As a beginner I have set my sights on handpicked, virtually spot-free 2011 silver panda MS70 NGC Early Releases that I can get for $100 total cost to me. Most of the 2011 MS70 NGC Early Releases coins looks to be of the Big Eye variation; I have yet to see a Little Eye variation in general. This makes me think that the Little Eye (Big Date?) is rarer variation. Were there a 6 million mintage for the 2011 in total? Have any of you a further info on the Big Eye - Little Eye variations? I'm thinking that this is a good time to start a new date-run: 2011-2020 MS70 NGC Early Releases Blue Label (10 coins) Unless we run out of silver by 2020, or it becomes $1000/oz...
It's hard to justify the premium for MS70 on post-2010 pandas. The mintage is just too high and will likely continue to grow with each passing year.
Agreed. However, at $90 before shipping there is not much of a premium: $90 MS70 = $40 Ungraded + $20 NGC + $30 Premium And demand will continue to outpace supply, as yennus has pointed out in his panda-investment thread. So is it really so bad to pay a $30 premium for a perfect spot-free specimen? There is of course a chance of later spots developing, but picking coins that have been spot-free for a year is a good practice. Right now for $30/oz spot, we have a [2004 Silver Panda MS70 1oz] @ $500 and a [2011 Silver Panda MS70 1oz] @ $100. But consider a silver spot price of $100/oz: That would roughly extrapolate to a [2004 MS70] @ $570 and the [2011] @ $170 when working with fixed added premiums of $470 and $70 above spot respectively. (Not multiplicative premiums, that seems unreasonable.) So from an investment point of view, buying 5x [2011 MS70] @$100 will mean [5x$100=$500] turned into [5x$170=$850] vs. 1x [2004 MS70] @$500 turned into $570 if spot goes from $30/oz to $100/oz, which is not unlikely in the next couple of years. I am disregarding numismatic growth in the above calculation, so let's say that we have 10% numismatic growth for the 2011 in a fixed period, then we have a total worth of [1.1x$850=$935] for the 5x[2011 MS70] batch. To match that in the same fixed period, the [2004 MS70] must have [($935/$570)-1.00=0.64] i.e. 64% numismatic growth. I think that might be a tall order if achieved before silver hits $100/oz. [Errata: I think that it might be a tall order for the 2004 MS70 to have 6.4x greater numismatic growth than the 2011 MS70.] [In retrospect: This is just an A/B comparison, because I just realized that for spot to go from $30/oz to $100/oz that would mean a $500 bullion investment would become about $1500 thus outperforming the numismatic investments, which also seems unreasonable. It would be interesting to see if the numismatic premium can outperform raw spot increases so that a numismatic investment trumps a raw bullion investment. What do you guys think?] If I have made a mistake or ignorant assumption, please help me.
I would personally rather invest in more rare bears. Might add one or two of the newer in MS69/MS70 just for the collection, but I wouldn't 'stack' them by any means or purchase multiples with hopes of high returns later on. This is just my opinion and I certainly wish for you to invest in what makes you happy. As for silver going to $100. I don't see it happening any time soon. For the last 36 years silver has averaged about 57:1 ratio to gold. For $100 silver we would need about $5,700 gold. I know there are a lot of bullish calls for $5,000 and $10,000 gold, but if it is to happen we would need a global shift to metals-backed currency, and that would take a lot longer than a couple of years.
