Silver Investing - Year End Totals For Silver Eagles

To say that 2010 was a good year for silver would be an understatement. Unofficially, silver rose $14.04 for the year. An 83.22% gain. I hope you benefited from that gain. Silver is not so cheap but still affordable, still the "poor man's gold". Spot silver at this writing is at $30.74. James Turk was correct in his prediction of $30 silver before year-end.

After a record month for Silver Eagles in November (4,260,000), the U. S. Mint took a bit of a breather. It is possible the number could be "tweaked" this next week but the number of Silver Eagles produced in December stands at 1,772,000. For all of 2010 34,662,500 ounces of silver were converted into beautiful Silver American Eagles. A total of 1,220,500 ounces of gold were used to produce one-ounce, half-ounce, quarter-ounce and tenth-ounce Gold Eagles. Predictions for continued strength in both metals in 2011 remains strong.

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Silver Investing - Buying Silver From A Private Party

An ad appeared in our local paper offering some silver coins for sale. The list included 20 Silver Dollars, 10 Silver Eagles, five Walking Liberty Half Dollars and six silver one-ounce rounds. Asking price was $1100.00. If you want to follow up on deals like this, here is how to do it.

Basically, you need to find out how many troy ounces of silver that amount represents and multiply ounces times the spot price of silver. The difference between that figure and the asking price is the premium over the spot price you will be paying. Let me go through the process using the silver from the ad described above. The silver content of most silver coins can be found at Silver Coins.

20 (circulated) Silver Dollars at .7650 silver content per coin = 15.3 troy ounces of silver. 10 Silver Eagles = 10 ounces of silver. Six silver rounds = six ounces of silver. Lastly, five Walking Liberty Half Dollars at .3575 silver content per coin = approx. 1.79 ounces of silver. Total ounces of silver for these 41 coins is 33.09.

Now multiply 33.09 times the current spot price of silver. For your protection, you MUST know the latest spot price of silver. One source is at Silver Investing Guide. Since the current price is about $29 per ounce, the result will be $959.61. The difference between $959.61 and the asking price of $1100.00 is $140.39. By dividing 140.39 by 33.09, the result is approx. 4.24 which is the percent premium over spot you would be paying. This is a low premium. If the coins are in decent condition and you are confident that silver will be going higher (much higher according to some experts), this may be a deal you would like to take advantage of.

Silver Investing - Silver Hits The Big $30

A few days ago (12/6), silver hit and closed over $30 per ounce. It's been over 30 years since that has occurred. Now it has fallen back a bit but nothing to worry about for now. Spot silver at this writing is at $28.90 - a gain of $1.95 in the last 30 days and $11.53 for the year.

I have a few articles on the new America the Beautiful silver coins being released by the U.S. Mint tomorrow 12/10. These are five-ounce silver bullion coins honoring Hot Springs National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Mount Hood National Forest.

There is a lot to say about these coins, how they are issued and rumors of the hefty premiums being considered. But the articles do a good job of explaining these topics. The first article is from Kitco News and can be found here. The second article is longer and comes from GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee). You can read it here.

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Silver Investing - Silver Is The Place To Be

52.74%. That's the gain silver has made in one year (at the time of this post). Spot silver is at $28.73, is up $3.89 in the last 30 days and $9.92 in the last year (52.74%).

The U.S. Mint reported production of 4,260,000 Silver Eagles in November, the highest of any month in 2010. With the 42,000 already produced in December, the year-to-date total stands at 32,932,500 Silver Eagles. This market is not slowing down one bit. I hope you have some physical silver in your possession.

A few recent silver articles caught my attention that you may find of interest. The first is by Jim Wyckoff of Kitco News titled "Silver Bulls Powerful; May be Much More Upside Price Potential". This short but interesting read can be found here.

The second appeared on the CNBC web site and is titled "Silver Prices Surging on Near-Record Demand". That article can be found here.

The last is by James Turk (Free Gold Money Report) and is titled "The precious metals power higher". In this article he states "When gold and silver eventually become overvalued at some future date, you won’t “sell” your metals; you will “spend” them." You can find this article here.

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Silver Investing - November Silver Eagles - 3,875,000 And Counting

November is proving to be a big production month for Silver American Eagles. At 3,875,000 it is the largest amount of any month so far in 2010 and the month isn't over yet. The year-to-date running total for Silver Eagles is a whopping 32,505,500. It's going to be a big year.

Because of their popularity, premiums are running in the area of 10-11% (and higher). If you are looking for silver that has a lower premium, you might want to look at silver rounds. These are one-ounce silver bullion coins offered by major refiners and private companies. I'm not a big fan of some of these but by staying with the large and reputable providers, you can safely get more silver for your hard-earned money and be able to cash out when you want.

The silver round you see pictured is the popular Silver Prospector made available by Engelhard, a major refiner highly regarded in the industry. Any silver product you can buy (at a reasonable price) with the Engelhard hallmark is an excellent buy. Be sure to shop around for the best price.

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Silver Investing - Silver Down But Far From Out

Like gold, silver has been having some down days recently. Spot silver stands at $25.40, a 30 day change of plus $1.06 with a one year change of $6.98. Not exactly a time to panic since it still has nice gains.

I found value in a few recent articles related to silver. The first is by Jordan Roy-Byrne titled Downside Targets for Gold and Silver. The second gives lots of reasons for investing in silver. It is by Lorimer Wilson and worthy of your time Why You Should Have Silver in Your Portfolio - As Well As Gold

Silver Eagles so far in November stand at 2,715,000 one-ounce coins with a year-to-date total of 31,345,500 Silver Eagles. November and December tend to be high volume months for these coins so we can expect to see big numbers.

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Silver Investing - Sparkling Silver

Silver has been having great gains in recent days. Spot silver currently stands at $26.76 gaining 15.39% ($3.57) in the last 30 days and 53.88% ($9.37) for the year. On October 28th, Jim Turk predicted silver would be at $30 per ounce in less than 18 days. It just might reach that. You can read his comments here

Here are the Silver American Eagle totals for October, 2010 from the U. S. Mint: 3,150,000 one-ounce silver coins produced for the month which brings the total for the year to 28,630,500 silver eagles. 255,000 have already been produced as of 11/5/2010.

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