Silver Deal of the Day

Monday, June 14, 2010, is Flag Day and APMEX has a special offer to help you show your true colors. APMEX has recently acquired an allotment of 1 ounce .999 Fine American Flag Silver Bars. These bars are a great way to show your patriotism while at the same time saving big $$$ on silver. Between now and Tuesday, June 15, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. (CST), or while supplies last, purchase these American Flag Silver Bars for only $0.69 per ounce over spot in any quantity.
Buy Silver Bullion 1 oz Silver Bars

How and to Whom Should You Sell Your Scrap Silver?

I thought long and hard about even writing this article. Since I buy scrap silver, and I have other friends in the business. I hope this educational piece does not come back to bite me on the rear. The answer to that question should be no one, unless you are using the proceeds to buy a better grade of silver.  I understand that most of the people who follow this blog have an understanding of the way buying and selling precious metals works. This post is not really aimed at them although it might help them if they are not familiar with the pennyweight (dwt) portion of the Troy system. This post is primarily aimed at the visitor who does not understand how to trade in precious metals. I am particularly adamant about this for two reasons. One may seem a little bit selfish, but I assure you those who know me know I am not selfish. I do believe in capitalism, and I believe that everyone who has a business is entitled to make a profit. However, when the taking of profits becomes so excessive at the expense of others who are less experienced in the business of precious metals, I just call it greed. By now I am sure you are saying to yourself “is he gong to get reason number one. Well, here it is.

I buy scrap silver and gold. I prefer silver and anyone who has read my blog knows why, but I will also buy gold. When I buy scrap silver, I will offer what I believe is a fair price for both parties. This leads me to my second reason. I do not like to see people getting ripped off by the “Cash 4 Gold” dealers or the “Gold Parties” like the Tupperware parties my mom used to host. I did market research when I got into this business to see what the competition would offer a customer for gold or silver. The first time I checked a dealer for prices, silver spot was around $18.00 a Troy ounce. There are 31.1 grams (g) in a Troy ounce. That means .999 silver was $0.58 per gram and Sterling (92.5% pure) would be around $0.54 per gram. The dealer told me that he paid $0.25 per gram, less than half price. I do not remember what his prices on gold were but similarly they were about half of the melt value for that karat. At that time I was paying anywhere from $0.41-0.45 per gram for Sterling. I figured 20-25% of the melt value was enough for me.

To make things worse, I did a little investigative reporting last nght by going into a dealers store. I took a few piece of 14k jewelry with me. To start off, they do not use grams as a unit of measurement, they use pennyweights (dwt). I am sure this is purely to confuse the customer. Few people that are not in the business know how many grams are in a troy ounce, but even less knows how to use pennyweights. A pennyweight is measurement in the Troy system equaling 24 grains or the twentieth part of a Troy ounce (there are 12 ounces in a Troy pound. One dwt is equal to 1.55517g. The price they were paying for gold was $14.00 per dwt of 14k gold and like wise10k gold wad $10.00 per dwt. The spot price for gold was $1101.50 per Troy ounce for .999 or 24k, which mean 24k gold melt value would be $35.42 per gram rounded up, and 14k gold melt value would be $20.66 per gram or $32.13 per dwt. This means that they are paying a good bit less than half of the melt value; they are paying 43.6% of the melt value.

Now, I am not telling you this to get you to sell your gold and silver to me. I am just trying to help you make an educated decision. Just because the “gold man” has a nice office in a strip mall does not mean you are going to get a good price for your PMs. Imagine what the rent on that office must be, you are paying all of his overhead expenses. You are better off finding an independent (like me) that has very little overhead expenses and can pay 70-75% of the melt value. I may even be shooting myself in the foot here but if you cannot find someone willing to pay you a fair price, sell it on Ebay. I buy scrap silver very often on Ebay, and many times I will lose an auction because, regular folk are buying up all the PMs they can, and paying very close to melt value.

I am going to leave you with one more piece of advice. Before you part with that piece of scrap silver of gold, think about our current administration that is spending us into a black hole of debt that we will never be able to get out of. The fiat currency we use now will one day be worthless, and that gold ring or silver spoon you hold in your hand may one day buy your groceries. That is all. Buy silver, buy soon!

One Reason Why Silver Prices are Manipulated

I have been saying for a while that silver is undervalued and its price is being artificially manipulated. Why would someone try to keep silver prices down, you might ask? The best example is demonstrated by industrial applications of silver, which there are many. If you use silver and its cost goes up, you will not make money if you cannot increase your selling price. When any commodity's price go up, companies who use the commodity as a non-substitutable component in their product, but cannot raise their prices to meet the commodities price increase will end up losing out (unless they are able to keep the price artificially low). "This is why gasoline stations close despite increasing oil prices. They cannot increase their prices very much, at the same time the big oil companies increase the prices to them. The reasons they cannot rais fuel prices very much is that competition between stations creates price pressure downwards and consumers are somewhat price-sensitive, even to gasoline, which doesn't have a mainstream alternative (TheStreet.com)." This is a really good example why the price of silver is being artificially held down. However, I believe there will come a day when silver becomes in such demand and becomes so scarce that the man behind the curtain will no longer be able to contain the price of silver. I just hope I live to see that day; but, at least my beneficiaries will be well taken care of. Now I will give credit where credit is due. I do not plagiarize, if I use another's article I give them full credit. I was already writing this article and saw some good examples in a general article on commodities on TheStreet.com. I did use their example and cited them as a reference. Buy silver while it is low!

Why silver premiums?

Premiums on PMs such as silver are supposed to cover mining, refining, and minting costs. A good example of how much mining costs can be can be seen in Silver Standard Resources Q4 report. This mining company reported a (Dec) loss of $0.13 per share. The Pirquitas Mine produced 1.1 M ounces during the year. Since December 1, 2009, the date of achievement of commercial production, the mine produced to year-end 545,600 ounces of silver at a cash production cost of $8.99 per silver ounce. Total cash costs, including transportation, treatment, refining, export taxes and royalties, were $16.57 per silver ounce. During the month, the company sold 460,100 ounces of silver at a realized price of $17.49 per ounce. This kind of loss may not be typical of all silver mining companies but just shows many of the costs of getting the shiny stuff to us. Now, dealers have to make a profit also but some of their tack-ons can be outrageous. A good place to find information on the best dealers and mints (besides here) is the FB group “Silverbugs.” It is not public, so you have to ask an admin to allow you access. We are pretty lenient in our restrictions, but we DO NOT allow any marketing schemes. Check us out!

Silver Up On News: Greece's Plans and Jobs Data

An article on Forbes.com reported that silver futures moved higher this morning as the Euro strengthened against the US dollar, and an employment report showed improvement in the U.S. jobs picture. Silver spot price was up to nearly $17.40 per Troy ounce around noon today. The high this year was $18.44 on January 11th.  Today's price was the highest since silver fell to $17.68 on January 21st and continued downward to bottom at $15.14 on February 8th (Kitco London Fix).  Greece's plans to rein in its debt gave strength to the Euro and thus weakened the US Dollar. Furthermore, the ADP jobs report stated the U.S. private-sector employers cut 40,000 less jobs in February than in January.  To read the entire article:
Gold Rallies As Dollar Dallies
Greenback falls on Greek belt-tightening, provides boost to metal prices, stocks.
By MarketNewsVideo.com

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/03/gold-barrick-anglogold-markets-equities-silver-marketnewsvideo.html?partner=email

Silverbugs-Group for Silver Lovers on Facebook

There is an up and coming group on Facebook called Silverbugs.  This group is primarily for interaction between people who love, buy, sell, trade and invest in silver.  People interested in any of theses things may be invited to join.  IMO it is not for the profiteering from fellow members or the advertisement of the newest get rich by making me rich scheme. 

I am not the group leader, so as I said this is only my opinion; however, if this group get floooded with join my new NUMI, snowballing, pyramid or other silver business and make millions posts, I am out.  I have nothing against people in the silver NUMI business, I just do not want the group to be a place to advertise your business.  I am not trying to be a  hard ass, and if you announce that your program is looking for people once, I think that would be fine, but as of now it is fairly balanced.  It really depends on who members invite to join.  If a member constantly invites off-topic members to join, I think they should be banned.  They can always form their own group and keep me out. 

I do not advocate censorship, I just think the group should stay on topic without preying on the other members. I am not saying not to sale or trade between members or announce an ebay item that other members might be iterested in, just stop the internet marketing, pyramid, snowballing whatever you want to call them plans. 

I put this on my blog because I hope that my fellow silverbugs and other friends on FB look at what I post occasionally.  Yes, I have some ads on the page, but I am not pressuring anyone to click.  It helps me if you do but I don't care if you don't.  I just like to keep informed and when I see something that interests me, I share.  I will end my announcement/invitation/rant now.  Carry on, and I cannot stress it enough, NOW is the time to buy physical silver.

New 52 Week High

Silver hit a new 52 week high today at $19.47 an troy ounce. I also have stock in SIVR, an ETF that tracks the spot price of silver. Both stock price and physical silver price was at a 52 week high today before dropping down to around $19.28. I am not selling but I like to see the price go up on any investment.