Buying silver, where to start

Yup!

 

What a ride!... good thing I'm not an investor... :0)

 

One way I buy recently is with an ad in the "Wanted" section of Craigslist offering a multiple of the face value for pre '65 dollars, halves, quarters, dimes and '43-'45 nickels.

This page U.S. Silver Coin Melt Value Calculator - Coinflation.com is a good way to determine what multiplier of face value you wish to use. What I do is put in for the value of one dime (don't use silver dollars because they have a higher silver content compared to their face value...same with the nickels). Currently (with oz price at $28.56) a single dime is worth $2.07...or 20.7 times it's face value. My current Craigslist ad offers 17X face value and gets me a call about a couple of times a month from someone with generally between $5 and $10 face value. When the spot rate goes up enough, I add to the multiplier...when it goes down I drop the multiplier. Just FYI...at current prices a "war nickel" is actually worth about 32X face value and a silver dollar about 22X...I always consider any of them thrown in what I buy to be a bonus.

 

Alrighty. I just bought 19 1 oz coins for $4.00 over spot from a private collection (thank you Craigslist) and bought another 10 from eBay @ $3.40 over spot (free shipping). Soooo...that is 29 oz of .999 1 oz silver rounds, now to work on my junk silver collection. About what in FV would any of you recommend for a decent start?

 

OK $100-200.00 face for barter, that is what the "junk" is for. The rounds/bar is for investment/hedge against inflation. Also, I have a full set-up, minus the nitric acid, for which I have a ready source, to refine sterling into .999 silver ingots. There is a company, I am sure there are more than one, that will test, certify and stamp your raw ingots into rounds or bars (for a cost of course). Sterling is readily available for low cost per oz. from places like garage sales, estate sales, etc. Current price per oz. melt value for sterling is: $26.26/Troy oz. (based on current spot of $28.92). I am pricing sterling out at approximately $3.00 ($23.00/troy oz) or more below spot, buying in small lots. Once it is refined, I will lose a small quantity of non-silver, but in the end, with increasing prices, even factoring out my labor/materials, I am making a profit on the sterling.

 

Do you think that this would be the same in the UK?

I will take notice of this!

Finally, an answere that i have been looking for!
Cheers Melbo,

I have been racking my brains (not much there) to try to figure out, if a collectable oz of silver at the present time, would be worth more than WTSHTF....
At the moment i think that RUSH 81 is already far in front of me as ive only amounted a small amount of silver, and i want to go onto coins, but wasnt going to pay a high premium just because at the present time its collectable, because WTSHTF it will still only be measured in weight value....wont it?
Have i got that right?

I will certainly be keeping an eye out for silver. Gold is way out of my reach now more than ever...
CHEERS to RUSH 81 for bringing this thread to us all
and CHEERS to all who have replied with their valuable knowledge
Anything anyone else can add i would really appreciate it!,

 

I got quite a kick looking at this post from the original post to the end. Sheesh, $16.95/oz silver?? If we'd known it was gonna be $28.72 today, wouldn't we all have loaded up the truck??

Still, seems like it's gonna be easier for silver to go up 165% again (that'd be up to $47.39 for those math challenged folks) than for gold to go up to $2259 (it's at ~$1369 today).

Kajun

 

10 years ago, silver was in the sub-5buck range. I was buying generic rounds at the time, and would watch for it to go back under 5 before I bought.....just playing. THEN I got serious a short while later, closed out my IRA's, paid the penalties/taxes and "loaded the truck".....at about 6 bucks average.....because I had a good idea this was going to happen.

AND I can say right now, in 10 more years, assuming the dollar is still around to value it, silver will be in the triple digit range. So anyone looking at it today is EXACTLY where I was 10 years ago....looking at a 5x increase or more without a doubt.

Buy all you can stand, and squirrel it away. Same advice I gave 10 years ago.

 

In addition to the "COINFLATION" site mentioned in post #46 above,
Tulving's site here: GOLD, PLATINUM, PALLADIUM AND SILVER BULLION COINS FOR SALE gives you their prices for larger quantities.

I've found it to be a good marker for seeing who the honest dealers are.

Ebay has worked for both buy and sell too.

Even though they is heavier due to the copper, pre 65 coins are my favorite.

 

So glad you asked about this! I logged in to try to get this information as I have just come into a small inheritance and thought I should try to get some silver (gold being totally out of my reach) but didn't have a clue of the where and how. Also complicated by the fact that I live in rural Canada. Not even sure if I should do it or not....I am elderly, is there any point at my stage in life? I have many questions so hope I get some answers here.

 

Silver dropped to $30.03 on Friday, now is a REALLY good time to buy if you can find any bars or Morgan's.

 

I just KNOW this is going to be a dumb question to all you knowledgeable (mostly male, it seems) PM "savers" on the site. I only have about $1000 to spare at the moment, to buy some junk silver - from the reading I have done so far, I was going for coins. However, I live in Canada and when the SHTF Canada is where I will be....now, what is my situation with regarding to using coins for barter etc., if the coins are AMERICAN? I see very little in the way of pre-65 coins for sale (or any other for that matter) so was thinking I'd go for American. To my way of thinking silver is silver and its the PM that counts, not the country of origin in our emergency scenario. Is this correct thinking or not?

Also, any Canucks on the site who have found a good reliable place to buy junk silver? There are no coin dealers anywhere up here in the wilds so I will probably be forced to buy online. Any advice anybody can give me would be most appreciated....I am finding that on these survivalist sites no one bothers to answer the questions of little old ladies. Why? Please prove me wrong!

 

weegranny, you might want to check out kitco dot com and the forums there. They have quite a few Canuck stackers there that can prolly answer your questions easily.

Kajun

 

Thanks, folks, your input is much appreciated! I will check out the sites immediately....I have such a sense of urgency these days, I feel it wont be long till all our worst nightmares become reality. And I don't have anything like the supplies I feel I need. Food is easily come buy, for storage, but I am having difficulty with tech. stuff, like lighting, communication etc. I am hindered by the fact that I am living with my son and two adult grandsons, only one of whom shows any interest at all in my preparations. My daughter who shared all this with me and was really involved in it all, died a few weeks ago (cancer) so as well as being deeply in grief, as I said before I do have this weird sense of urgency to speed up my preps.....I hadn't thought about getting any PMs but my reading lately has convinced me that it should be a part of our preparations.

BTW, you folks who might have been buying food in bulk - can you believe the cost of shipping! I bet a lot of people who would like to prepare, just can't get any of the freeze dried stuff etc. because of that. If it ain't one thing, it's another, eh! I'm a Scot, emigrated years ago to Canada, but my Scots blood still hates to part with money for things like S/H - it is usually a rip off, in my opinion anyway.

Sheesh, how did I get started on this rant?

Thanks again for your help!

 

Go get 'em Granny! Right now is a good time to buy. If you get some silver and the price drops a few dollars, don't worry about it. It WILL go back up- just a matter of time.

A few of the coin dealers in my area see this as a transitory drop, and only offer the junk or generic silver rounds for sale at the moment. I know they have some other stuff, they just don't want to sell it at these prices when they bought it for ten or so dollars more.