Good, or bad, time to go into silver?

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Casey Jones

Train left the station...
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I had a minor windfall land on me - and I just bought 40 one-ounce bullion coins.

I wasted my money.

Change my mind.


Background: the hype, among the alt-money types, is silver, not gold. Silver is said to be more likely to rise than gold, which, we can see, is manipulated on the COMEX. Silver is more an industrial metal than a monetary one, and thus, less likely to be moved by derivative.

So they say.

But when the shine boy gives you stock tips, as J. P. Morgan noted, it's time to get OUT of the stock market for a time.

When podcasts like Coffee & A Mike start humping silver...it's being done for money. Someone wants silver to be bought, and there's possibly an underlying plan.

Balance that against the extreme price gap, silver=gold, compared to times past.
 
i allways ask myself.....what else would i do with the $

i would always advocate for reducing debt before any purchases

who knows on the timing of silver specifically
 
Don't buy metals with funds that you might need in the short to medium term. Don't overextend and you wont be forced to liquidate at a loss.

If you are buying metal to trade on the price (versus a long term insurance againt monetary malfeasance), you might be better off investing in one of various paper claim derivatives like a vault account or ETF where you wont pay such a high vig/premium on both the buying and selling.

Not sure where you heard that silver isn't moved by derivatives, but historically, silver price is more volatile than gold. It also has not kept pace with gold (see gold-silver ratio) and thus is likely to have more upside on a breakout assuming historical market dynamics. That's the theory anyway.
 
^^^^^

An emergency fund is something I'd highly recommend.

Congrats on the windfall.
 
I have curtailed some of my buying. In part is because I hit my goal for the year, but in part is because I feel like it's a good idea to ramp up the cash savings. That might sound counterintuitive on a PM forum, but there is so much uncertainty out there. If a major recession hits and layoffs happen, I am not going to assume I am immune from that. I want to up my emergency fund to give me more peace of mind and not have to worry about unloading PMs to pay bills.
 
pmbug said:
paper claim derivatives like a vault account or ETF where you wont pay such a high vig/premium on both the buying and selling.
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There shouldn't be any premiums on paper silver/gold.
 
If $1200 is something you would miss then you probably should have added to an emergency fund. Otherwise fine.
 
searcher said:
^^^^^

An emergency fund is something I'd highly recommend.

Congrats on the windfall.
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$5k in cash for emergencies.

Not really enough; but since it's evaporating at the rate of 18 percent a year, it's all I'm willing to put into green confetti.

Thanks on the congrats, but man, I paid for it. It's a late settlement on property damage secondary to an auto accident in July. And it's a payment I didn't think I would get.
 
rblong2us said:
Dont you need to replace truck, trailer and motorcycle after that vaccident ?

Reckon I would buy more untaxed diesel if I had a windfall right now
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The trailer is gone. Just as dreams of being a rambling Snowbird, are gone.

The truck I replaced with a far-cheaper truck - 22 years old, but a Toyota and in great shape.

The payment was for the motorcycle. A fluke - I expected a thousand or so to repair it. Instead, the estimator got figures that had the adjuster writing it off. It still is operational, so I bought the bike back as salvage for $600. Got a mid-four-figures check.

This purchase was some, but not all, of it.

I'm outta debt; I'm done fighting with insurance companies, except for deductibles I lost - because the other insurance company is still fighting - I'm done with it. If/when my company collects from the other party's insurance (unlikely; a poor police report, a death of the other driver's passenger, and the other party being 84 years old) I get another $2000.

As an attorney told me in consultation: You're obviously the wronged party. What's the other party's insurance limit? You have, on the other side, a death, property damage, and liability. It may be a low limit, say, $20,000 in liability. The family of the deceased may take legal action. You will get behind them...you may be found to have a claim but be awarded nothing, or awarded money that's not collectible.
 
pmbug said:
LCS gotta pay the bills. Brick and mortar isn't free.
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Local coin shops aren't selling paper silver.

Premiums on physical are legitimate. On paper (fake) comodoties? Not so much.
 
Buy gold kruggerands at Liberty instead of silver. Gold doesn't tarnish and silver isn't gold.
 
Yes.

And when trying to buy in a back alley, it's a bit awkward with a gold one-ounce.

Also, I'm starting to get a bit nervous about gold-confiscation schemes. No, they can't search every sock drawer in America. They don't need to - if gold is banned, there's no coin shops or gold buyers. Except for the black market - and that's not going to ensure top value.

And as individuals get prominent...or die off...police-state officials will be there to raid, or search, SWAT raids, or probated estates.

I have plenty of gold but I've been light on silver.
 
Well, if you already have gold, then keep about 10-20% in silver. My favs are kilo bars, 10 oz & 5oz. @ spot + $2 or less. I like 1 oz coins too, but as soon as silver pops I would like to trade them for gold. The problem in FL is silver coins tarnish easily from the excess humidity.
 
Casey Jones said:
Have that, too.

...junk silver. Not sure how many are dimes.
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If you bought bags you know what you got from the dealer. The thing about Gold is I don't think you're using it to bribe a border guard to leave the country. I don't know where we're heading but it don't look good.
 
Lancers32 said:
If you bought bags you know what you got from the dealer. The thing about Gold is I don't think you're using it to bribe a border guard to leave the country. I don't know where we're heading but it don't look good.
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Yeah, I knew what I was buying, but I was buying by weight. Mostly quarters. May be some dimes in there.

A long time ago, I bought it.
 
Didn't mean to imply you didn't know what you were buying. When I bought from California Numismatics a long time ago they sold dimes quarters and they were separated.
 
Lancers32 said:
Didn't mean to imply you didn't know what you were buying. When I bought from California Numismatics a long time ago they sold dimes quarters and they were separated.
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You know....they may have.

Like I said, it was years ago. It was a singularly un-memorable occasion - not like the day I bought a Kitco 10-oz gold bar, because there were NO one-ounce coins or bars, anywhere.

That was about 2009. I've since exchanged the 10-oz for a more negotiable amount.
 
I bet that had some nice fondle appeal to it.
 
Lancers32 said:
If you think we get down to barter you need bags of junk dimes.
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Years back I had a local dealer who would offer junk twice a year at a discount just to drum up extra business. I would blow most of my $$ on the junk but always bought a few other items he had too. I got lots of dimes and half dollars. Bought quarters too but not in the numbers as the other two. Washington quarters just don't do anything for me. I'm really glad to have a good stash of junk. I also give some of it away as presents to my kids and grandkids but most of them don't really appreciate it.

Having said all of that, the heft of a nice 1/2 oz., or a full oz. gold coin sure feels nice.
 
Joe King said:
I bet that had some nice fondle appeal to it.
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Honestly? It felt nasty.

These were well-circulated coins. If you were ever a paperboy, and got paid with coins, and had to sort the coins to do your (simple) books and pay the newspaper...you know the feeling. Your hands were black.

In the time I was doing it, late 1960s to 1970, there were a lot of silver coins in circulation. Some people were pulling them out, but not everyone. But I never noticed a difference in feel.

The bags of junk silver still sit in my safe.
 
Casey Jones said:
I kept the bar in the package. The ONLY thing it was good for, to me, was later exchange.

And it was. I bought it at $950 an ounce and sold it later at $1500 an ounce.
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If it were mine, I'd have been real tempted to bust it open. The bar is what I was asking about the fondle value of. I know how the silver coins are.
 
* bump *

Apmex had $100 face bags of 90% selling with a $2.99 over spot premium back in September. The premium is down to $1.49 over spot today. It looks like folks are selling 90% and dealers have plenty of inventory.
 
pmbug said:
* bump *

Apmex had $100 face bags of 90% selling with a $2.99 over spot premium back in September. The premium is down to $1.49 over spot today. It looks like folks are selling 90% and dealers have plenty of inventory.
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Do you suppose that's because of pressure on low-dollar PM investors?...or is it that junk silver is falling out of favor with silver bugs?
 
Along those same lines....

What happened to the website coinflation?
Used to be a great place for a quick check of melt values.
I haven't been able to access the website in a couple months now.
Anybody know what happened to them?
Did they get bought by someone else?
 
Joe King said:

The link above works, but I can't get the main site at www.coinflation.com to open.
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It could be that the site was taken down, for whatever reason, with thoughts it might not be permanent.

It used to be commonplace, when there was delinquent payment or an interruption that might only be temporary...to disable the home page but keep the linked pages in the server.

I've seen that many times. My former doc, Died Suddenly, is still listed on the Meet Our Doctors section of the hospital-clinic web site. Only the link from the index page was taken down. Since corpses don't come back from the dead, not yet...he's surely gone for good, but they haven't bothered to purge the page. I got to it from an old bookmarked link.
 
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