Ok, I need to know where to start. I'm wanting to get, and start a small supply of silver coin (pre-'65?). http://cgi.ebay.com/WHOLESALE-LOT-2...goryZ525QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem But without knowing squat about buying coins for their silver, i'm a bit hesitant. Anybody wanna help me out? Thanks in advance Ryan
There are a bunch of good folks here who can help you out.... Learn as much as you can on the web by doing searches on 90% Silver coins... learn about $1000 bags and how many ounces of silver are in them and why... focus on why some say 715 ounces of silver in a bag versus 725 ounces.... Here's a basic link http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/90circulated.html Then make sure you understand weights and measurements as there are some who will get confused on Troy ounces .... 12 vs. Avoir (Avoirdupois) 16 ounces per pound... makes a difference when a seller is listing a great deal but dividing current prices and doing "funky math" by 16 as opposed to 12... Here's a couple converters... http://www.sciencelab.com/data/conversions/weight.shtml http://www.healthdiscovery.net/Weight_Conversion.htm Check out some of the sellers online... big and small... http://www.apmex.com/shop/buy/90_and_40_Silver_Coins.asp?orderid=0 http://www.tulving.com/ This will give you an idea of how much they are selling and buying their silver for.... some you have to buy in larger lots and some you can buy in small amounts... Make sure to also look for the reliability and reputation of folks.... Here's some links to watch the market prices that dealers and others may or will quote.... http://www.netdania.com/QuoteList.asp http://www.kitco.com/market/ Finally get out there and buy a little bit.... ask around and see where there are some reputable sellers.... check out the coin shops, swap meets, etc.... I know some folks who started with just a handful and realized it felt different, sounded different and then intuitively realized the difference between real money in your hands and... well.... the "other" stuff.... Sorry this is such an abreviated post... there's lots to share.... listen to advice folks give and then make sure you decide for yourself.... after a while... all the formulas and your common sense will become second nature and you'll be well on your way to securing what you want... Hope that helps to get started.... ask questions as they come up.... many here will help you out with good advice .... but remember... in the end you decide for yourself.... Precious Metals, Commodities and Currencies are a wild ride... Make sure you know why you are doing this.... it will help you hold on to your sanity.... Bear
The item in your link is already "auction over" but IF it was anything like the "AT LEAST A 50 DOLLAR VALUE.....BUY NOW 24.99", that is crap if you are looking simply for bullion coins for the silver value. This seller is hoping to get some new collectors who have no idea what the COLLECTOR value of the coins are ( really, does anybody really know ? ) to buy his little pots. IF you simply want pre-65 silver coins ( dimes, quarters, halves ) simply for the silver value, which is the ONLY way to go if you ask me, look for auctions that sell simply on the FACE amount of the coins.....like "One $10 roll of pre-65 quarters" ( 40 quarters ), or " One lot of $23.50 of dimes, quarters and halves"....that is a FACE VALUE auction. Take the face amount, and multiply times .715 This is the commonly accepted amount of silver in well circulated silver coin. Dimes, quarters, halves had .7235 oz of silver per dollar face ( like 10 dimes ) WHEN NEW.....but most dealers sell on .715 to account for average wear. Silver dollars had .7725 oz NEW by the way, if you run into some of them. Example.....a roll of quarters ( 40 quarters ) = $10 FACE amount 10 x .715 = 7.15 oz of silver in the 40 quarters. Say today you look up at the Kitco spot price in the corner there, and see silver at 13.50. Multiply 7.15 x 13.50 and the silver value of $10 in silver coin is 96.53 Federal Reserve Notes ( they are not "dollars" and I do not refer to them as such.....they are FRNs.....paper fiat backed by nothing..if you see me use a $ sign, I actually MEAN A DOLLAR.....which by the coinage act of 1792 is 371.25 grains of fine silver ) IF you went to a local dealer, they would likely add 10-50 cents per ounce to the spot price, so you would expect to pay a bit over that 96.53 FRN amount to buy these coins.......so you would NOT want to bid over 97-99 FRNs on Ebay, especially considering you will be paying shipping on top of that. I have bought a small amount on ebay..$17 here, $40 there......personally, I think it's more work than it's worth, but I did it just for an experiment......and never paid above spot INCLUDING shipping. I used a program called Bidnapper to get my bids right in at the last second, which I'm sure won me most of the coin I bought. My personal feeling is if you play on ebay long enough, you're gonna get burned from some fraudster, and raise the average prices you've paid for other silver. ( in addition to your blood pressure....)....couple of my "wins" I was starting to wonder if they would ever come.....but finally did. If you DO go the Ebay route, make SURE your seller has a bunch of feedback, and no negative ones in the last 6mo to a year. As the price of silver gets higher, more fraudsters will be coming out of the woodwork, for sure. I would rather simply order from an online dealer, or local dealer if you have one, know the total price up front and feel fairly confident they won't burn me. I have a local dealer that will sell at 10 cents over spot, no tax if I pay cash FRNs. IF you plan to buy a whole bag, or more, www.Tulving.com is probably the best source....they routinely sell bags at 10 cents or so under spot and include shipping ( a bag weighs about 56 lbs ! ) Stick to either US pre-65 coin, silver generic ( from many mints ) 1 oz rounds, or US Silver eagles.....in that order IMHO. The premium you will pay over silver spot price will go up in that order.....and when it comes down to the bottom line, silver will sell for the price of silver.....whatever premium you paid will be history, as a rule.
Good advice. I have a feeling that these three brick and mortar stores near you are close enough to each other to be competitve, if not honest. I use the same number Andy does but in reverse. SPOT X .715 = Price per $1 FACE. So today with SPOT at 13.51, I'd do 13.51 X .715 = 9.66 9.66 X FACE = FRNs. SO a $10 (face) bag would be worth 96.60. Savvy shopping will get you slightly over or slightly under this ammount. But it's very important to know that number. Guys like Andy claim to always pay under SPOT and that is probably true. I don't get so particular when I'm buying smaller lots. And the % over spot will usally go down as the purchase gets larger. Feel free to ask anything you want about this. Some of us here are into this stuff fairly seriously. If you are looking to spend 100 FRNs, you can expect to get a roll of pre-65 (90%) Quarters... Which amazes me everytime I do it that some poor sucka is still willing to trade me paper for metal. Do it while you can lol
Thanks guys. Those formulas were exactly what I was looking for. I'm really just wanting to start small, and build over time. I'll have to keep my eye out at some estate sales and flea markets around town. Ryan
Another thing about Ebay.....I think a LOT of these sellers make a fair amount of money on the 'shipping and handling'......that is why you see lots of small face amount sales......like roll of dimes, or $5 in halves......and if you get to looking down the pages, the same seller will have 12 different auctions of this size going.....they pick up a buck or two on the shipping, and that ends up putting them over spot by 10% or so......then they turn around and order a full bag from a dealer for couple percent under spot, and cook up another story about how "they bought an estate sale" or "my grandfather left me all these coins".....blah, blah, blah.....if Grandpa REALLY left them a bucket of coins, WHY NOT JUST PUT THE WHOLE DAMN BUCKET ON AUCTION ??? Oh, yeah.....now I remember.....it's just what said it was....ahahahahaaaaa AND another way these turkeys are picking up on free money.....notice a lot of the auctions have REALLY SAD WORN COINS ? And the rolls often say NOTHING about the condition other than they have 40 quarters or 50 dimes or whatever. Let me tell ya'll how dealers sell a "bag" of junk silver coin.....a full $1000 bag....they don't COUNT the fricking coins.....they do it by weight. On a real sensitive scale, they weigh out enough coins to equal 715 troy ounces of silver.....now that may be EXCACTLY 4000 quarters, but most likely it IS NOT. Since many of the coins are worn ( heck, even have holes drilled in them where someone wore it for a necklace or a charm bracelet ), you will most likely get well over 4000 in a bag....like 4025 or 4032 or whatever....even MORE so with dimes. With me so far ? So, these ebay turkeys are going thru the bags....taking OUT the fairly uncirculated coins with little wear ( say 1955 and up ) and selling the really trashy, worn stuff on eBay. Do this enough, and you'll end up with a "$1000" face bag of quarters that only has 3,989 quarters.....the number of quarters it takes to make 715 ounces of silver. So they pick up 11 quarters that way, and say 20-30 from the overage in the bag containing worn quarters, and gain 30-40 quarters on a bag.....nearly 100 FRNs per bag. They ALSO turn around and hype those more uncirculated coins as "collector" coins in other auctions and pick up a few hundred more. THEN there are the turkeys like this one http://cgi.ebay.com/1000-90-SILVER-U-S-COINS-GOLD-SEATED-BARBER_W0QQitemZ170075483011QQihZ007QQcategoryZ525QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ???? 1000 US silver coins could be anything !.......you can bet the farm MOST of them will be dimes ! Right now, the current bid is FRN 1630 Say the mix has 800 dimes.....that's 58 oz silver roughly Say there are 150 quarters.....that's 26 more oz Say there are 40 halves.......... that's 14 more Then 9 silver dollars..............about 7 more and that one 1/10 gold pc 58+26+14+7= 105 oz, at 13.50 spot = FRN 1418 + 70 bucks for the gold pc is a total under 1500 FRNs......and current bid is 1630....it will probably close out another 30-40 over that. Then the guy is charging 30 for shipping.....heck, it only costs 25 to ship a FULL BAG,( and Tulving.com INCLUDE EVEN THAT IN THEIR PRICE ) so he is picking up 10 more bucks there..... IF the mix is even as GOOD as I'm guessing ( and it may well NOT be ), the buyer is going to end up paying about 2 bucks OVER spot for this deal.....heck, you can buy brand new Silver Eagles and not pay THAT much over spot ! THIS is another reason I don't like dealing with Ebay.....biggest collection of liars and con men in the world gather there.
1750 !.........ahahahaaa....those people are Sooooo screwed....ahahahaaa... Well, maybe not.....if silver hits anywhere what I think it will, the fact you paid 3-4 FRNs over spot isn't going to be a BIG deal.....but dang if it doesn't bite in the mean time......ahahahaaa
Well, guess I need to report that I managed to win 2 flea-bay auctions. The total face value is $10 and I paid about a $1 under spot for each auction (including the shipping charges). So, I guess I'm starting down the slippery slope, but then again, I've been sliding down it since starting to prepare for the worst Ryan Edited to add: Andy, that auction that was listed above, went for 1,947.22 plus $30 S&H!!
