Anyone buy silver as investment?

digi-shots

digi-shots

SWCA Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
Messages
1,774
Reaction score
4,046
Location
Virginia
Just wondered if any of our members here buy Silver (bars) as an investment?

I know prices have skyrocketed over the years. I don't even know what the current prices are.
 
Register to hide this ad
Right now, @ $14.70 a troy ounce. :eek:

Dad-burn it! :mad:
I knew I should have picked up a boat load of it when it was $6.50- but I thought it was high then! :rolleyes:

Oh well. I'll just get some Kennedy silver clad half dollars for fifty cents...they're worth well over two bucks now.

Heck, 95% copper pennies aren't so bad an investment either.
Right now, their "melt value" is 93 cents a roll!

Buy low, sell high, right?
It's definitely high now, question is, will it go higher?
If it hits $20 again, I'm selling quick- not going to get too greedy.
 
Last edited:
Silver and gold are both interesting investments. In small quantities, and if you know what you're doing. The last sentence means never, ever buy from the advertisements in newspapers, on line, etc. There is money to be made, and those pushing the metals are often the only ones doing it.

If you want to buy silver, your best bet may not be silver bars. Consider some of the other, more reasonably priced items as well. American silver coins can sometimes be found at real bargains. And they're at least as negotiable as the bars, and in smaller units. In today's marketplace, learn about silverware. Coin silver is .900 silver and .100 junk. Sterling, like is in your mothers good silver, is .925 silver with the rest junk. go find kitco.com for current prices per ounce. And learn the difference between troy ounces and the Post Offices ounce (as is measured on your postage scale. ) Hint: Both have 7000 grains per pound.

Like investing in anything else, you'll be competing against people who are in the game for a profit. They won't all be nice to you, and they won't all point out your errors.

Our best purchases over the last 10 or so years were forks and spoons marked Sterling at yard sales. My wife is a hawk for the buckets and piles of eating utensils. Most cost 25 cents each and often contain about $10 worth of silver. If we have another run like the Hunt brothers started in late '79 and early '80, they'll be worth even more.

Estate sales often have silver services. Sometimes even holloware items like candle holders, platters and such. Often cheap given spot price for silver. Antique shows may not be your best bet because they're filled with smart folks who know the deal. Flea markets sometimes have bargains, but you've got to know the issues.
 
I buy silver in the form of mining shares or the new ETF, SIL. Stuff is too bulky and hard to move to keep physical silver around. Gold is different.
 
Yours truly lost his ass buying on margin in the early 80s. I had just got married and serious but not educated on investing. I belive I lost between 15K to 20K. Its strange I still am alive.
 
I have been in and out several times over the past 30 years, never to the positive. Good thing I like coins for reasons other than metallic value.

Last Summer I thought I had finally timed it right. Bought a bunch in July, right before the mortgage meltdown hit Wall Street. Stocks were plummeting, AIG and bank failures, weak dollar, shaky political landscape, etc. These were the days Howard Ruff has been warning us about since 1975. No way it's not going up, up and away....

oooops. Back to $9.00. If precious metals ever had a more perfect storm to rise significantly I don't know when that was. Sad fact is metals are no longer the crisis investment. There are just too many quick buck alternatives competing for the same doomsday. Digital cameras long ago squashed industrial demand for silver.

Having said all that, I'll probably buy some more! Which can only mean you should probably get out, since I've never been right.
 
If I find silver, such as coins (found some real silverware) I put it by itself in a jar and when it gets to be a decent amount, I bring it to a local shop that buys silver from me. I do the same with spent brass, when I get a 5 gallon pail full, I bring it to the local scrapyard.
 
I've got some around. I buy a little when it's cheap, and sell some when it's high. I learned a valuable lesson (along with my Dad) in the late '70s. Dad was buying some on the way up, and I put in $50 along with him. When it hit $50/oz, I wanted to sell, but Dad didn't. Of course, it soon plummeted. :( I bought some in the late 90s under $5/oz and sold it last year for $13/oz. Was it worth it? Well, on a 12 year average, that's not any better than the stock market, and just as volatile. Do I still mess with it? Yes, but I certainly don't put all my eggs in one basket. ;)
 
rburg said:
And learn the difference between troy ounces and the Post Offices ounce (as is measured on your postage scale. ) Hint: Both have 7000 grains per pound.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Dick, but they're not. 7000 grains = 1 pound avoirdupois = 1.215278 pounds Troy

And don't buy 1000 ounces of silver in 100 ounce bars - it takes up too much room in the safe, and there's still not much profit even if you bought it at $6 an ounce. :( Gold, Platinum, and Rhodium are much more compact. Rhodium was down to about $1000 per ounce a few months back (from a high of $10,000 an ounce a few years ago). It's an industrial metal, and as the economy improves, it should go back up (maybe not to the previous high) unless somebody finds a cheap alternative to one of its big end uses, just like digital cameras did to silver-based film.

Buck
 
Andy Griffith said:
Right now, @ $14.70 a troy ounce. :eek:

Dad-burn it! :mad:
I knew I should have picked up a boat load of it when it was $6.50- but I thought it was high then! :rolleyes:

Oh well. I'll just get some Kennedy silver clad half dollars for fifty cents...they're worth well over two bucks now.

Heck, 95% copper pennies aren't so bad an investment either.
Right now, their "melt value" is 93 cents a roll!

Buy low, sell high, right?
It's definitely high now, question is, will it go higher?
If it hits $20 again, I'm selling quick- not going to get too greedy.
Click to expand...

Wish I could find the silver clad Kennedys for 50 cents! As for the copper pennies, it's illegal to melt pennies and nickels (if you get caught:rolleyes:). Plus it's getting harder to find copper pennies. Only the pre '82 ones had a worthwhile amount of copper in them.
 
I bought 90% US silver at face value in the 60's and 70's. Halves and dimes.

I'm not a fan of precious metal ETF's or bullion.
 
It depends what you're trying to do and what your reason for investing in silver (or gold) are. Since the price varies, it's possible to make money, but also possible to make money playing your favorite stocks (or horses, or number on the magic spinning wheel...).

One of my old Professors had been squirreling away silver coins since the change over. He had bags and bags of them. It was his hedge against the dollar going kaput. Then he died of natural causes, well before the current economic down turn I might add.

A lot of people, maybe most, buy certain metals (and keep them in their physical form) as a hedge against... well the rest of the economy turning into a dung heap. As such you want small, easily negotiable, items. Stick to gold, silver, and sometimes diamonds (if you need something compact that still has value). Coins are better than bars since they're easier to exchange. Same with gold, save that a heavy gold chain that you can remove links from is better still.
 
A friend of mine bought 1000 ounces many years ago. I don't think it has ever come back close to what he paid.
 
Silver and gold are, IMHO, buy and hold items. Buy them if you like, preferably at a time like right about now when they have been relatively stable for some months and nothing real weird is going on to run prices up artificially, i.e., the 1980 Hunt fiasco, and then plan to sit on it for a couple of decades. Chances are that they'll be worth more then. If someone is looking for a short-term or get-rich-quick deal, forget it. You'll probably lose money in the near term.
 
Seriously, if the proverbial "SHTF" scenario happened and our everyday currency become worthless, I seriously doubt that folks would want gold or silver. I'm not saying that they would be worthless, but a little farther down on the totem pole than say...gasoline, diesel and other staples of life.

If you are hedging against a "down turn," I don't see anything wrong with having a bit in silver and gold, and I do mean just a bit. Preferably small denomination coins- half and quarter eagles (either old or the new bullion coins) that can be sold off for jewelry or "small change." I wish we did have a 1/2 oz. sliver eagle.

The key is...buy what you like and enjoy it. Much like you do in the firearm hobby.

I'm getting where I'm going to have to eliminate a few more items to make room for others Id like. That way, I can own "more" simply by "rotation of goods."
Does that make sense?
 
Last edited:
Gold has never lost value completely. Even in a SHTF scenario there will be people with commodities like cigarettes and gas willing to trade for gold.
 
Toilet paper is where its at! I once was in the john and the guy in the next booth said, Hey buddy? Yeah? Ya got any paper over there? Durn! Just enough for me! Sorry! Hey bud? Yeah? Got change fer a fiver?
 
Last edited:
nope, its in 100watt incandencet light bulbs...I kid you not my buddy is stockpiling them left and right
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top