Hi guys, Just wanted to get an idea - how many of you would (or would not) buy really ugly looking slabs of silver, assuming price was several dollars BELOW spot? Would the ugliness of the silver stop you from buying or not? How many of you would be willing to pay MORE for good looking silver, and how much more per kg, say?
Ugly silver for less than spot. Yes for sure. If your intention is to flip for profit then you want something that is going to be going up in value and is at least a bit attractive. If you are going to sit on it for 20 years and then sell it to a refiner, who cares what it looks like, as long as it is easy to store and easy to verify.
I pay more for good looking silver but I've also bought sinfully ugly bars because the price was too good. Below spot is usually a good enough reason. I find those bars are like an ugly newborn, you grow to love them over time.
Hammer them into shape and give them a bit of a buff, nothing can be that ugly! The only thing I would avoid would be inclusions, like if something spilled during a pour and the splashes of silver had bits of gravel in them. I have gone through the phase of thinking that Perth Mint Limited editions are the best way to preserve wealth, too much effort in actually getting around to selling them. I tend to purchase random 'buy-backs' because my stack is so diverse that nothing looks out of place anyway.
Depends on what spot is! Melt value will always be there for you, so if the current spot price is to your liking and you can get silver, regardless of what it looks like, BELOW a spot price that you're already comfortable with, then go for it I say.
Bars, brick walls, cakes, works for pretty much anything. Given the choice I would cover it in render and paint it but that probably won't work in this case.
Without a doubt i would jump at it. Silver is silver is silver. Beautiful or ugly is does not matter. Sure i might getting a higher resale price for the pretty, but its all the same going in a melting pot.
If it ever does go into the melting pot of course. Most silver seems to remain in the same state. Even dirty junk silver is most likely to remain that way. Who can be bothered to go to the effort or expense of melting it down or refining it? I have seen hand pours of .500 and .925 with odd weights where it is pretty obvious that someone has just melted down as many coins as they could find. They were selling for about the same price as junk silver, so why bother going to all the hassle? If you are doing all your own hand pours then jackpot! You are converting sub spot silver into high premium silver, rather than taking low premium Maples and ASEs and making high premium bars, much better margin.
Is it for sale below spot? You mean at loss? I ll buy it. Cant be uglier than some one night stands of mine =) At least its an asset not a liability!
Depends... If it's horribly ugly and not much below spot, I'd avoid it. If it's a huge quantity, way below spot and if it can be proven that it's genuine, I'd go for it.
If I was confident it was the silver content it was being sold as,,,,a buy no issues. Ugly silver is in the eye of the beholder, especially if it has a bit of history to go with it.
provided it was pure 9999 silver and verified as such (preferably with XRF) I'd jump at it not interested in some home made lump of sterling silver even below spot - but then some people are
Of course - everyone here who has purchased a new coin above spot is willing to pay more for appearances - some for numismatic value (not sure if rarity counts in isolation - the recent rubidium maple may be a 300% flash in the pan, other coins are nothing like as successful). There are are premium bars out there - Geigers as an example; there is appeal with intricacy, design and security features - 20% at most. 'Shiny' in isolation only secures a modest premium, whereas '0.999 cheaper than spot' will secure an immediate sale regardless of appearance.