 when your average circulated were selling for $15-20 last year, today they are still priced at around $30. So now you're getting BU coins at close to melt. To me that's another no-brainer. Snap 'em up while you can.