Where can one buy silver bullion or coins?

[OvenMaster]

A friend of mine was asking where he could buy a few 1oz silver coins or bullion ingots. Years ago, he did it with zero hassle at a Deak Perera mall kiosk or foreign exchange office. Now, all he can find is used coin dealers who charge a hefty premium, and the nearest ones are like 100 miles away. Bullion now seems to be just about impossible for the public to buy in the US without opening an account with a minimum of $1000 or so, but in Canada, you can walk into any Scotiabank branch and do this easily.
http://www.scotiabank.com/cda/content/0,1608,CID6053_LIDen,00.html
I still have a 1oz Engelhard ingot from that era (mid-80's).

Any ideas?

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/118/eagleengelhardnl5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[luvvinvinyl]

Banks, and even the post office, carry Royal Canadian Mint bullion coins, silver, gold and platinum. Various sizes are available, each with their own 'face value', although I don't think I'm going to use a 1/10th oz. gold bullion coin to buy a Big Mac.

RCM calls the bullion coins a 'Maple Leaf', imagine that! One year, they offered a 10 oz Silver Maple Lear. It looks bigger than the coin they used for the Super Bowl toss.

[timoteus]

There are many online brokers such as www.monex.com where you can buy bullion and coins.

[toxcrusadr]

I know a guy in CO who's a precious metals dealer, he's trustworthy and has good prices. He sells newly minted coins and bags of "junk" silver quarters, etc. Ships through US Mail all insured and safe. PM me if you're interested.

[mwr885]

Forgive me for prying, but what does one do with a silver ingot? Is it just for the cool factor cause it does look pretty neat

[Jim Eck]

Investment value, I use to give them as gifts to children, figuring that by the time they became adults the value would have increased. We had a local bank that carried Silver and Gold, they have since been absorbed by National City, I have a freind who works there I can inquire to.

Jim

[Gohan]

You can buy silver bullion and coins on ebay

Gohan

[gearhound]

Flea market finds are RARE....but fun when it happens:

U.S. 1808 Half-Cent in GC......................................$8.
U.S. 1875 20 cent coin (20 is NOT a typo) in VGC......$10.
U.S. 1877 Half Dollar (uncirculated cond.).................$15.

Happy hunting!!

Steve

[Arkay]

I find silver stuff regularly... gold, too, sometimes....when I take my metal detector to the beach! The very first day I tried metal-detecting here in Hong Kong, I found a small, round, 24K gold medallion with a rabbit motif (Chinese lunar calendar astrological sign). I keep it as my lucky rabbit (in lieu of a rabbit's foot).

A friend of mine (now deceased from alcohol-related enlarged heart, RIP) once was poking around a building that was being demolished for re-development, and found a stash of rolls of pre-War silver coins. Someone must have hidden them away and either forgot them or died without telling anyone. He insisted on almost giving them to me (for a real peanuts price), saying he had no idea where he would keep them or what he'd ever do with them. They weren't highly valuable coins, but still worth more than I gave him for them, and he knew it. I wondered later if he didn't already know then that he wouldn't be around long, even though nothing was said about being ill until much later. I still have those coins, little bits of old Hong Kong colonial-era history and a reminder of a good friend now gone.

Found a 1-ounce gold ingot once, on some steps outside the main post office here. I saw the golden sparkle from some distance away, and it was busy lunch-hour time, so I saw a number of people ahead of me walk over or past it, nearly stepping on it, apparently without even seeing it ... until I got to it and picked it up. A very lucky day, that was!

Funny, I have bought and sold ingots and coins through banks and dealers a number of times over the years, but it is these "accidental" ones that I really remember. The others were basically just "figures in a ledger", albeit in tangible form.

[Jack Lord]

I bought some Golden Eagles off the Bay before the price of gold soared. I keep them in a safe deposit box should the Day of the Mushroom Cloud ever come. Assuming I am not vaporized, I will use them to buy supplies.

[OvenMaster]

Many thanks, guys. I've told my pal your responses and I'm waiting to hear what he wants to do. I'm grateful.
Tom

[toxcrusadr]

If I had taken the advice of people who told me 3 yrs. ago the price of silver and gold would go way up in the next couple years, I could have made a killin.

BTW there are some people who buy precious metals as a special type of investment: a hedge against paper currency collapse. The dollar is not based on anything, anymore.

[scoute37]

Go to Gaithersburg Coin Exchange in Md or call the at 1-800-638-4104. One of 4 businesses referred out by the US Mint

[Aage]

The dollar is not based on anything, anymore.

Although there are some medical and manufacturing uses for most precious metals (such as gold and silver) what is their real value based on?

You can't eat it, and you certainly can live without it.

Therefore, gold is only worth what we believe it's worth, what we will pay for it.

So, couldn't we say the same thing: gold's value is not based on (almost) anything, anymore?

[SicMan]

I have a shipping agent in Nigeria and we can make deal for lots of silver, you need to send me check for lots of money and will get you some. ASAP.
Thank You
Captain Mobou Mozzambiques

Just kidding around....
John

[toxcrusadr]

Although there are some medical and manufacturing uses for most precious metals (such as gold and silver) what is their real value based on?

You can't eat it, and you certainly can live without it.

Therefore, gold is only worth what we believe it's worth, what we will pay for it.

So, couldn't we say the same thing: gold's value is not based on (almost) anything, anymore?

Hmm. :scratch2: Interesting thought.

Although I would venture to say that in a worldwide financial crisis of the type such people fear and prepare for, gold and silver might be considered to have a more universal 'value' for more people than paper printed in the USA.

[Sandy G]

Silver right now is $18.81-closing price on New York Exchange. It will prolly pop $20 an ounce either this week or early next, but there could be some profit taking & a "correction" before it goes up. Gold's about the same-It was $949.50 an ounce-tickling the magic $1K barrier. Wish we'd all bought a bunch of each back last summer...

[mamboni]

Although there are some medical and manufacturing uses for most precious metals (such as gold and silver) what is their real value based on?

You can't eat it, and you certainly can live without it.

Therefore, gold is only worth what we believe it's worth, what we will pay for it.

So, couldn't we say the same thing: gold's value is not based on (almost) anything, anymore?

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.”

-Alan Greenspan

Excerpt from Gold and Economic Freedom
(In 1967, Rand published her non-fiction book, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal. In it, she included Gold and Economic Freedom, the essay by Alan Greenspan.)





“You always have to ask the question why is it that central banks hold so much gold which earns them no interest and which costs them money to store. The answer is obvious: they consider it of significant value, and indeed they consider it the ultimate means of payment, one which does not require any form of endorsement.”

-Alan Greenspan

[wajobu]

Guilford Coin Exchange in Guilford, CT--always done right by me.

http://www.pcgs.com/dealer/dealer_info.chtml?dealerid=1194&type=all

Current prices:

http://www.pcgs.com/prices/bullioncoins.chtml

[mamboni]

Silver right now is $18.81-closing price on New York Exchange. It will prolly pop $20 an ounce either this week or early next, but there could be some profit taking & a "correction" before it goes up. Gold's about the same-It was $949.50 an ounce-tickling the magic $1K barrier. Wish we'd all bought a bunch of each back last summer...

I will make this statement with seriousness and sincere concern for you and my fellow citizens in the coming days. First, the US in the early stages of a dollar crisis/collapse. This process has been ongoing since the early 1970's and a dollar meltdown was averted once, in 1980, by Volker at the Fed. In the last few years, the process of dollar depreciation has regained a footing and is now accelerating at an alarming rate. You are going to see gold and silver prices that will leave one breathless - gold will easily exceed $2000 within 2 years - and silver will match gold and reach $40-50. When the dollar crisis finally penetrates the consciousness of the average American who presently is pleasantly oblivious, you will see a mad run for the exits, from the paper dollar to precious metals and hard assets. In such a crisis, the federal government may find it expedient or necessary to sieze gold and gold mining concerns; and, it may order all citizens to surrender their physical gold holdings in the name of national security. This did happen here in our beloved free America in 1933. It is therefore relevant to consider that all internet communications are monitored and recorded by the NSA. Discussions of gold on line vis-a-vis personal investment as such might best be conducted with great discretion, or not at all.:smoke:

[Sandy G]

The Dreaded E-Place is a reasonably good place to buy silver. My buddy Walter basically makes his living there, buying "junk" 90% silver coins 1964 & before dollars, halves, quarters & dimes- & junk 40%- 1965 -70 halves. I say "junk" because you really DON'T wanna fool w/numismatic coins if you don't know what you're doing. Believe it or not, even the "bullion" coins like the silver eagles have a little numismatic value to them. To give you an idea of numismatic value, there is an 1893 silver dollar that was minted in San Fransisco that is worth $3300-3500 in "very good" shape- and that's actually a coin that has a fair amount of wear on it. The silver in it is only worth about $15-18...If you were to luck up on one of those in uncirculated shape, it could be worth $65000-$200K....

[bgadow]

I'm reminded of an ex-employee who came to me every day at lunchtime, trading his early 60s silver quarters in one new ones so he could buy a Pepsi. (machine wouldn't accept them) Someone in his family had given him a bunch of 'em. I saved 'em, of course.

An idea for currency: start hoarding 6L6's...they should hold onto their value, right? Unfortunately I traded all my good ones for an RCA 630ts.