There Are Many Ways to Invest in Silver

This post is for people who want to invest in silver but do not know how, or they know of some systems but are new to others.  Most everyone knows that you can just buy physical silver.  You can buy old coins.  Silver coins: quarters. dimes, halves, silver dollars minted before 1965 contain 90% silver. Kennedy halves minted between 1965 and 1970 are 40% silver, and the Ike silver dollars are 40% silver.  There are a few years during WWII that nickels contained 35% silver.  It is easy to calculate the silver value or melt value, but what is easier is to go to a website called Coinflation.com and use their handy calculator.  Just make sure that the silver spot value is correct.  Usually it is but sometimes on weekends and holidays it is not updated.

You can also buy silver currency from other countries.  Be careful because the actual content is not always marked. There is a good book (I do not have it in front of me) that you can look up uncommon foreign coins.  Common foreign coins that are 1 oz of .999 silver (just like the US silver eagle) are Canadian Maple Leaves, Australian Kookaburras, and Chinese Pandas.  Beware that there are a lot of fake Pandas on the market. 

Another way of collecting pure (.999 silver) is to buy rounds and bars from private mints.  There are quite a few mints out there, and you will pay spot price plus a premium.  The premium can vary between mints or dealers, and often the more you buy the lower the premium per ounce.  You can check the spot price at the top right hand corner of this site.

Like I said above you can buy from dealers, but unless you are a dealer you will pay tax on your purchase.  You can also get deals on Ebay.com. Be very careful with Ebay, read the listing carefully and if you decide it is legit and if you want to try to win it, decide on a top price before you bid and do not go above it.  The excitement of winning an auction can suck you in and cause you to bid over what you planned.

There are several other ways to invest in silver and I will get to the one by one, posted seperately.