Silver Investing - Are You A Collector Or Investor

I decided to escape the winter weather of the upper mid-west for a few weeks and head for warmer parts - namely Laughlin and Las Vegas NV plus Palm Springs CA later. While in Laughlin, I attended a local coin dealers show. There weren't a lot of dealers there but the ones that were had impressive inventories of coins with silver far outweighing gold coins.

There were many, many Morgan Silver Dollars, Peace Silver Dollars and Silver American Eagles being bought and sold but what struck me were the majority were slabbed and graded. MS-63s, MS-64s and MS-65s on the 1878-1921 dollars and MS-69s and MS-70s on the Silver Eagles. Of course there were some pretty hefty prices on most of the merchandise and I can't say I got too excited about most of these graded coins.

I'll admit I did enjoy looking at many of them but it just reinforced in my mind that I am a silver bullion coin investor and not a silver coin collector. Not only is it less expensive but the knowledge to wisely invest in silver bullion coins is much less. God bless the gold and silver coin collectors but for me it is quantity over quality. Unless it is a coin I am really interested in such as a Morgan CC Silver Dollar, coins grades of XF or AU will do just fine. So which are you?

At the time of this post (in Laughlin), spot silver is at $33.91 for a gain on the day of $1.25! Very impressive. Let's see where this leg up takes us.

Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - Silver Sniping On eBay

When I have some spare time, I like to look at the various silver coins that are being auctioned on eBay. While I haven't seen many "deals", every now and then I find something that is of interest enough for me to bid on. That may be Walking Liberty Half Dollars, Silver Philharmonics, Silver Rounds, Morgan Dollars, etc. As long as the current bid isn't too high, the shipping fee is reasonable, the seller has a high positive feedback with a good number of transactions under his/her belt and there are only a few hours to go on the auction, I will probably place a bid.

Nothing is more frustrating than almost having the winning bid when some other bidder "steals" it from you with seconds to go. Then it's too late to place a higher bid before the auction ends. That's where sniping comes in. There is a free service that allows a bidder to automatically place a bid with just seconds to go (sniping) thereby increasing the odds of being the winning bidder. And the bidder doesn't even have to be by his/her computer. Just enter the eBay item number, the maximum bid and when to place the bid (how many seconds before the auction ends). Then go play outside. If interested, go to Goofbay and read up on eBay Sniper. This site offers other useful services that you may find of interest.

If you have come across other useful silver investing tools, please share them on this blog.

Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - January 2011 Totals For Silver Eagles

When I last checked on Silver American Eagles produced in January, the total was at 4,724,000. This was toward the end of the month and with no updates from the U.S Mint for several days, I thought that may be the final figure. Checking today to see if they repeated their December ploy of reporting a large amount on this first day of February (rather than including them in the previous month), I couldn't believe my eyes. 6,422,000 Silver Eagles for January's total!!!

They also reported 50,000 more on this first day of February. So the year-to-date total stands at 6,472,000. That is a huge, record-setting number. It looks like they are taking the increasing demand for Silver Eagles head-on. That's a good thing. Because if they ever decide to throw in the towel and stop offering these popular silver bullion coins, the premiums will skyrocket for the Silver Eagles already in existance. To prove that silver really is the poor man's gold - in 2010, the U.S. Mint sold nearly 30 times as many ounces of silver as it did ounces of gold.

I have a few short articles you may find of interest by two of my favorite precious metals experts. The first is a King World News Blog entry with information provided by James Turk and can be found at Gold & Silver Have Reached An Important Bottom. The second is also a King World News Blog with information provided by Eric Sprott where he talks about $50 silver and $2150 gold. You can find it here.

Before I close, there is one piece of information I forgot to include in my post on Mercury Dimes. If you decide to invest in 90% silver dimes, keep in mind that it takes approximately 14 dimes to equal one troy ounce of silver. So don't go overboard on what you pay for them if you decide to invest.

Thanks for reading.