Silver Bars or Eagles?

coinfinder

I am looking to invest in silver. However I am not sure wether I should buy 1oz.-5oz. Johnson & Matthey silver bars at pretty close to the current value of silver or pay a slight premium and buy say 2001 & 2002 Eagles and hope they have additional value as silver eagles?

Also does anyone know of a good place to buy silver bars without designs on them?

All input is appreciated.

Thanks,
Michael

dragon

coinfinder,

Generally, there is more of a liquid and stable maket for silver eagles than for silver bars. The spreads are also usually tighter on the silver eagles, especially in large quantities such as mint sealed boxes. If you are going to go with the bars, I would stick with a well known major refiner like Engelhard or JM and buy the 100 oz. bars. Check out the Tulving website, I've heard he offers decent pricing on silver eagles.

Dragon

Tootawl

I agree with Dragon. Go with the Eagles.

wallstreetman

From the people who PCGS trusted with the WTC coins(Death Coins if your clueless). Heres the place to get what your looking for! VERY PROFESSIONAL, and you cant beat their prices! Universal Coin and Bullion

wallstreetman

When silver was 4.55 they sold Silver Eagles for 6.00. It looks like their silver basis hasnt been updated!

Endocrinologist

Here is the Tulving Website. Looks pretty good.

Web

Hunt

Coinfinder,

If you truely want to "invest" in silver I would go with a mix of 10 oz. and 100 oz. bars either JM or Engelhard instead of the silver eagles. The silver eagles will almost always be about 50% more than spot. And if silver surges again like it did in the past, most people buying silver will only give you spot, if you're lucky. Meaning the value of your eagle is only worth its weight in silver. Therefore you lose on resale as compared to the bars which have little mark-up to begin with.

I have a hard time finding dealers selling silver bars anywhere close to spot lately. Oddly I could buy it at $5.50 and ounce when silver was $5.08, but now that silver is about $4.60, they still want $5.50. I was able to buy a bunch of 10 oz. bars below $5.00 just recently when one of my dealers just wanted liquidate it.

Also, look into 90% silver bags they can sometimes be a good way to invest in raw silver and still have a cushion if silver went sour.

-Hunter

supercoin

Not that you asked , but either is a tough thing to make money on. I decided to invest in silver once, and made money, but it was only because I bought in bulk, sold it retail, and got lucky with some better-date Silver Eagles that I didn't pay a premium for.

If you're just looking to speculate on silver prices (rather than having hard metal in your bomb shelter ), I would look into something like commodity futures. I'm not really familiar with them except in concept, but I'm certain they have far better buy/sell spreads. And no risk of storage, shipping costs, etc.

jtryka

If you just want silver, I would just buy 90% silver coins. My local dealer is selling them at $3.45 per $1 face which translates into $4.77 per ounce. The real advantage of eagles over bars is that they don't need to be assayed. Though many dealers will take a bar at whatever it says, if silver goes up a lot, they will not be so willing to take that risk, and even larger bars would need to be assayed to determine their true silver content. Both eagles and 90% junk silver avoid the assaying issue, but the junk silver avoids the higher premium. If you decide to go with the 90%, I would recommend halves, just because they are easier to deal with.

Steve27

The best way to invest in silver is through stock in mining companies (goes up faster than the metal, has no shipping or storage issues, easy to liqudate). Second best is coins (SAEs or 90%); as stated in other replies, these don't have to be assayed.

baccaruda

SAEs - everybody loves 'em!

not only do you get a beautiful design, high liquidity, but their numismatic value will cause them to appreciate better than bullion silver.

remember investing in SAEs is not quite the same as investing in silver. the beauty is that the value of an SAE has a floor - the value of spot silver. it's high end potential is much better though. look at 86 eagles selling at 4-5 times spot.

coinfinder

Thanks for all the great advice everybody! I am going to look into all the suggestions advised in this thread.

MacCoin

if you just looking for silver buy the junk silver at melt prices and make your own bars. if your looking for something pretty go with the eagles or silver rounds.

nucklehead

Coinfinder, as much as I like the ASE the Canadian silver maple leaf is a beauty of a coin as well and can be bought for about the same price.

coinfinder

Thanks Nucklehead and maccoin.

KlectorKid

If i were investing i would buy bars they r not as stable but they cost less without the design... Oh and u can get more than 1 once in 1 bar so its easy to sell it off.

coinfinder

Good point, thanks.

ADKMIAMI

I also had the same question a few months ago. I purchased a mint sealed brick (500 SAE's). My reasons were for spec and not necessarily short term. SAE's do prevent ASSAYing fees, especially when dealers will want to do so when the pricing goes up... if it does. Bottom line, SAE's or Bars depends upon what your goal is and in what time frame.

Good Luck!!