Buying Barbers At Spot...a Wise Investment?

I would think it is a good idea to buy all the ones that are in G-4 condition or any better dates you come across. If they are corroded, bent, or otherwise mutilated it might be better to pass as these would be harder to sell.

This is just the way it is, it is always profitable to the dealer since he is constantly moving silver along both directions.
He will buy silver today at 10 to 15 % below spot price and turn around and sell that same silver at 10 to 15 % above spot.
The more volume a bullion dealer can move the more money they can make. The more money they can make, the lower they can make the margin of what percentage they will charge for a fee.
For speculators, buyers, sellers, we pay for the convenience of having a person to buy silver from or to sell it to.
If it were a sure thing we would all buy silver, but we can only speculate on it going up or down.
Funny how when silver rises in price, a lot of buying goes on and when it drops, a lot of people sell.
It should be just the other way around.

I had bought a roll of Barber dimes at melt and was able to pull out the good ones to keep and sold the duplicates on ebay. There seemed to be quite a bit of interest in them and I made out fine.

Just be ready to shell out the BIG $ for that 01-S quarter.

Actually, buying Barber dimes for about spot is how I started my dime set. I picked through a dealers inventory and in a couple of days I had about 30% of the set done. Sure they were mostly G-4 with a few AG-3 and VG-8, but the important thing is that it was a start. Then I slowly started upgrading and before I knew it, the set was almost complete. I highly recommend the Barber dime set over the quarters as there is no coin that is ridiculously expensive. The 1895-o is the key and that can be purchased for a few hundred as opposed to the few thousand required for the 1901-s quarter.

what your dealer said is bull.

if there was loss of silver the most it could be is about $1 worth

if you have REALLY crappy coins than maybe $2 or $3

Adam,

I believe vanbroj has a point... I have heard MANY people prefering Kennedys, or Franklins in higher grades over heavily worn Barbers.

The main problem is you are looking at this as a COIN collector, where as alot of people in the market to buy silver are in it for alternative reasons, not for coins. They view coins a bullion, and view worn barbers as them being shortchanged (as they are bought in multiples of face).

I am not suprised that some dealers will only buy barbers on weight not face, especially if they are to be sold as silver bullion locally.

Somtimes it helps to look at WHY a dealer would say that... and not just jump on it as "bull"

That being said I would buy barbers at spot if they were available...

From a dealers point of view, I always pull Barbers out of "junk silver" piles and 2x2 them. Even the AG-3's sell for a buck or two over spot. Then theres the occasional nicer coin that comes along that I can get a good bit for... So all in all... buy Barbers at spot =)