Newbie - where to start?

[briggs0808]

Hi, good afternoon!  I'm new to buying silver - especially online.  Is there a good place to start with identifying credible outfits that sell bullion and coins vs. scammers?  I've purchased primarily from JM Bullion b/c a buddy of mine recommended them and they are local to me.  Can anyone recommend any of their favorite online outfits that would also be good to shop at?

With the dawn of all of this digital currency i.e., Bitcoin I feel compelled to acquire not only bullion but also coins as they could be a dying breed as we look into the future...  Obviously, this is just my speculation.

Thanks for your help.

Andy

[Bigmarc]

Hello 

It all depends on your budget. Are you looking for standard bullion in volume? Or looking for something different. There is a section on here called silver deals (at top of silver thread). Most of the dealers are mentioned there. 

 

[Bigmarc]

I've just noticed you are from the United States. That information may be in a different thread, maybe someone else can help.

 

[AgD]

@Lr103  @CadmiumGreen @DarkChameleon these members are 🇺🇸 based there are plenty more on the forum that might and will help you along the way and check out the sale section for the USA and Canada that will be a great place to start 

[SilverStorm]

1 hour ago, briggs0808 said:

Hi, good afternoon!  I'm new to buying silver - especially online.  Is there a good place to start with identifying credible outfits that sell bullion and coins vs. scammers?  I've purchased primarily from JM Bullion b/c a buddy of mine recommended them and they are local to me.  Can anyone recommend any of their favorite online outfits that would also be good to shop at?

With the dawn of all of this digital currency i.e., Bitcoin I feel compelled to acquire not only bullion but also coins as they could be a dying breed as we look into the future...  Obviously, this is just my speculation.

Thanks for your help.

Andy

JM Bullion is a reputable online bullion dealer.   I see you are in the USA, so another good choice would be apmex, their website is: Precious Metals Dealer | Buy Gold and Silver | APMEX®.  Between these 2 online dealers, you should be able to find what you are looking for.  Alternatively, you can also order from private mints directly.   I know Scottsdale Mint sells directly to the public.   Check out Home - Scottsdale Mint for more info.   There may be others, but I'm not familiar or confident enough to recommend them.  Good luck!

[DarkChameleon]

I've bought from j m bullion, apmex, bold precious metals, monument, etc...finding your most local coin shop is good then build up a relationship and you might get access to the back room stuff or the rumors of coins on the offering that haven't been posted on eBay or auction sites...you coukd join ngc forum also, they gave a sell section to but as with all private sales and purchases its past performance and experience that matter...you can check out jewelry shops, some carry coins as well but get the red book for 2021 to give you a clue as what to spend but if buying slabbed then as they say buy the coin not the slab.

[briggs0808]

Cool, thanks all for the tips!!  Will run down those leads and see where it lands me.  BTW, what's a "stacker" vs. "collector"?

I've always been a kind of coin nerd so I'm fascinated with the older morgans and ben franklins and really anything early 19th century and wow 18th century really cool - but gets expensive...  The bullion is cool but not as appealing to me.  I'll likely try to diversify across minted coins and silver bullion - I definitely see value in both.  The one draw back I see with coins is you likely have to make sure they're preserved in a certain level of condition.  Whereas bullion is not so finicky about condition??

[CadmiumGreen]

Welcome aboard The Silver Forum!

Agree all with @DarkChameleon and @SilverStorm...may want to add Bullion Exchanges @BullionExchanges, SD Bullion, and Provident.

Enjoy the journey...and the destination!

[DarkChameleon]

32 minutes ago, briggs0808 said:

Cool, thanks all for the tips!!  Will run down those leads and see where it lands me.  BTW, what's a "stacker" vs. "collector"?

I've always been a kind of coin nerd so I'm fascinated with the older morgans and ben franklins and really anything early 19th century and wow 18th century really cool - but gets expensive...  The bullion is cool but not as appealing to me.  I'll likely try to diversify across minted coins and silver bullion - I definitely see value in both.  The one draw back I see with coins is you likely have to make sure they're preserved in a certain level of condition.  Whereas bullion is not so finicky about condition??

The stacker would fill buckets with silver coins and then cover them and bury them, the collector would take quality over quantity opting often for filling collector books or slabbed coins, the investor will do both, opting for future value against present value..I fall into the last, some start out as one then end up the other or a hybrid of the two, starting off with cheapest silver they can buy then getting into the collecting sets, dates, types etc...but always one eye on the future, be it as a pension where their plan is to sell as needed each week or month....maybe to sell when returns are good, like the jump in real terms from $15 an ounce to $40 now...some play the ratio game wanting to exchange cheaper to buy silver for expensive gold at a future low ratio of silver to gold...and perhaps even back again when the swing goes in the other direction.

Right now the silver to gold ratio is about 68 to 1, meaning if you had 68 silver generic coins you could theoretically sell them and receive enough money to buy one generic ounce of gold..reality is different because the premiums for silver are currently running about 20% over the spot price and gold is running at 10% over spot so selling 68 eagles would net you more then 1 ounce of gold...selling one ounce of gold will not, if its generic, get you 68 ounces of silver, once the ratio was 123 ounces of silver to gold with the premiums about even so you could theoretically sell a one ounce eagle and get 128 silver eagles...that is the reality of the last 5 years of playing the ratio.

Down to slabbed coins, if you intent is to save or invest in them then you should know that barring a 'new find in old coins or a very limited mintage new coin the values tend to not sway much, but they can be a good store of wealth for inheritances, they do have code numbers on them so can be tracked if people or companies keep that information which might work in your favor or against.

The short term metals flipper might buy new sets first coins as they come out because they tend to draw a higher resale value as the sets are nearing completion, it all depends on if the general collectors want that collection which pumps up the value of each coin like say the queens beast collection, or the black flag, sometimes it can be wise to get then slabbed straight away to hopefully get an early or first day release from NGC of PCGS...it can add value to it but only if the value jumps more then the cost of grading.

Collecting pocket change or junk silver is a cheaper option as it tends to have the lowest premium over spot but in that case I'd opt for 90% and all should gave readable dates, slicks are junk silver coins without readable dates and only worth the absolute minimum when selling and have no collectable value over spot to fill books as you can't read the date and mintmark if it has one...this is a relatively quick overview of the types of collectors we cover, the holder, the flipper,the pension fund creator, the collector and the hobbiest who can cover everything but usually not to a high cost level.

Edited April 29, 2021 by DarkChameleon

[DarkChameleon]

2 minutes ago, CadmiumGreen said:

Welcome aboard The Silver Forum!

Agree all with @DarkChameleon and @SilverStorm...may want to add Bullion Exchanges @BullionExchanges, SD Bullion, and Provident.

Enjoy the journey...and the destination!

Yup, bought from all them too...some can be slow shippers but I've never had a none delivery from any of them.

[Lr103]

1 hour ago, CadmiumGreen said:

Welcome aboard The Silver Forum!

Agree all with @DarkChameleon and @SilverStorm...may want to add Bullion Exchanges @BullionExchanges, SD Bullion, and Provident.

Enjoy the journey...and the destination!

I thirdly endorse these companies 🙂

I’ve had great experiences with all of them. And welcome to the forum!

 

[BullionExchanges]

Just want to echo what everyone else is saying above, welcome to the Silver Forum! 

[briggs0808]

Thanks for the great info!  This really gets me off to a great start.

[Bimetallic]

On 29/04/2021 at 11:26, briggs0808 said:

Hi, good afternoon!  I'm new to buying silver - especially online.  Is there a good place to start with identifying credible outfits that sell bullion and coins vs. scammers?  I've purchased primarily from JM Bullion b/c a buddy of mine recommended them and they are local to me.  Can anyone recommend any of their favorite online outfits that would also be good to shop at?

With the dawn of all of this digital currency i.e., Bitcoin I feel compelled to acquire not only bullion but also coins as they could be a dying breed as we look into the future...  Obviously, this is just my speculation.

Thanks for your help.

Andy

Welcome. The two lowest priced dealers in the US are SD Bullion and Silver.com. APMEX is generally a rip-off if the product is available at the other two.

Silver.com is owned by JM Bullion, but is significantly cheaper on most products. Why would JM Bullion operate a separate online dealer with lower prices than its existing store? It's complicated, but it has to do with price strategy, price discovery (learning the equilibrium price of a given product), and scooping up more search results on Google and so forth. JM Bullion bought the domain "Silver.com" for nearly a million dollars a few years ago to execute their strategy. Maybe @LawrenceChard can chime in with thoughts on this kind of dealer strategy.

The choice between SD Bullion and Silver.com often comes down to shipping charges, because they'll be very close on price (and much cheaper than everyone else). Silver.com is often nominally cheaper, but the hitch is that they charge for shipping on all orders below $3,000. This is a much higher threshold than most dealers – it's usually set around $200. SD Bullion ships free for orders above $199. On the other hand, Silver.com only charges $5.95 for shipping, on those orders under $3,000, which is about the lowest shipping charge in the industry. SD Bullion charges $9.95, but that's only if your order is under $199.

So when they're close on price, Silver.com will win on orders under $199. It gets complicated on orders above that, and you just have to do the math as needed. On orders over $3,000, Silver.com usually wins.

Those two are where I recommend you buy all your bullion, if possible. They're virtually never beat by any other dealers on anything they actually have in stock. In fact, I can't remember a single time they've been beat, and I have lots of saved price data in spreadsheets. The exception is when a dealer has a sale, of course, some sort of promo. Those can be very handy, especially for beginners like yourself, since many of the best promos are specifically for new customers. I got a very nice 10 oz silver bar at spot price from SilverGoldBull last year, because I was a new customer there.

So keep an eye out for promos. Subscribe to dealer newsletters and emails and you'll get offers. They all do it.

The only time to deviate from SD Bullion or Silver.com or a promo is for something they just don't have in stock. That's when you go to JM Bullion, BOLD Precious Metals, Bullion Exchanges, Gainesville Coins, SilverGoldBull, et al. APMEX is your last resort. They're almost always a rip-off, but they also have the widest selection, and it's possible they'll be the only dealer stocking a 2 oz 2017 Silver Libertad or some such.

Note that if you're stacking and not collecting, you'll never need to venture to overpriced dealers just because they have one specific thing that you want. If you're stacking, you can be more disciplined and patient. SD Bullion and Silver.com will always have the major products in stock, at least in normal market conditions. Right now there's a shortage everywhere, but they still have the flagship bullion products like the major national mint stuff (Eagles, Maple Leafs, Britannias, etc). Bars are mostly out of stock everywhere, with maybe one or two choices per size at major dealers, or zero stock of sizes like 1 oz.

Also note that if you're in North Texas, DFW, etc and you buy from JM Bullion or Silver.com, it's not actually local in the physical sense. It's not coming from a local facility or fulfillment center. It's coming from Las Vegas. JMB doesn't do their own fulfillment. They farm that out to A-Mark, a major behind-the-scenes precious metals distributor with operations in Vegas. My SilverGoldBull order came from Vegas, so they probably use A-Mark as well (I think SilverGoldBull is based in Canada). SD Bullion does their own fulfillment. I think they're in Michigan.

There's also Texas Precious Metals somewhere south of you. They have a good reputation in the industry, and they're the only dealer I know of that does limit orders, where you can trigger automatic purchases based on spot price movement or something.

Gainesville Coins is good and they have lots of unique inventory with trident and sea themed designs.

BOLD Precious Metals is pretty good, and carries a lot of fancier bullion, Marvel superhero stuff and so forth. The premiums on that will be steep though.

Golden State Mint has unique inventory, and not too expensive. They're one of the few that carry a lot of the Silver Shield series, like the Freedom Girl rounds – those are great.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Bimetallic

[LawrenceChard]

17 hours ago, Bimetallic said:

Welcome. The two lowest priced dealers in the US are SD Bullion and Silver.com. APMEX is generally a rip-off if the product is available at the other two.

Silver.com is owned by JM Bullion, but is significantly cheaper on most products. Why would JM Bullion operate a separate online dealer with lower prices than its existing store? It's complicated, but it has to do with price strategy, price discovery (learning the equilibrium price of a given product), and scooping up more search results on Google and so forth. JM Bullion bought the domain "Silver.com" for nearly a million dollars a few years ago to execute their strategy. Maybe @LawrenceChard can chime in with thoughts on this kind of dealer strategy.

The only time to deviate from SD Bullion or Silver.com or a promo is for something they just don't have in stock. That's when you go to JM Bullion, BOLD Precious Metals, Bullion Exchanges, Gainesville Coins, SilverGoldBull, et al. APMEX is your last resort. They're almost always a rip-off, but they also have the widest selection, and it's possible they'll be the only dealer stocking a 2 oz 2017 Silver Libertad or some such.

Gainesville Coins is good and they have lots of unique inventory with trident and sea themed designs.

 

I have noticed the "two names" tactic used here in the UK.

Most TSF members will probably be aware that Bullion by Post burst onto the UK market back in about 2008, with heavy marketing and P.R., and some very sharp prices on a small selection of gold and silver bullion coins. Some years ago, they acquired the domain name gold.co.uk for a reported £600,000. What they seem to have done since is to jack up all their prices on their BullionByPost site, while offering cut prices on gold.co.uk

I suspect they were using predatory pricing initially, to eliminate smaller competitors, gain market share, but then jack prices up once they got a "monopoly". (Amazon did this).

Using two names can also lock up the top places on search engines, and most people are too lazy or too stupid to check more than the first few places, so end up getting ripped off because they are just buying from whoever pays Google the most money for their clicks.

I don't see either of their names heading the lowest price lists very often on @Darr3nG's price comparison site.

I saw Gainesville Coins mentioned twice above. I would certainly not recommend dealing with them because they are copyright abusers. See here for details: 

https://www.goldcopyright.co.uk/copyright-abuse/gainesville-coins-of-lutz-florida-in-multiple-copyright-infringement-x34/

If dealers ethical standards make it OK for them to use/borrow/steal high quality photographs of their competitors, what does this say about their honesty and integrity, or their ethical standards towards their customers?

Gainesviles have never apologised for using our images, nor offered compensation.

 

[LolRasta]

11 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

I have noticed the "two names" tactic used here in the UK.

Most TSF members will probably be aware that Bullion by Post burst onto the UK market back in about 2008, with heavy marketing and P.R., and some very sharp prices on a small selection of gold and silver bullion coins. Some years ago, they acquired the domain name gold.co.uk for a reported £600,000. What they seem to have done since is to jack up all their prices on their BullionByPost site, while offering cut prices on gold.co.uk

I suspect they were using predatory pricing initially, to eliminate smaller competitors, gain market share, but then jack prices up once they got a "monopoly". (Amazon did this).

Using two names can also lock up the top places on search engines, and most people are too lazy or too stupid to check more than the first few places, so end up getting ripped off because they are just buying from whoever pays Google the most money for their clicks.

I don't see either of their names heading the lowest price lists very often on @Darr3nG's price comparison site.

I saw Gainesville Coins mentioned twice above. I would certainly not recommend dealing with them because they are copyright abusers. See here for details: 

https://www.goldcopyright.co.uk/copyright-abuse/gainesville-coins-of-lutz-florida-in-multiple-copyright-infringement-x34/

If dealers ethical standards make it OK for them to use/borrow/steal high quality photographs of their competitors, what does this say about their honesty and integrity, or their ethical standards towards their customers?

Gainesviles have never apologised for using our images, nor offered compensation.

Where do you buy/ recommend ? In UK

Edited May 1, 2021 by LolRasta

[LawrenceChard]

8 minutes ago, LolRasta said:

Where do you buy/ recommend ? In UK

That's an easy question.

Anybody out there want to guess my answer? 🙂

Edited May 1, 2021 by LawrenceChard
added emoji

[Bigmarc]

Bullion buy post 😁

[Bigmarc]

8 minutes ago, LolRasta said:

Where do you buy/ recommend ? In UK

Google his name bud

[DarkChameleon]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

I have noticed the "two names" tactic used here in the UK.

Most TSF members will probably be aware that Bullion by Post burst onto the UK market back in about 2008, with heavy marketing and P.R., and some very sharp prices on a small selection of gold and silver bullion coins. Some years ago, they acquired the domain name gold.co.uk for a reported £600,000. What they seem to have done since is to jack up all their prices on their BullionByPost site, while offering cut prices on gold.co.uk

I suspect they were using predatory pricing initially, to eliminate smaller competitors, gain market share, but then jack prices up once they got a "monopoly". (Amazon did this).

Using two names can also lock up the top places on search engines, and most people are too lazy or too stupid to check more than the first few places, so end up getting ripped off because they are just buying from whoever pays Google the most money for their clicks.

I don't see either of their names heading the lowest price lists very often on @Darr3nG's price comparison site.

I saw Gainesville Coins mentioned twice above. I would certainly not recommend dealing with them because they are copyright abusers. See here for details: 

https://www.goldcopyright.co.uk/copyright-abuse/gainesville-coins-of-lutz-florida-in-multiple-copyright-infringement-x34/

If dealers ethical standards make it OK for them to use/borrow/steal high quality photographs of their competitors, what does this say about their honesty and integrity, or their ethical standards towards their customers?

Gainesviles have never apologised for using our images, nor offered compensation.

 

Probably neither is good for a Texas buyer to be honest but variety can dictate British sites on occasion as I have done myself when American sites take the mickey on British coins.

[briggs0808]

This group is a wealth of knowledge and helpful advice, THANK YOU!!

[LolRasta]

What's your thoughts on grading coins ?  (I have never done it) 

Should I grade my 007 coins ?