And The Stack Goes On...

Well, thank you for that, Bruce. I also enjoy reading your comments on this site, as well as those of many others here. Lots of thought provoking comments here for sure.



Well, Semper Fi, Bro. My son was in the Corps from 1993 to 1997, so we relate well to Marines around here.



Well, good for you. My wife and I are also considering getting an RV so we can travel about the western US and take more trips. Haven't bought one yet but the 5th wheel trailers look good to us.



I also like ASEs a lot. They are an absolutely beautiful coin. I have 2 tubes of them and 5 more in shipment as I type this. They should arrive here in 3-4 days.



Yes, it is good to know for sure what you have. This gets more and more difficult as your hoard grows. I use a spreadsheet to track what I bought, from who was it purchased, the type of coins or bars, the price paid, and the ounces acquired. A bottom line totals some of the columns so I can tell at a glance how much I have. It's not really all that detailed but it seems to be working well enough.



Yes... and there's not a thing wrong with that. My plan is to build a PM hoard that can be used in an emergency situation. If that doesn't happen (and I REALLY hope that it does not!), then it will serve as a store of value / anti-inflation part of my holdings and a gift to my 2 kids and 2 grand kids.



There are so many comments on here about how expensive things are on ebay and how people bid up the prices to ridiculous levels, I just assumed (big mistake!) that one could get a pretty good price via an ebay sale. I don't know a thing about buying or selling other PMs but the silver prices that I see on ebay are about as high as I have seen anywhere. It must be the fees that leech off a good share of any profit that might have been made.



Yes, that could be quite beneficial. I can see how a lot of movement would hamper your efforts to buy and sell, though. Not sure if there is an answer to that problem, although you could keep an eye out for coin and pawn shops and jewelers. Most of them buy and sell PMs. As always, though, you would need to know what the spot prices are to know if you are getting a reasonable deal.



That sounds good to me, Bruce. That is what I am doing. My plan is to convert about $75k to physical PMs. I am doing that over time. It isn't something that I plan to do immediately but over the coming months and years. I just bought a nice bunch of 90% silver coins today.



I would definitely agree with that. We fellows have to plan for the future of our families and that definitely includes the part when we are no longer able to continue watching over them. I am lucky to have a son who will be more than able to help his mom deal with the problem of selling or keeping the hoard that I have accumulated. As a former Marine, he knows all about honor, integrity, and duty, so there should be no problem that he can't help handle quite nicely.

That first post makes me wish I had extra money to buy with. But, then when I do get some money, I find it very hard to spend it on PM.

Case in point. Yesterday I had $1000 to invest. Did I buy silver? No. I bummed around 4 wrecking yards for 5 hours and spent $925 of my stash in those yards. The rest went for gas.

Today I sold 4 of the 28 items for $525. 3 more are sold in November for $475. 4 more will sell next spring for $625. 2 will be put in inventory in the hopes of someday selling them. And the other 15 will be sold for scrap for about $800 at the end of October. And that is not counting the $200 or so of fast moving parts that I hope to remove from the scrappers.

Even though silver has two very important properties, recognizable value and portability, these numbers make it hard for me to buy silver. The recognizable and portable properties may make me some day wish that I had stashed more in silver against the day that the SHTF.

Anyhow, congratulations Ed on being able to invest in PMs as well as knowing that regardless of the future that you have an "insurance" policy that cannot be eroded by the printing press.

Yes, there are a number of those "seal a meal" type vacuum food packers available. Wal*Mart sells one for less than $30 but I can't vouch for its quality as I do not have one and also have not used one. My son has a vacuum food packer but I do not know the brand. He says that it works really well, though, and offered to seal the damaged wrapped bars. I was considering that.

UPDATE: I sent an email to SilverTowne about the damaged wrap on 1/2 of the bars I got from them. I priced the shipping back to them and it came to $33 with insurance. I said that was too much and that I would be keeping the bars to sell locally. They responded with, "We will pay the shipping". Well, heck, if they are going to be that nice about it, I am sending 10 of the bars back to them for replacement! I doubt that they are making any money off of this deal but they sure do have a client for the foreseeable future!

A useful tool for sealing stuff is an impact sealer. You can buy a new 9" one for around $50. They will seal anything from thin plastic of baseball card sleeves to the heavy gauge stuff like the bars come in.

A cheap alternative is the dazey seal-a-meal, at a thrift store near you.

I didn't figure it, the local post office did. That was for registered mail with insurance. I checked with UPS and FedX and their prices were similar. What do you get in the way of service for $20 and where do you get it?

Yep, there's the key to lowering the cost, alright. Next time I will go with the flat rate box and the insurance. Thanks for the tip.

Ed-B: Storage:

I take my lunch to work in a snap lock polyethylene lunch box.
Ideal for your silver bars. Include a small bag of silica gel with the bars in the box. This type of lunch box can be stacked on top of each other. Sticky tape a label on the the side for contents information.

The whole lot can be stored in a large locked trunk or similar. Hide the bars with stored clothes on top. If the trunk is heavy enough with stored PM silver inside, it can't be moved in a hurry!

I am not as well off as you. I store lead bars (not silver ones!) in my safe to make it heavy!

I wonder if the PM value of lead will go up soon?