Silver Investing - Silver Nickels

In the fall of 2008, less than 30 months ago, the price of silver was $8.79 an ounce. Yesterday the spot price was over $36.50 at one time but today dropped back and now sits at $35.12. How many other investments can brag about those types of gains? If you invest in silver, you have to understand that silver is very volatile and these ups and downs are to be expected - especially with the world events now going on. Some very knowledgeable people are saying $50 silver is yet ahead so keep the faith.

The U.S Mint is taking quite a breather on the metals this month. So far in March only 717,000 Silver Eagles have been produced. This is after February's total of 3,240,000 and January's whopping 6,422,000 reported Silver Eagle production. I don't think this an indication that demand is slowing down because from everything I hear, demand is still sky high.

One of the things that caught my eye while visiting a coin shop in Laughlin was this Buffalo Nickel Set. The Buffalo Nickel was produced from 1913-1938 by the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco Mints (in 1938, the Jefferson Nickel took its place). If the design looks familiar, it should. The design was "borrowed" to produce the pure gold (24k) American Buffalo.

As you may be aware, there is no silver in the U.S. Nickel. The composition is 75% copper and 25% nickel. The only exception was during WWII when nickel was deemed a critical war material. So from 1942-1945, the nickel was composed of 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. After the war, the nickel returned to its original composition. Even though the nickel contains no silver, because of the metals it does contain the value is approximately .068 cents (not its .05 cent face value).

I have listed many of the common U.S. silver coins' compositions on my silver investing site. If interested, you can read it at Silver Bullion Coins. Thanks for reading.