Silver?

Barry's a good one to listen to, Thaph. An honest voice with no agenda. He didn't have to mention that he made a mistake but did so willingly, on his own volition, because he wanted to help you. His healthy ego and natural level of integrity wouldn't allow him to make excuses that would mitigate his error in judgment like many of us might have done in a similar situation. When someone does something like that for a simple stranger, it tells you this individual is trustworthy, and that's a quality that's worth more than man's weight in silver and gold.

And don't buy into the "mine's are losing money so silver can't stay this low" excuse, for a lot of reasons, but the best one is the simplest and easiest to wrap one's head around: most mines don't mine for silver at all. Odd, right? So how does is it get out of the ground, one might ask? Well, as a by-product of what the miners are really after, like copper, tungsten, lead, zinc, and gold, among other metals. All of these metals would also have to fall below the level of being unprofitable to mine long before anyone worried about how low silver prices had reached.

Interpret whats being said here for yourself! I would be careful of buying in bulk quantity for a while, as a collector I don't mine buying few ounces to add to my collection, and if you are looking to make a quick buck. Silver bullion may not be good as an investment now.

What would you guys consider "Bulk Quantity"? I have often wondered this? 10, 20, 50, 100 ounces? I may buy 5-10 ounces a month but I do not consider myself buying in bulk quantity. I'm really curious to see others response to what buying in "bulk quantity" means to them.

Adding a little silver to your portfolio wouldn't be a bad move. Much better to enter now than when it was $30-$35 an ounce. I would stick with pre-64 US currency as it will always carry a premium over silver rounds.

50oz @ let's say $16-18 per oz. = bulk purchase, IMO :)

Guess it's relative. I remember guys regularly buying 500oz monster boxes of AG when prices were nearing $40 and thinking nothing of it. I'd been regularly collecting for a few years before the boom, purchasing maybe 200oz a year, and people who had never purchased much more than a silver dime or quarter were catching up to, and passing me in a matter of months. Those were the heady days of PMs when metals were hitting new highs seemingly every week with nary an end in sight.

Besides Barry, most of those guys are long gone now. Some were banned but I think most simply faded back into obscurity, whether from boredom, embarrassment, or lack of time, I'm uncertain. I be interested to know if they maintained their quickly gathered largess or sold out when things turned ever bleaker for these would-be silver barons. Who knows? They aren't around to ask.

I know I kept what I collected. Every ounce of it. I was quite proud to finally join the 1k silver club and didn't want to risk falling back under that number for fear I'd spend my profits on something less material than cold, hard cash and more fugacious like a trip to Tahiti. Nothing wrong with either choice, mind you, but each has it's drawbacks.
Look at the historic spot chart for AG. See where it rested for many decades, through multiple recessions and periods of uncertainty, and ask yourself if you believe the metal will buck the trend and rise to new heights, or fall back into the comfortable and well-established rut where it remained for so many years with hardly a measurable uptick.

I consider making a substantial investment in PMs a risky proposition, myself. Perhaps if you wait until it truly bottoms out, and then don't mind buying and holding for what might possibly be a period of decades, then I don't see much risk in such a decision, other than having a lot of money tied into a venture that might not have much potential for growth.

Now is the gloomiest time to buy silver.
THAT is the reason why you should buy.
Greatest upside potential.

"Buy in gloom, sell in doom"!

I understand and hear that all the time what @sel_69l... even the great Sir John Templeton used to say "buy when there is blood in the streets".

But this is the thing...

1- is what one is buying, is it going to come back?

2- how much blood in the streets is enough to where the blood is flowing that the purchase is down in a reasonable area minimizing risk...

If anything, I heard folks saying this "buy when theres blood in the streets" for a long time with gold and silver, and it has continued to drip lower. Averaging down doesn't work and buying a declining asset, doubling down, is a death trap for one's money.

I think people buy silver for greed due to the wild volatility. If you're level-headed then gold makes more sense but others will disagree. I never overdid it when I bought metals. You have to know the reason why you want a shiny metal anyways. Just to make money? Get some goals first; when I hear this question I just have more questions than the original poster. Why silver, why not zinc? At present you can't lose with pennies, and nickels are very close to their metal value, but you still can't melt them.