Silver Investing - Silver Price Holding Steady While Gold Flying High

I don't understand how the spot silver price can be stuck in such a narrow range while gold is charging full speed ahead - making new high after new high. Silver prices in the last 30 days ranged from a high of $42.27 to a low of $34. 77. But in the last week, silver has stayed in the $37 to $39 range while gold has charged ahead with record setting highs. Something is going on behind the scenes which is not meant to be disclosed to or understood by those who follow the price of silver.

On the positive side this represents a terrific buying opportunity if you believe silver is going to meet and exceed the $50 per ounce mark. If you are one to wander over to eBay and check on silver auctions with the intent to bid, I have some tips for you. I first posted these tips on my gold blog but will repeat them here only tailored to silver.

Tips On Buying Silver On eBay

Reuters recently published a blog entry titled "How Americans buy gold and precious metals on eBay". In this short entry it was revealed eBay’s gold bullion sales have jumped more than 60% from 2007 through 2010 with “almost half of the silver and gold buyers in the first quarter of 2011 never purchased these items on eBay before.” You can find the article here.

I have tracked activity on eBay for both gold and silver auctions for some time and even included some "ending soon" auctions on both my Gold Investing and Silver Investing web site pages. Only one fact surprised me in that they stated "There are two silver buyers for every gold buyer because silver is so much cheaper." I would have guessed a 5 to 1 ratio or even higher of silver to gold.

I have purchased silver on eBay in the past but never gold. There are two warnings I would give anyone before bidding on an eBay gold or silver auction:

1. It is important to watch the premiums you will be paying before bidding on a coin or lot. The Reuters blog entry mentions a 21% premium over spot silver for a Silver American Eagle. I would shop around for other silver coins or bars to invest in with lower premiums since the popular Silver Eagle will command among the highest premiums of any silver bullion coin. To be a smart shopper, you absolutely should know the spot silver price before bidding.

2. The blog entry also mentions the potential purchase price of a coin from a "top-rated seller". There are many, many auctions initiated by sellers that are NOT top-rated sellers. So how do you increase your odds of making a safe bid with a reputable seller? Here is what I would look for...

In the upper right-hand corner of each auction page is the seller's basic statistics area that identifies the seller's eBay name (if they are a top-rated seller, it will display that too), the number of transactions (with feedback) and the positive feedback percentage. To see what I'm talking about, go to Peace Silver Dollar, scroll down to the eBay auctions and click on any auction. If Top-rated seller is not displayed, I would look for several hundred transactions with 100% positive feedback. I would also try to deal only with sellers in my own country. Just keep in mind that only you can decide if bidding on an item is right for you. I take no responsibility for whatever gold purchases you successfully bid on.

For your information, I don't use eBay much for silver purchases. My personal preference is to use: 1) a smaller, local dealer for small purchases; 2) a large, reputable regional or nationwide dealer for larger and/or riskier purchases; and 3) eBay auctions if a good deal or "odd" coin pops up that I want -- in that order.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found this information useful.

Silver Investing - March 2011 Totals For Silver Eagles

Production of Silver American Eagles is down again from the previous month. The March total comes in at 2,767,000 while the February total (28 days) was 3,240,000. Neither came close to January's 6,422,000! The demand remains high but the problem could be a shortage of blank silver planchets from which these silver bullion coins are made. But relief may be in sight...

An article titled "Ron Paul to Probe U.S. Mint Coin Shortage" talks about an upcoming meeting this week (April 7th) to address this very problem. It appears that he has identified another source for providing blank planchets to the U.S. Mint so this hopefully becomes a non-issue. The article also mentions: 1)The Coin Modernization, Oversight and Continuity Act of 2010 which gives the U.S. Mint more flexibility in meeting the bullion coin demand (and the demand for gold and silver numismatic pieces); and 2) The Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011 whose purpose is to repeal legal tender laws in order to prohibit taxation on gold, silver and a few other precious metals. You can read the entire article here.

Another possible cause of Silver Eagle production not keeping up with demand is not enough of the existing Mints are involved in its production. On March 23rd, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint announced that trial strikes are currently being produced at the San Francisco Mint, with full-scale, temporary production to begin sometime in May. The West Point Mint has been the sole producer of Silver American Eagles since 2001. The article can be found here.

As of this post, spot silver stands at $37.97 which amounts to a gain of $2.31 in the last 30 days and a one-year change of $20.10 (+112.42%).

Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - February 2011 Totals For Silver Eagles

After a record setting total of 6,422,000 Silver American Eagles minted last month, the February 2011 total comes in at a weeny 3,240,000 bullion coins. What's up with that? Could physical silver be so tight (as the many rumors state) so that even the U. S. Mint is having trouble getting their hands on this valuable commodity? We'll wait and see what a full month of 31 days brings.

As of this post, spot silver stands at $34.48 - a 31 year high. That amounts to a gain of $6.49 in the last 30 days and a one-year change of $18.04 (+109.6%). When it comes to the rise in and potential of silver (and gold), Sonny and Cher said it well in The Beat Goes On

Are you having trouble getting your hands on desireable physical silver pieces at a decent price (or any price)? If you answered YES, well don't feel like the Lone Stranger. At the recent coin dealers show I attended in Laughlin a few weeks ago I tried to get my hands on a Silver Philharmonic for an article on my Silver Investing web site. There were none to be found - even with the large and varied silver inventories some of the dealers had. I will keep trying even though patience isn't one of my strengths. I hope you are finding yours.

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.

Silver Investing - January 2011 A Banner Month For Silver Eagles

The U.S. Mint is working overtime producing Silver American Eagles and the demand is right there too. So far in January 4,588,000 Silver Eagles have been produced - more than any month in its 26 year history. To put that in perspective, 4,588,000 is more Silver Eagles than were produced for the entire year of 1996 (3,466,000), 1997 (3,636,000), 1998 (4,320,000) and so close to 1995's total (4,590,000). And we still have eight working days to go in the month.

At this time, spot silver is at $28.68, down 69 cents in the last 30 days and up $10.81 (60.49%) over the last year. Despite being down recently, you will find the premiums for popular silver bullion coins and bars to be strong because the physical silver market is tight. Be a smart shopper and compare prices of at least a few dealers to get the most for your money.

Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - Buddy, Can You Spare A (Silver) Dime?

If you have read my article on Mercury Dimes, you know this is one of my favorite 90% silver coins. Officially known as the Winged Liberty Head dime, this U. S. silver coin was minted from 1916 through 1945 by the Denver, Philadelphia and San Francisco mints.

The Mercury Dime contains .0715 troy ounces of silver. With spot silver at $29.71 at the time of this post, the silver in that lowly dime is worth $2.12. In 1980 with silver at around $50 per ounce, a 90% silver dime was worth $3.57. No wonder some gas station operators were selling a gallon of gas for a silver dime. Could those days be in our future?

With silver again knocking at the $30 door plus the high premiums being charged for popular silver bullion coins, don't overlook investing in some of these affordable silver coins. They could come in handy for you someday. Before I leave the Mercury Dime discussion, let me say that some of these dimes are worth a lot more than others due to their scarcity. By far, the most valuable Mercury dime is the 1916D. So if you inherited some old coins, look for this dime and you could be several hundred dollars richer.

So far in January, 2011 the U.S. Mint reports producing 3,357,000 Silver American Eagles. The 1,696,000 Silver Eagles they reported on January 3rd certainly weren't produced in January but rather December. If this was done to keep the Silver Eagles totals down for 2010, it couldn't have been more obvious.

Thanks for reading.

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.

Thanks for reading.

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 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.

Thanks for reading.

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.

Thanks for reading.

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.

Thanks for visiting.

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.

Thanks for reading.

Silver Investing - Silver at $24 Per Ounce

Silver had some great gains today and spot silver stands at $24.30 as of this writing. In the last 30 days, silver has gone up $3.83 or 18.70% (compared to 30 day gold up 10.64%). Precious metals are moving too far too fast and are due for a correction. Buy on the dips if you can.

You really don't need a lot of money to get started if you haven't already. I read one person's plan for investing in silver. Although this person is on a fixed income, he makes it a point to buy one or two silver dollars at his local coin shop every few weeks. Small but steady.

Totals for Silver American Eagles so far in October are as follows: 1,350,000 with year-to-date totals at 26,830,500. Compare that to Gold American Eagles which so far in 2010 have consumed 1,006,500 ounces of gold.

Happy investing.

Silver Investing - Higher Premiums For Silver Eagles

Premiums for Silver American Eagles are higher due to a recent announcement by the U.S. Mint that they are raising their wholesale pricing above spot to all authorized dealers from $1.50 to $2.00. This news has already had an effect on dealer pricing as prices for Silver Eagles have jumped over $0.50/oz industry wide. How this will affect the premiums for generic silver rounds has yet to be determined. If investors favor silver rounds to Silver Eagles, you can expect the premiums to rise for them also.

Current numbers for American Silver Eagles from the U.S.Mint are as follows: September total stands at 1,880,000. They have already posted 325,000 Silver Eagles for October (one day) which brings the year-to-date total at 25,805,500. This is turning out to be a record year for these popular silver bullion coins. The total for all of 2009 was 28,766,500 and we still have three months to go.

Happy investing.

Silver Investing - $20 Silver

In case you haven't noticed, silver has been bobbing above and below the magic $20 mark. As I write this post, silver is at a solid $20.56 per troy ounce. Can it dip below $20 again? Yup, but the trend is up and, according to many "experts", it is due to go much higher. I hope you are in.

With September half over, the U.S. Mint posted just 390,000 Silver American Eagles produced so far this month. I don't know what to make of this low number. Also in (early) September, they adjusted the August silver eagles produced from 1,906,000 to 2,451,000. Maybe their web master was on vacation so the correct numbers couldn't be posted in time. Year-to-date the silver eagle total stands at 23,990,500.

Happy investing.

Silver Investing - August Silver Eagle Total

The total number of Silver American Eagles produced in August, as posted on the U.S. Mint web site, comes in at 1,906,000. That is the lowest monthly total so far in 2010. February's total was the next lowest at 2,050,000. The Year-To-Date total of Silver Eagles stands at 23,055,500.

Regarding silver investments, more advisors are saying that silver is the precious metal with the most potential for significant profits. I have come across a few articles you may find of interest that are bullish on silver. The first is from Allen Sykora at Kitco News and you can read it here.

The second silver article, Silver is Set to Shine, is by Jeffrey Nichols and is posted on the Resource Investor web site. You will find it here.

Have you started with your silver investments yet?

Silver Investing - Gold in Fort Knox

There was an interesting article published recently questioning how much gold really remains in Fort Knox. It talks about the only audit that has ever been done of the gold inside Ft Knox. That happened shortly after Dwight Eisenhower became President in January of 1953. If you are interested in that sort of thing, you can read about it Here.

With just about one week to go until the end of August, here are the totals for U.S Mint production so far: 1,656,000 Silver Eagles, Year-To-Date 22,805,500 Silver Eagles. Regarding gold bullion: 37,500 one-ounce Gold Eagles, 500 half-ounce Eagles, 500 quarter-ounce Eagles and 1,500 tenth-ounce Eagles. Also 15,000 24K Gold Buffaloes.

I will be back next week with the final August totals.

Happy investing.

Silver Investing - Mid-July Silver Eagle Numbers

Here are the numbers for Silver American Eagle sales with July half over: with the latest U.S. Mint report of 171,500 posted on 7/17/2010, the running total is 1,648,000 so far this month. Not quite the highest numbers we have seen this year but a healthy number none the less.

It seems that Silver Eagles aren't the only popular silver bullion coins much in demand. Silver Maple Leafs are reported to be somewhat scarce also with buyers having to wait for delivery. I hope you have some of each in your possession and are on the lookout for more at a (somewhat) reasonable premium.

Happy investing.

Silver Investing - Silver Eagles May 2010

The U.S. Mint reported that Silver American Eagles produced in May totaled 3,636,500 - a little short of the four million mark. Year-to-date, production of one-ounce Silver Eagles have totaled 15,167,500. The U.S. Mint is pumping out over 3 million silver eagles a month! The "poor man's gold" is being discovered by more and more Americans (which is a good thing).

Regarding U.S. gold bullion coins, 190,000 one-ounce Gold American Eagles were produced in May for a year-to-date total of 521,500. 24k-Gold Buffalo coins for May were reported at 70,500. The U.S. Mint has only been producing Gold Buffaloes for two months so far this year and sales year-to-date are already at 127,000. It will be interesting to see how many more months these coins will be available since they seem to run out of 24-karat blanks quickly.

Silver American Eagles - Year End Totals

Silver American Eagles continue to be in high demand. The total number of Silver American Eagles struck in 2009 was 28,766,500. Compare that with 2008's total of 19,583,500 and 2007's total of 9,887,000 and you can see the only way this market is going is up, up, up.

This up trend has been confirmed so far in 2010 with January's total of 3,592,500 Silver Eagles being minted. If this keeps up, 2010 will be another record-setting year for this popular silver coin. Before you buy, make sure to shop around as the premiums charged for Silver American Eagles can vary by quite a bit among various dealers.