+++ UPDATE No. 2: Have you held a shiny silver dollar? +++

This is good stuff, but how do you buy these online and expect to be able to keep them if fed kicks in your door? (I could bury them of course) If there is a record of the coins you buy online ... then what happens if Ole Sammy says pay him taxes on it as it accumulates value? Can you get away with saying, "oops, I spent it at the arcade the day after I got it"?

Also, does anybody know of good coin shops near dc/baltimore area by any chance? ... or should I go further away? I would like to move far away from here but it is difficult to turn the in-law wagon westward.

In advance, thanks for any help

I will address the first one: "Have you held a shiny silver dollar?" The answer is an emphatic "yes". I contract in silver and gold coin. Then I go out and spend it. Holding a shiny silver dollar is not as fun as spending it. Try sitting in a restaurant after you've paid the bill with silver coins and hearing the guys back in the kitchen bounce the coin off the counter. Silver has a distinctive ring to it. The weight, the gleam, the feel of the coin in hand is very satisfying to people. That is why gold and silver have been used as money for thousands of years.

When you spend it people will not necessarily ask a lot of questions about economics or politics so do not offer any unsolicited commentary. Just spend the coin and you will have planted the seed. I still have people coming up to me that I used to spend the coins with exclaiming "You were right! They did go up!" I tell them "No, the purchasing value of the paper has gone down." Eventually they will contract in gold and silver, not exclusively, but to the point where they will be able to function successfully when the depression hits full force.

thats great news..... please read this... investmentrarities.com go download ted butlers free 61 page silver book.. then you will understand what is going on with the silver! your doing great.. I beleive that the american eagle will be worth a ton.. if not for you your children for sure! I would buy as many 90% "junk silver pre 1964 silver dimes as you can you will need these to act as money that you can trade with! if you take a silver eagle to a guy and need a loaf of bread.. how are you going to get change back? .. also buy as many silver eagles as you can! .. save the eagles! and I agree with your wife.. those silver eagles are beautiful coins!
you can't go wrong buying any type of silver investment.. STAY AWAY FROM NUMISMATICS THO.. unless you know what your doing! many people have gotten stung in the rare coin market!

peace dollars are not confiscatable though but bars are. Peace dollars are considered $ Reporting gains to the IRS applies to barsand almost everything else. 90 percent silver coins are reportable also One of the only things that is not reportable are peace dollars which are .74 percent

buy the old peace dollars and morgam dollars. They are .74 percent silver and that market is a little soft right now you should be able to get them fairly cheap now. Look on ebay there are alot of reputable sellers there I have been buying there for several years and have recieved everything i purchased. You can probable get the above for around $13-14 each

Sorry this ended up on top. I actually hit the button to reply to one of the comments below. The comments about finding them in circulation really surprise me. I have looked at every coin I have gotten for well over 25 years since I first learned as a little kid that there once was 90% silver in pre 1965 dimes and up. I have never seen a 90% coin in circulation, and I know what to look for, and I know what real money sounds like. I have been buying the 90% stuff in small quantities for years. I even started to hold onto '81 and back pennies which are mostly copper (82 can be either), but I left those at my mom's house years ago and she took them to the bank after cleaning out the basement one time. She understood the silver thing as dad always had some as the silver survival coins, but the pennies were too much for her. I have to admit it probably was a bit over the top.

As to the original post, yes buying the bigger bars gets a smaller per ounce premium. This gets more for your money, but the liquidity is not there. It is not exactly easy to make change for a 100 ounce bar of silver. Furthermore, as the metal price goes up, if the premium price per ounce holds constant, the percentage of this premium may go down with respect to the price of the metal. I think most advisors suggest some of each from the large bars to the smaller bars or rounds to the 90% which some theorize would become the defacto currency pretty fast in the event of massive inflation.

I have been fighting Ebayers all night grabbing what I can.

You need to use the site www.apmex.com to your advantage in clicking and calculating. the apmex sells 90% and 40% silver below spot. If you can get ti on ebay cheaper than Apmex...I am all in.

Just scored 50 Rosevelt Dimes for $58.00 If you do a quick calculation from Apmex...you will see that $1.00 face value is worth $14.81 at this second. So $14.81 times $5 (50 Dimes) is $74.05. Way below spot. You have to put your bids in fast at the end to grab this stuff...but have your calculator ready. It is fun. The eagles on Ebay always go too high after shipping. Apmex is a way better deal. Here is how you do it....

Goto Ebay and type in "Silver" then a screen will come up and you want to click "Coins & Paper Money" then sort by "Ending first" and start having fun. I usually scroll past the first page or two because those are ending in 1 minute...No time to calculate the deals LOL.

Oh yeah....make sure you are signed in prior to bidding...and do not go over what you are willing to pay. If you lose (Many times) on to the next try. It gets better...late at night. Some boneheads list silver coin lots that end at 2 in the morning when no one is up... I AM. Also make sure you calculate the shipping into the total price....And I only bid if they have PAYPAL as the payment to be safe...and I do not bid on any silver sellers that have low feedback.

If you do this.....and stick to your guns...it is fun...But you will be outbid many times and yelling at your computer screen...."How did I get beat at the last second?" It happens...over and over. Hope this helps.

Marcelo, lotso replies to your post, but I don't think anyone really answered your questions.

Should you get 90% or junk silver, or should you get something like silver eagles?

That depends on what your reason for getting silver is.

If you want it for when the federal reserve notes fail, then in my opinion I'd go with 90%/junk. You should always be able to get 90% for real close to spot. Another factor is that with the different amount of silver in dimes, quarters, halves, and dollars, it is easier to do transactions with. At $20 spot, a 90% dime is worth $1.44, a quarter = $3.64, a 90% half = $7.20, and a 90% dollar $15.40.

Flexability is nice. That is why that one dude saying buy a 100 oz bar may not be the best. Just like gold, you don't want to deal with trying to get change for a loaf of bread from a 100 oz bar or a 1 oz gold coin.

The newer Silver Eagles are nice to hold and eyeball, but why pay the premium if you are gonna get silver for trading purposes?

If you are getting silver as a financial investment, then go with the nice and shiny numinastic/collector stuff or the larger bars.

Another thing to factor in if you are getting it for trading purposes is that in my opinion, forget all the foreign stuff. Buy what is used in your country. Sure a dealer or collector will know what a Krugerrand, Silver Panda, Libertads, etc are. The known U.S. coins used in the U.S. should be easier to trade with.

A good plan that may work well for you is to get 90%, and when you are comfortable with your supply, then go with other stuff such as gold and such. Of course getting a Silver Eagle every now and again while building your 90% supply is nice ;).

As for your other question, what combination? That depends. Just like some people like to carry a small stack of large bills and other people like to carry a large stack of smaller bills, it's up to you. Keep in mind, a loaf of bread most likely won't be $3 when the fed note collapses. On the other hand, you may need a 1/10th oz or more gold piece to get a tooth pulled. Either way, shiny and pretty won't mean squat to the baker or dentist.

www.apmex.com

I check all m dimes and quarters now. Have only found 1 dime so far.

I work at a restaurant so i also try to check the quarters in all the drawers. Not man going around anymore.

here's a purchase I made over the weekend
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eB...
With shipping and handling included, I got the coins at $16.61 each which is less than the value of the silver content. The downside is that there is a traceable record of the transaction.

I ordered 10 silver eagles today. Planning on stashing them away until the chaos breaks out.

Liberty, once it takes root, is a plant of rapid growth.
Ron Paul Rocketman
http://www.youtube.com/wa...

They are pre-1965 U.S. silver coins with essentially no appreciable numismatic value. They are genuine U.S. coins and are still recognized as valid U.S. coinage, as opposed to a stamped bar of .999 fine silver. The "junk" silver can contain some wear, particularly in the high-relief coins, but their value, beyond their silver content, lies in the fact that they are still valid coinage and are more easily recognized and traded. The $25 price on a U.S. silver dollar is not that far out of line. You will pay a premium by purchasing silver in the form of U.S. coins, as opposed to .999 fine silver bars. A silver dollar contains just a tiny bit more than 3/4 ounce of .999 fine silver, whereas you could buy the .999 fine silver in bar form and get more pure silver for your dollars.

BTW, I like the car wash idea. I recently got an old flying-eagle quarter from an automatic change machine at a local Wendy's. The younger people who handle coins, by and large, are not even aware of the past existence of silver in U.S. coins.

Is the dealer selling you an older U.S. silver dollar or one of the more recent Liberty Eagle Silver dollars? The recent Liberty Eagle dollars are Walking Liberty dollars. They do contain 1 oz. of .999 fine silver. $25 for one of those, these days, is not a terrible price. I am wondering if it is being sold to you in some kind of graded-condition that was established by one of the traditional coin grading services.

Another way to find pre 1965 quarters. Go to your local car wash and exchange your paper money for quarters. your bound to find a few. you just hafta roll all the worthless quarters up to deposit em back in your back. it's a little work but it doesnt cost anything.

I just got a '64 quarter in vending machine change the other day--nice when those pop up.

Also made a killing at Littleton lately, they were offering BU silver Eagles 2008 at $16, and I maxed that one, already ahead.

Barry Goldwater Jr. fronts for the NCM and they can offer some decent deals as well. Got some Morgans there for $16 recently as well.

genuine 1877 S Trade Dollar...any one want to buy it? :D It's AU-55 w/10 chop marks. Has more silver in it than the Morgan Dollar.

But yeah...it's pretty cool to hold real money...makes you have a much clearer vision on FRN's

Krugerrands are gold.

The South African government wanted to encourage people to buy gold mined in their country, and so they did three things to make it more attractive.

1) Countries (including the U.S.) have a history of confiscating precious metals like gold during economic crises. However, there has been a tacit understanding that one country doesn't confiscate the legal tender of another country, even if the currency is a precious metal.

To make Krugerrands more attractive, South Africa made the Krugerrand legal currency, which theoretically affords the gold protection from confiscation.

2) When countries have minted hard currency out of precious metals, they traditionally denominate the coins in fiat units (e.g. dollars). For example, I have a gold "Eagle", it's a $10 coin minted by the United States. It's legal tender. I could legally buy lunch with it. However, countries (including the U.S.) have historically always taken certain forms of currency out of circulation, including making possession of the old currency a crime. Going back to the example of the Eagle, the face value is $10, but it's a full 1/4 oz. of gold, meaning that the metal is worth more than twenty times its face value. Technically the Federal government could force people to trade in their Eagles for $10.

To make Krugerrands more attractive, South Africa denominated the Krugerrand by weight, not rands (their money). So no matter what the value of the rand, the Krugerrand retains its value by weight, rather than fluctuating up and down depending on the exchange rate for the rand.

3) Krugerrands typically have a low margin, typically 1% markup (above the going "spot" price), so they're much better deals than the companies advertising on the radio, who sell Swiss Francs with a 30% markup. !!!yikes!!!

Pick them up on e-bay pretty easy.

Krugerrands are gold.

Whoops - double post

The role of gold and the Fed Reserve in the Great Depression - watch:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...

you dont happen to be from wny do you?