Investing

Are you saying 500 hundred pounds of silver or 500 pounds in British currency(865 in US dollar)?

I'd probably buy a couple 5oz and one 10 oz silver bars and then a few each of ASE, Maples, Britannias, and Libertads. (Or Kookabura, Panda, etc. Whatever you prefer)

£4-500 sterling. There wouldnt be any 'using as currency', I'm pretty confident in sotciety.

Smaller units might be easier to offload in drips and draps, but it could be useful to offload in 1 batch.

I suppose the ideal would be buying the metal at melt and selling it at melt when I need the dough (im looking at a time frame of 2-3 years). I dont know if perhaps theres a place you can buy a bar of a specific value?

Also, whats the best way of acquiring?

It's a hard question to answer as we don't know what your intentions are. If you are looking for profit then you are better off roll trading to keep your cash working for you. If you have a large bank account and are after purely investment then spread over different metals. The lower fractions (in gold) are easy to move on but you do pay a premium on them and get a lot less for your money.

But ... why? Sorry Ben, but it seems to me to be a very American thing to invest in pms. Thing is ... how many gazillion tons of silver must there be world wide? Even gold. If a crash came and people really started liquidating the market would be flooded in hours IMHO. Plus, if it got really bad .. who wants gold when food and water are short?

it just seems like you'd be better buying Premium Bonds. Still a gamble. But you get your money (minus inflation) back with the possibility of a prize! Government Stocks? Guaranteed interest for the duration at a known rate and again, money back at maturation. And if it got so bad the Government was in trouble .. again money is probably the least of the problems.

If you want then top grade coins are just as good a risk. Sorry .. investment! Because nobody knows what the prices of metals will be at in 2-3 years. It's all a gamble. Better IMHO to invest in something you have knowledge about (such as top end ancient coins?) than (what I'm afraid I have to say is, in 'investment' terms a very small amount) in something unknown.

Of course, if you're really keen: http://www.coinsofbritain.com/pages....asp?ID=4570 Just an idea.

Tom.
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I hadnt even considered premium bonds, they make a good investment, will definitely go for that.

Interesting idea with investing in coinage. I already have quite a bit of money tied up there and I've had issues trying to offload, but I may look into some higher calibre stuff, dont have any ancient gold.

thats fine if you want to invest in PMs. However, like everything else, there is a time to do it, and this is not the current time to invest in PMs. If I was in your shoes I would be putting money in your FTSE... or even overseas,, anywhere but gold and silver.

Since however thats what you want to do and it is your money, and you are looking at roughly on the high end spending about $810 USD (rounding it up roughly) you could easily do half an oz of gold easy...

so since you want the metal, I would look for high end coins that are either silver and gold and see which ones are coming down in price because of the drop in PM prices... this is where you can make the most of that money, because if you buy bullion in these areas right now, you are going to be looking at an investment that starts underwater from the start and thats not a good way to start investing in anything.

I hope it works out

Tom made an excellent point Ben. You have a knowledge of ancient coins and if you buy right you could make a serious profit. What you need to consider is (and again pointed out by Tom) that 500 quid is a very small investment to make for any serious profit in the metal market. Spreading your cash over several different things is one answer but then you need to look at the returns. Higher risk = higher return. Unit trusts for example are a safe investment and in the past 3 years an initial investment of 25k (gbp) has given me 1200 pounds profit. Against this, in the last 3 months trading, I have been paying on average 6.90 a gram for 9 ct and have cleared a profit of approximately 26k (gbp).
When I first began to buy scrap, I had a budget of 2,500 pounds and at times I was so afraid of the market that I would lay out almost all of it for a very small return. In your case, with a limited cash resource I would strongly suggest trying to buy from the people that have jewellery they no longer need or want. If you try to trade with the dealers you will make very little. As I said in another post Ben, you have my personal email and I believe my phone number, if you are serious in wanting to begin on this route please get in touch, I am sure I can give you a hand up to at least the first rung of the ladder. Nice coin there Tom..