Silver Investing - Smart Phone Apps for Silver Coins

If you find yourself in a position to buy or sell silver coins (flea markets, private buyers/sellers, etc.) but are unsure of what they are worth at the moment, just take out your smart phone and find out. Here are a few smart phone apps that could save the day.

The first is called RRBI Silver Coins and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later. It's free and can be found at iTunes. Check it out here. The second is an Android app that essentially does the same and is also free. It can be found here. Hope you find this useful.

I just posted an entry on my Gold Investing Blog where I discussed gold and silver prices on September 11, 2001. Silver was at $4.18 and gold at $271.00. At the time of this post, spot silver is at $41.16 which is the strongest showing by far of other assets. You can see the article titled "Market Performance Since 9/11" here. It covers a number of asset classes and is interesting.

Silver eagle totals for August came in at 3,679,500. That is 3,679,500 ounces of silver used in support of that program but the U.S. Mint actually used quite a bit more in support of other programs - namely: 1) the 5-ounce 'America the Beautiful' coin series which used 175,065 ounces of silver in August and 1,902,000 ounces year-to-date; and 2) the proof U.S. Silver Eagle program which had sales of 133,460 in August and a year-to-date total of 726,921. So far in September 651,000 silver eagles have been produced with a year-to-date total of 29,602,000. Now that's a lot of silver. I hope they can keep it up.

I came across an interesting YouTube video titled "How are Silver Coins Minted?". Produced by Endeavour Silver Corp. (a mid-cap silver mining company headquartered in Vancouver B.C.), you will see the process from the melting of raw silver to the production of silver blanks (planchets) to the stamping out of silver rounds. The video runs just over six minutes and you can see it here.

My posts to this blog have been sporadic and will remain so for a little while longer. Once I get my scheduled surgery out of the way on 9/15, I hope to do better. Thanks for reading.

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.

Thanks for reading.