Pausing A Vacation To Shop For Silver

After surviving most of the brutal winter of the upper midwest, I was more than ready for the warmer weather of AZ and NV. Las Vegas was our first destination for some gaming and relaxation. I made a special trip downtown to check out the GOLD To Go machine at the Golden Nugget. If you are unfamiliar with this gold dispensing ATM, you can see more details plus a picture here. The gold choices for purchase were 1 gram, 2 1/2 gram, 5 gram and 10 gram gold bars ranging in price from $87 to $517 (spot gold at the time was approximately $1330.00). Also available were a 1 oz. gold bar priced at $1525 and a 1 oz. gold eagle at $1555 (nearly a 17% premium). The last coin available for purchase was a silver eagle for the princely sum of $49. That was a bit of a shocker as spot silver was under (but flirting with) $22. If the silver eagle offered were a proof coin, the $49 would be closer to the going price but I didn't see that advertised. I decided against making any purchase.

The next vacation stop was Laughlin, NV. Whenever I am in Laughlin, I always make sure to stop in (usually more than once) at the coin shop across from the Golden Nugget Laughlin (Laughlin Jewelry and Collectibles) to discuss prices and trends. Their price for silver eagles were much better at just $26 each with silver maple leafs even less. One of my purchases was a 2014 silver panda. This is a beautiful coin and I didn't mind the $30 price. But at that price, I won't be stacking silver pandas as the silver eagles and maple leafs are cheaper and more popular in my world. Of course silver rounds can be purchased for even less than those two popular bullion coins but I tend to favor government issued, government backed coins. And unless I fall into a really good deal on silver rounds with an attractive design, I'll usually pass on these.

Here are the Silver American Eagle totals so far for March, 2014 from the U. S. Mint: 2,921,000 one-ounce silver coins which, added to January's number of 4,775,00 and February's 3,750,00, brings the number for 2014 to 11,446,000 silver eagles.

Sales of my 3 ebooks on U.S. and Canadian silver coins have been steady. It appears people like what they are reading but are not inclined to giving reviews. If you want to see short descriptions of each, you can do so at a special web site I have set up for them at Silver Investing Guru.

Thanks for reading. 

Silver Investing - Storing Your Silver and Gold

If you have physical silver and/or gold in your possession and are storing it at home, there is a well written article that you should definitely read. In the article, the author talks about a friend of his that was robbed of some of his gold coins and is very upset about it. Especially since: 1) he suspects it was an "inside job"; and 2) there isn't a thing he can do about it because he can't prove a thing.

The author provides details on the three most common places to store gold along with some considerations for each. The article is titled "Robbed", the author is Jeff Clark and you can read the article at Safely Storing Your Gold. Scroll down a bit as the article isn't right at the top.

In a related article by the same author, readers of the "Robbed" article provide input and suggestions on storing gold and silver on which the author provides useful comments. This is good information and might save you a heartbreaking loss down the road. The article is titled "Think Like a Thief" and you will find it here. Again, scroll down to find the article.

At the time of this post (Monday evening) spot silver is up over $36 again at $36.26. Spot gold is up a couple of bucks at $1429.20. With all of the turmoil in the world (with no sign of a slow down) it should be an interesting week.

Thanks for reading.