And The Stack Goes On...

only thing I found in a quick search: vinyl sleeves/flips to hold 5oz bars on ebay, and sleeves on Wizard Coin Supply. Not sure if those can be sealed.

well this "other half" has less than 50 oz total silver bullion

hehehe... I'm right there with you, Fuzzy317. I don't have much more than that in bullion, and I add at 1-2 oz increments at this stage.

I do have quite a bit of numismatic silver going back into the 90's but I don't really count that in my silver stash. I only recently have caught the bullion bug and am eying some of those 5 oz bars! :)

Really really nice pick up and congrats on passing the 300 oz mark - wow!

Ed_B you're just buying up silver like its candy. You have so much silver you have ASEs just lying around the house unnoticed. It sounds like you have more money than me :) and you certainly have more silver...care to share the wealth....I'll be very thankful!

From what others have said on this site about selling coins and bars, ebay seems to be a pretty good way to do that. A good local coin or pawn shop can also be a good way to sell. We just have to realize that we probably will not get much, if any, of that premium back. Of course, if our bullion is way up in price, we might not be as concerned about that as we would otherwise be.



I can understand your frustration with this, Bruce, but also know that we must develop some channels for selling coins and bullion in the event that we want to sell someday. I have both a local coin shop and a local pawn shop that buy and sell PM bars and coins, so I could probably sell to either or both of them. It might also be possible to sell locally on Craigs List but I would want to be pretty careful with that. ebay might be a good choice too, even if the fees do seem a little high at times.



That's a tough question to answer. My silver bullion is an insurance policy against national and world financial incompetence. I figure that IF there is a way to completely trash either the US or the world financial systems, the people in charge are likely to find it. If they do and the fiat currencies collapse, having some PMs could well be the difference between eating and not eating. Of course, we have no idea whether or not this will even happen or, if it does, when it will happen. This is a bit like predicting when or if you will have an auto accident. I am preparing for it the best I can. Like the auto wreck, if it does not happen, I will be VERY happy with that result. If it does happen, then maybe having some bullion will be a very good thing. No guarantees, of course. I do see PM bullion as an inflation hedge. Within my lifetime, silver has gone from about $1 to about $50 and back to $10 and then up to $49 and now back to about $30. It's a wild ride for sure but as of this moment in time, silver has preserved value FAR better than FRNs, which have steadily lost value and continue to do so.



Like you, Bruce, I will use my PMs to buy what I need when I need it -OR- I will leave it to my kids and grandkids when the time comes. I am sure that I will be able to sell my silver. I am not sure how good a deal I will get or who will buy it. Silver has been a desired trade item for a very long time now and I do not see that ending any time soon.



Yes, I believe that they will. The trick will be to find the people who are interested in buying and who have either the money or the trade goods to do so.

As to your gold, well, not all coin and bullion collectors collect gold so they would not be interested in buying any. I only collect silver for now but might get into other PMs at some point. Gold seems to sell well on ebay, so I would recommend learning about that to see if it will do what you want.

Also, you might be able to find a local coin or pawn shop that will be willing to trade your gold for silver, if that is the way you want to go. Yes, you will likely have to pay a commission of some kind on a deal like this as the dealer needs to eat too. If you develop a good relationship with a local dealer as a good customer, you should be able to make deals with him or them on various buys and sells and at a reasonable cost.



I do not know if that will happen or not. If it does, it will likely be because those in charge have messed up the financial system so badly that this is their only option. I don't find this possibility all that hard to believe. Of course, if it did happen, the value of PMs would likely increase by multiples of today's prices.

It sounds like you also have quite a few years on me as well.:) Congratulations on your life's successes and I think your investment plan of physical commodities is sound.

I wish the future looked a little brighter for myself and others of the younger generations. These days working hard at a "good job" gets you underpaid and disrespected, abused by your boss, and ultimately laid off. We certainly won't get any pensions, our retirement packages (for those who can stay employed) are terrible, our salaries are poor, and we may not even get social security. The money we do make is losing value faster than any "low risk" investment can keep up.

I would guess that to be the case as well. I just turned 62 last August.



Thanks, Hesgut. My investments are large enough that the physical silver I own is still only about 2% of my total investment mix. I want to bring that up to at least 5% and maybe as much as 10%. To reach a figure that size will likely require me to buy some gold or platinum. I would be buying physical platinum right now if I could find some 1-oz. bars. All that seems available at the moment are some 1/10th oz. APEs and some 1-5 gram bars. The premiums on these small amounts are a killer if you want to collect 20-30 ounces so I haven't bought any of these.



Yes, I also wish that. I have a 39 year old daughter and a 36 year old son, so I definitely want them to have a good future. Both are doing reasonably well at the moment, though, and I am grateful for that.



Yes, I would agree that this is all too often the case. When I was working, I was a very highly skilled technical person who added a good deal to the company's bottom line. Because of that, I was appreciated and well paid for my efforts. It is imperative that people be highly trained in a desired technical field these days. I know that this is not easy but then the best things in life rarely are. Many companies out there today continue to say that they cannot find the highly skilled workers that they need and that this is hampering their business expansion plans. We need to allow more of these people to immigrate to the US and we need to train more such people of our own. It is dumb, IMO, to train foreign students to be scientists, mathematicians, and engineers at the M.S. and Ph.D. levels and then just send them home when they would prefer to stay in the US. This is human capital that we are just squandering and we can ill afford to do that.

Speaking of pensions, they are going the way of the dodo. That's actually OK too because the 401(k) plan has largely replaced pensions. In my case, that was excellent and allowed me to retire comfortably at age 55 instead of having to work until age 65, as our former pension plan allowed. Additionally, I got about 30% more money from the 401(k) plan than the pension plan would have delivered for the same time and money invested. IMO, the 401(k) plan is the greatest wealth creation engine ever invented and its invention was basically an accident of interpretation. Yes, it can still be improved but the real trick to getting the most from it is to invest in it to the max allowed. It helps if the stock market cooperates with your retirement dreams, for sure, and it did for me. I was investing in my 401(k) from 1982 through 2004 and, except for the 2000-01 recession, that was a HUGE bull market for US stocks.



Agreed. SS and Medicare will have to be trimmed if these programs are to survive. I have long thought that we need to: 1) raise the retirement age by 1 year per decade that a person is from age 65; 2) increase the amount that the employee and employer pay by 1/2%; and 3) increase the medicare co-pay for those who can afford for them to be raised. These simple steps would ensure that the programs remained viable. It would also help if the US government would stop raiding these funds, spending the money, and issuing IOUs for some future generation to pay.

As to those low-risk investments, I hear you on them. My folks are having trouble earning much of anything on their savings these days. The yields on CDs are abysmal. They used to earn 4-5% on these and that was enough to supplement their retirement money quite nicely. Not so these days and I am scrambling to find them some alternative investments that can potentially earn
a higher yield without being terribly risky. Big cap blue chip dividend paying stocks, Asian mutual funds, and REITs seem about the best, although one must watch the interest rates very carefully so as to not be blindsided by rising rates.