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 Investing - What Price Silver?

In 1980 silver topped out at about $50 per ounce. As of this writing, silver is hovering around $18.50 per ounce. The question is: if silver was at that lofty price in 1980, where would the price be today adjusted for inflation? The answer is >>>> $133.31 per ounce!

Where did that price come from you ask? If you go to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve's web site at MinneapolisFed look in the upper right hand corner where it says "What is a dollar worth?". By plugging in the figures of 1980, $50 and 2010, the calculation will display as $133.31. If you invested in silver and the price reached just half the amount, wouldn't that be a nice surprise?

Happy investing.

Silver Investing Guide - Got American Silver Eagles?

According to the latest U.S. Mint figures, Silver Eagles are showing no let-up in popularity. Total Silver Eagles produced for March came in at 3,381,000. Add to that January's total of 3,592,500 and February's total of 2,050,000 and you have a first quarter 2010 total of 9,023,500 (total Gold Eagles for the first quarter are 271,000). Those are huge numbers.

The Silver Eagle program was started in November of 1986, so it's not that far away from the 25 year anniversary. The first quarter 2010 Silver Eagle total is the best single quarter in the history of the program so far. It will be interesting to see what the second quarter brings.

With that many Silver Eagles floating around, you would think the premium over the spot price of silver wouldn't be that high. But it is. In checking with a major precious metals dealer, the current quoted price per Silver Eagle is 17% over spot! So if you want to invest in American Silver Eagles, it pays to shop around among several dealers to get the best price.

Silver Investing Guide - Bartering & Silver Coins

I came across a couple of articles that discuss how useful silver coins are in certain situations. The first mentioned the OPEC gas crisis in the ‘70s when silver was heading toward $50 per ounce and gas prices were exploding. Some gas-station operators were offering a gallon of gas for a pre-1965 dime. They were smart enough to know a ninety-percent silver dime was worth more than the posted price-per-gallon. At $50 per ounce, the silver content of one of these dimes was worth $3.58.

The second article discusses the role of silver coins in bartering situations. Whether it comes to this or not, the author points out that the public will learn quickly the difference between good money and bad money if/when bad times strike. You can read the article here...

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Lewis/mar262010.html

Silver Investing Guide - Beware Of This Deal

In a recent catalog I received, there was an offer to purchase an 1800s Morgan Silver Dollar (in brilliant uncirculated condition) for only $79.99, marked down from $99.99. The description went on to say that many millions had been melted down in 1918 (true) and due to this event plus more meltings throughout the years, relatively few Morgan dollars remain (not true).

Just three years after the big 1918 meltdown of 270,232,722 Morgan dollars, 86,730,000 Morgans were minted with the 1921 date. It is estimated the approximately 17% of all Morgans minted are still in existance. That is still a lot of these silver dollars floating around. Being brilliant uncirculated is a plus but the coins could still end up with some bad bag marks. Another point worth mentioning is the coins have been certified by a grading company I have never heard of.

Uncirculated Morgan silver dollars contain .77344 troy ounces of silver. That would result in a silver price per troy ounce of $103.42. Today's spot price of silver is $15.69 per troy ounce. Without knowing the year and mint mark, I would say this is definitely one deal to stay away from. Common date Morgans in MS 60 grade (Mint State 60 is an uncirculated grade) can be purchased for less than $30.00.

If you are ever tempted by deals such as these, do your research first. This is an awful lot of money to pay for one Morgan dollar. If your objective is to get the most silver for your money, you must shop around and watch out for deals like this.

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.

Silver Investing Guide - Welcome Message

Hello and welcome to the Silver Investing Guide blog. I hope you will come to consider this a valuable resource for practical and useful silver investing tips and information.

My interest in silver (and gold) bullion/coin investing led me to take a sales position with a large precious metals dealer in the midwest some years back. Luckily for me, this company was (and is) one of the "good guys" in the business and I learned a great deal. The company is still going strong but I have since retired.

Sharing what I know about silver investing is the purpose of this blog and I am glad you are here. If you are interested in learning more about silver investing insights and strategies, come back often as many more posts to this blog are planned.

Again, welcome and stay tuned for much more...