[JRS21386]

I started collecting Silver pretty avidly about 4 months or so ago and I have so far managed to round up a pretty good collection!

Anyone else into investing in Silver or Gold?

[blackbeSSt]

i'm an avid silver coin collector! i have plenty of bank hookups so at least once a month i have them order me $2000 in half dollars from the feds. i say i've collected roughly $300 face value in silver coins from those rolls

oldest one was a 1908

[JRS21386]

Wow that's awesome blackbe! I have been collecting just the Silver BU.. American Silver Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Philharmonics, A few private mint silver... All .999 -- It can get expensive but I see it as a good way of investing!

[Boner_18]

For a time I bought Silver Eagles on ebay. Sold them all around 2007 for a very small profit (VERY SMALL). Also, I used to work at a convenience store and would pull "junk" silver coins that came in (i.e. buy them w/ my same denomination non-junk). You could see the difference in color of the junk coins and they made a different sound when they hit the counter. Got quite a few sitting in my moms attic somewhere. Best silver piece I ever got was a Morgan Silver Dollar some old lady used to buy a $1 newspaper, not worth to much tho, about the price of the silver.

[JRS21386]

Yeah... I think by investment, I'm talking about hanging onto it for a long period of time.. It is inflation proof for the most part.. If you hold onto it for 20-30 years then you could ATLEAST get your money back + the inflation that occurred over that time.

[THE PROFIT]

I have a few ounce silver coins from the 80's, never been a silver investor at all. But I do love finding silver coins, it just excites me. I will take a roll of quarters & just open them & drop them on the table. I can tell immediately if one is silver.

I have several old silver coins as I am somewhat of a coin collector. Franklin half dollars, Kennedy, morgan dollars, Liberty head dollars. I have several silver nickels also which are getting very hard to find

[JRS21386]

Yeah that's awesome man.. They say silver is going to appreciate a ton sooner than later... It's been deflated for a long time

[THE PROFIT]

yeah, I was reading something the other day about that. I have some friends who work at the atomic plant in New Mexico, they have been buying silver bars for years for their retirement.

[JRS21386]

That's awesome.. it's definitely a good investment.. Alot of people don't realize that Silver is Rarer than gold... It's also an industry metal so it has alot more uses than Gold

[coloradobuff]

im a bronze man myself

[THE PROFIT]

something is only worth as much as people THINK it's worth.

[JRS21386]

You say that, But since the beginning of time there has only been a few money standards to survive... People always resort back to precious metals when the paper currency starts struggling.. If the dollar collapsed (god forbid), then precious metals would still hold a rank.. They're accepted worldwide

[Doug]

That's awesome.. it's definitely a good investment.. Alot of people don't realize that Silver is Rarer than gold... It's also an industry metal so it has alot more uses than Gold

source ?

[JRS21386]

Doug, I got in trouble for spamming yesterday when posting a URL. Lol.. If you go to Google and type in "Is Silver Rarer than Gold?" you will have multiple respected sites pop up with articles that justify that.. Moneyweek, Kiplinger, Multiple forums and videos..

The reason is, The US I believe mines approx 200 Million ounces of Silver per year --- The amount of Silver bought and used by industry per year is also 200 Million... There is also another 700 Million shares of it traded annually on the exchange.. which is scary.. People are buying Gold and Silver through the market but it's not actually available.. It doesnt exist.. Go figure..

But there are a ton of sites you can refer to!

[blackbeSSt]

when i worked at a bank i had a bi-polar man come in and drop some change on the counter saying he needed to change it in for bills. right when he dropped it i knew there was something in there silver. i started looking and sure as the world a 1922 silver eagle $1 coin. i quickly snatched that one up for my personal collection (of course i paid for it)! i told him he is welcome any time to come change out his coins

[Doug]

Doug, I got in trouble for spamming yesterday when posting a URL. Lol.. If you go to Google and type in "Is Silver Rarer than Gold?" you will have multiple respected sites pop up with articles that justify that.. Moneyweek, Kiplinger, Multiple forums and videos..

The reason is, The US I believe mines approx 200 Million ounces of Silver per year --- The amount of Silver bought and used by industry per year is also 200 Million... There is also another 700 Million shares of it traded annually on the exchange.. which is scary.. People are buying Gold and Silver through the market but it's not actually available.. It doesnt exist.. Go figure..

But there are a ton of sites you can refer to!

I looked into it a bit. They are referring to above ground bullion silver that is readily available for use.

There is much more silver than Gold. I like silver better than gold because it is more useful and way out of whack pricewise.

This guy sums it up nicely....


10th October 2009 21:36 #4
akak's Avatar
akak

* View Profile
* View Forum Posts
* Private Message

akak is offline Senior Member Forum Contributor

Join Date
Oct 2008
Location
Joachimsthal, Czechia
Posts
2,463

Default

It depends on what one means by "rarer".

If one is talking about in the earth's crust --- in underground reserves yet to be mined --- then it is not; the ratio is very roughly around 12 parts silver to one part gold. (I say "very roughly", because the very definition of "reserves" is tied into the prices of the metals, so as their prices go up, so do the reported reserves, but not necessarily in a 1:1 ratio.)

If one is talking about the total amount of each metal that has ever been mined, it is estimated that around 5 billion ounces of gold have been mined, and maybe 45 billion ounces of silver. This gives us a 9:1 ratio.

If one is talking about the total amount of each metal that is available aboveground in some form that could potentially be reused or recycled, then we have roughly 4 billion ounces of gold, and maybe 20 billion ounces of silver; still a 5:1 ratio.

Now, if one is just talking about aboveground, refined bullion (standard, tradeable bars and coins), then we have, again very roughly, 3 billion ounces of gold, and only around 1 billion ounces of silver. Here, and only here, is silver truly rarer than gold.

So yes, in one sense, silver could be said to be rarer than gold. In a financial panic or wild precious metals bubble, silver would be significantly rarer than gold, at least for a while --- until more bars and coins were produced.

Reply With Quote Reply With Quote

[JRS21386]

Lol that's awesome.. ALot of times people dont even realize what they have or what they're giving up

[JRS21386]

Doug,

You have to take into consideration though that if we're mining 200 Million ounces a year and Industry is using everything we are mining... Ultimately there is going to be much less silver in the long run just because its an industry metal and has alot of uses..

[blackbeSSt]

Lol that's awesome.. ALot of times people dont even realize what they have or what they're giving up

also there are a couple banks/gas stations i have hookups at that are in the, shall i say, ghetto. you'd be amazed at what crackheads will steal from dey granmomma to get their fix on

[dimon]

guys, the more gold or silver you have the better it is...I think that all agree...I personally think that Gold price has long way to go...think about it...Feds way to fight back with this situation is very simple, turn on the printing press and that's the solution...they want inflation, it is crasy, but our gov. try to cause the inflation, this is the only way out for them now, but countries that are buying the US securities does not want that, that's simple...it can't continue for ever, so we will see the depreciation of dollar, that's inveitable...and sooner or later world has to come to the "Gold Standarts" and we all know what will happpen to the price of gold then

[Doug]

I agree. Silver has lots of uses, Gold mainly sits in vaults and almost every bit of Gold ever mined still exists. Gold used to trade at about 15X the price of silver historically, it is now over 50X. Silver is the better investment. Some might think it is too bulky to store, but not really.....a milk crate full of silver would be worth over 10k.

[blackbeSSt]

oh we all agree dimon. but you just can't bebop down to the local gas station/bank and find gold coins. thats why i have gone the silver path. easier access.

[Doug]

oh we all agree dimon. but you just can't bebop down to the local gas station/bank and find gold coins. thats why i have gone the silver path. easier access.

either way you have to buy it ( very few silver coins to be found searching rolls). One can buy gold as easily as silver.

[blackbeSSt]

either way you have to buy it ( very few silver coins to be found searching rolls). One can buy gold as easily as silver.

not true doug. like i said over the past 2-3 years i've found nearly 600 silver halves in fed rolls. i bought them for .50 each. when was the last time you heard of anyone getting gold coins in fed rolls or from random gas stations? sure someone can buy gold, but when there is no true face value per se, you are paying more.

like i mentioned before that 1922 silver eagle that was brought in to me. face value is $1 but its true value is close to $20

[JRS21386]

Black you realize that silver halves are only 40% silver right?

[JRS21386]

There was only one year they were struck at 90%. That was 1964

[Doug]

There was only one year they were struck at 90%. That was 1964

That's just the Kennedy halves, everything before 1965 is 90% silver....

Franklin
Walking Liberty
Barber
Seated Liberty
Bust

etc.

1965-70 are 40%

[JRS21386]

Gotcha. Thanks for the correction. I just buy BU. .999

[ehp6737]

Hey guys quick question. You all make good points, and I've been very interested in starting to invest in precious metals. This is what I'm currently hung up on.......Retail v Private sale. Let's say I go and buy and oz of gold at the going rate of approx $1200. And next month its at $1400 and I want to sell and make a profit. Like anything else I've ever had of value that I want to sell your never gonna get "book value" Baseball cards, stamps, coins, jewelery, etc. You always end up selling maybe 60% of value unless your the "retailer". So what "avenues" does a private person have to sell gold & silver and get the going rate? Can a profit really be made if I am into it for the short term (1-3 yrs) keeping in mind I need to sell it for less than value, or are you saying hold onto it for 10-20 years until it's at $4000 an Oz to be able to make any kind of profit?

[Doug]

not true doug. like i said over the past 2-3 years i've found nearly 600 silver halves in fed rolls. i bought them for .50 each. when was the last time you heard of anyone getting gold coins in fed rolls or from random gas stations? sure someone can buy gold, but when there is no true face value per se, you are paying more.

like i mentioned before that 1922 silver eagle that was brought in to me. face value is $1 but its true value is close to $20

I'd imagine most of your halves are off the 40% variety but they are still worth a few bucks. 90% silver would be worth about 13X off face value as scrap. I'd say you have been lucky finding that much silver.

The 1922 dollar is referred to as a Peace Dollar, BTW ! $20 is about right, a tad high as it is the most common date.

I disagree about the face value, it is meaningless compared to the metal value, the metal will never drop to a point where the face value becomes a stop loss of sorts. Silver coins are a convenient way to hold silver, though. If ( when ?) the economy collapses and barter becomes necessary coins come in nice small convenient sizes for trading instead of 1 ounce of gold.

here's an interesting fact about Gold

A total of 165,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history, as of 2009.[1] This is roughly equivalent to 5.3 billion troy ounces or, in terms of volume, about 8,500 cubic meters, or a 20.4m cube.

so basically a 60ft cube is all the Gold ever mined. There has to be more silver than that above ground in the form of coins, other bullion,jewelry, silverware, etc.

[Doug]

Hey guys quick question. You all make good points, and I've been very interested in starting to invest in precious metals. This is what I'm currently hung up on.......Retail v Private sale. Let's say I go and buy and oz of gold at the going rate of approx $1200. And next month its at $1400 and I want to sell and make a profit. Like anything else I've ever had of value that I want to sell your never gonna get "book value" Baseball cards, stamps, coins, jewelery, etc. You always end up selling maybe 60% of value unless your the "retailer". So what "avenues" does a private person have to sell gold & silver and get the going rate? Can a profit really be made if I am into it for the short term (1-3 yrs) keeping in mind I need to sell it for less than value, or are you saying hold onto it for 10-20 years until it's at $4000 an Oz to be able to make any kind of profit?

The markup on bullion is very low , IF you are dealing with a legitimate operator. On the order of less than 5%, not like baseball cards or numismatically valuable coins that can have a 30-40% differential between buy-sell prices, so short term is feasible.

[JRS21386]

It's possible. I get my info from multiple avenues and that's just what I hear from some people. I have grown to love collecting it just as much as I enjoy growing my investment stash

[Doug]

Here's a calculator that figures the silver value of US coins

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/sil...alculator.html

an honest dealer would pay around 90% of what this says.

This is just the metal value, a coin can also be rare and have a numismatic value above that,but almost all modern stuff ( post 1940) is "junk silver". It's not even worth looking at silver Roosevelt Dimes, Washington quarters, Franklin and Kennedy halves for rare dates. Earlier stuff like Mercury dimes and Walking Liberty halves are worth looking through.

[itchypickle]

I ordered a few rounds of nickles straight from the mint about 2 months ago. Ask some of the right people at the bank and they can get you the newly wrapped ones on the trucks for little or no added fee if you work it right Gold has pretty much topped out for awhile but silver....costing more to make coins so I can see some circulation being cut even more in the next few years...get em now!

[Doug]

I ordered a few rounds of nickles straight from the mint about 2 months ago. Ask some of the right people at the bank and they can get you the newly wrapped ones on the trucks for little or no added fee if you work it right Gold has pretty much topped out for awhile but silver....costing more to make coins so I can see some circulation being cut even more in the next few years...get em now!

I don't quite get your meaning since silver is not used in circulating coinage.

nickels are an excellent item to hold at face value, BTW. they have a lot of metallic value. They were worth 10 cents a few years ago. It is illegal to melt them, but who cares ?

CALCULATING TODAY'S MELT VALUE (USD)
Using the latest metal prices and the specifications above, these are the numbers required to calculate melt value:

$3.2799 = copper price / pound on Aug 12, 2010.
.75 = copper %
$9.6721 = nickel price / pound on Aug 12, 2010.
.25 = nickel %
5.00 = total weight in grams
.00220462262 = pound/gram conversion factor (see note directly below)


The NYMEX uses pounds to price these metals, that means we need to multiply the metal price by .00220462262 to make the conversion to grams.



1. Calculate 75% copper value :

(3.2799 × .00220462262 × 5.00 × .75) = $0.0271156


2. Calculate 25% nickel value :

(9.6721 × .00220462262 × 5.00 × .25) = $0.0266538


3. Add the two together :

$0.0271156 + $0.0266538 = $0.0537694




$0.0537694 is the melt value for the 1946-2010 nickel on August 12, 2010.



← Calculate the value of your own coins.