Silver Eagles?

Are you buying for investment or for pleasure? It's hard to know anything with so little detail because my answer will not apply to your situation.

For pleasure: buy at any price
For investment: go with kilo bars or 10 ouncers (least premium for a good brand of silver would be NTR, Monarch...Actually I think Monarch goes for a bit more than NTR)

Me, if I find Eagles with a low premium (as opposed to waiting for the spot price to drop)...that's when I buy Eagles. For the longest time they were $27-30. It's like buying a car wherein you have to argue over the price of the car itself, not the monthly payments. So it is with silver you have to look for the lowest premiums because that's the retail profit. Timing your purchases isn't as important as shopping around, IMO.

More info, please? What are your goals, motivations, roadmaps?

It's always time to buy, but... As said above, pay attention to the premium over spot you're paying. That's one thing that counts a great deal.

Silver spot spent June 21 through August 9 bouncing around close to $20, hit a bottom of around $18.90 and went back up to the low >$20 range. Now it's
spent November 12 through the present again bouncing around the $20ish range.

It can be argued whether or not now is a good time to buy anything, but some things are unarguable:
1--Nobody knows with certainty just what silver spot will do in the future.
2--Right now, silver spot is real close to as low as it's been since early 9/2010 but availability is still OK and premiums haven't yet spiked -- so far...
3--When silver spot bottomed out early in the second half of this year, vendors jacked premiums up royally and largely killed any "getting the most bang for
your buck" arising out of lowered spot. In addition to that, availability of ASEs and many other low-premium bullion items went MIA for some time.
4--As some old philosopher once said, "He who sits on the pot forever waiting to see what happens next will die of old age while sitting on the pot and waiting."

I dislike throwing out suggested courses of action, but I'll make an exception and throw out these two thoughts:
1--Don't make the mistake of presuming that premiums or availability will remain constant if/when silver spot takes a worse nosedive than it already has.
2--Don't run out and buy "because I'll never have a chance like this again" because the probability of that really being the case is zero.

So... the eternal "to buy or not to buy" quandary remains as strong as ever. Do your own thinking, make your own decision and make your own moves.

actually, the best time to be buying silver would be once it has confirmed it is out of a downtrend.

Until then, everyone who continues to buy silver and gold at these levels will find themselves finding out they could have bought more silver with more of their money than at current prices.

Trying to buy any asset as its falling is unwise, whether its 100 dollars or 100,000 dollars, doesn't matter how much or how little you put in, its a losing proposition

I am buying for collecting reasons and not investment.

If you're collecting and not stacking in quantity, then presumably you'll be buying in small quantity. If that's the case, then there won't be a giant amount of
money gained or lost by buying before, exactly at or after the most perfect of all possible moments in time. If that's in turn also the case, then the potential
loss you'll be exposing yourself to won't be catastrophic, so you probably don't need to develop ulcers and high blood pressure worrying about it.

It's just my personal opinion, but... I don't think every hobbyist-level purchase of a couple ounces of low-premium bullion coins needs to be undertaken with
the same investment/trading mentality that it's necessary to use when investing many tens of thousands of dollars.

If I had to spend my time worrying about every possible loss as big as the price of a Big Mac, I'd get out of collecting PMs and take up crocheting doilies
before I had a fatal heart attack or stroke.

well... I agree with Fat Fred. I mean if you are collecting and its small and you dont care where you buy at and dont look at it as investment, now would not be a bad time.

Yet, I darn well know down the road better prices could and will be had. Shoot, who doesn't want to get more for their dollars.

Now, if I was looking at buying 1000 oz of eagles, I would hold off OR find a way to hedge them at least.

Dont get me wrong, I like eagles myself. Heck, I LIKE silver coins. Just I think you take your spots right now when you buy coins going forward.