Just after some help on purchasing some silver. No have no idea where to begin. Is anyone able to shed some wisdom on this please? Kind regards
Where do you live? If Australia, try the site sponsors of this website And welcome Some other questions you may have might be answered here http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-49009-stacking-faq-s.html
Welcome to the forum. Start with one bullion coin from each of the major mints, to satisfy your curiosity and have a point of reference when reading about them on this forum. Then begin buying the bullion coins that are most popular in your own country, so you can quickly liquidate, should you decide that stacking is not your thing. You should probably avoid the numismatic coins and novelty rounds, until you understand them. I don't know enough about the liquidity of silver bars and generic rounds, to advise one way or another, but personally, since you are just starting out, I would recommend sticking with products that are recognizable and in high demand, and in single one-ounce coin format, until you determine where your interests take you. Good luck !!
Begin by not listening to malooneys - this will give you a massive head start. Follow your common sense and don't let yourself be seduced by a nice story.
To avoid aimlessly floundering around, you need to formulate your objectives. What do you want to do and what do you want to accomplish? Without goals and a game plan you'll be making impulse purchases, you'll end up with a pile of who knows what, and a lot of that WKW may resell with difficulty and at a bad loss. If you'd like to start out conservative, "middle of the road" and as safe as you could hope to be... Build a diversified and balanced stack---some gov't-issued coins, some private mint-issued rounds/bars and some "semi-numis" silver. Where you live should heavily influence what you buy, because your "local flavor" almost always resells the easiest and at the best price where you live. Examples--- Canada = RCM Maples (bad milk spots, but they are the national bullion coin); US = Silver Eagles; GB = Britannias; Mexico = Libertads; EU = Philharmonics; Australia = Kooks, China = Pandas, etc... Buy from vendors/distributors/mints in the country where you live. International shipping charges are nasty. With generic private mint rounds, stick with plain stuff (OPM, etc) and don't waste money on high-premium fad stuff. With bars, smaller ones (1oz to 10oz) are probably safest to start with. With "semi-numis" stuff, stick with established, popular stuff that has a solid following---Perth Mint Kooks and Lunars are probably best. Get well acquainted with online vendors and stick with the biggest, best-known and most reputable. Cheapest isn't always best, because sometimes they do go out of business and customers can get screwed. Two have gone down in the last two years. Read online reviews---bad reputations for delays in shipping, unacceptable condition of goods shipped and refusal to accept returns are warning signs. Check out local coin shops---good ones could turn out to be your best sources of all. Check out local coin shows, but beware of unscrupulous vendors. See if you have any local coin collecting clubs. Until you're very well-educated and knowledgable about fakes and counterfeits, you'd probably be best off avoiding Ebay. It's the global home of scammers, fakes and copies and you can get screwed there with amazing speed. If you ever buy anything via Ebay, read the wording in the offering VERY CAREFULLY and pay with a CC via PayPal, because that'll give you at least some (?) "buyer protection." Best to stay away until you know enough to avoid hurting yourself, though. For the beginning of your self-education in fakes and copies, search "silver coins" and "silver plated coins" in http://www.aliexpress.com and http://www.alibaba.com . Those places are where most of them originate from, although you will find them where you live.. Do a lot of reading in online PM and coin forums---here and elsewhere. Pay the most attention to whichever forums are based in the country you live in. You have a lot of study/research/homework ahead of you, so good luck with it. You will make mistakes and if you're not careful, you may get scammed. Here's hoping that if/when either of those things happen, it'll be a "pocket change" level incident. Above all else---"DYODD"---"do your own due diligence."
Welcome to the forum maize! I think it's good advice what Ouija and fat Freddy mentioned. You really should try to get a good idea squared away in your mind as to why you want to buy precious metal (PM) products. That should really help you determine a better path to start on. There are many different opinions and different reasons why someone might want to purchase PM products. For example, if you believe in the notion that we are facing and end-of-times global currency collapse (as some do) and concurrently you believe that most people in the world will in one fail swoof believe that PM's are an indispensable and therefore extremely valuable thing to own in that hypothetical time then you may be wasting money on buying PM coins or blobs (common, non-denominational bars). Your better bet might be to just buy scrap silver as you could get a lot more silver per $ spent. But that's just one belief system and certainly not the only one. Personally, I no longer believe in such a hypothetical scenario...at least not in mine or my children's children's lifetime. And even if such a scenario were to come true in the next 5 or 10 years as some stackers believe, I don't think that silver and gold will somehow magically become indispensable in that time. Human nature dictates that some things are much more plausible than others and this is the reason I don't think that the 99% of people who don't see much or any value in PM's will somehow magically think there. Necessities like food, potable water, and energy will be indispensable and since most people will be resourceful in a time of serious crisis, likely there will be things that will be seen as far more valuable than precious metals. But this is way too much to discuss here and it is sort of a digression from the topic. Bottom line, really think about what is the reasoning behind why you want to purchase PM products. Once you are as clear as you can be about this then you can decide what types of products may fir best into your pursuits. .
I agree with what has been posted above. Get a few items to try them out and then once you know what you like go for it. For me I've made a simpe spreadsheet of all of my purchases and then the average price per each item. My goal is to try to reduce that dollar amount as I buy going forward. It seems like a worthwhile goal while I'm stacking. Once you have your game plan be dedicated to it. It is easy to jump into something else outside your plan. My plan is currently ASE, Maples, Libertads, Britannias and Philharmonics. Then I got an Omnia silver round on a whim and loved it and bought several more. kept me from buying my five coin types. Love the rounds but they knocked me off track easily. Look out of pretty faces As mmissinglink said know and understand your goal for stacking and do your due diligence. If you are a doomsdayer then you might want a lot of fractional silver rounds and/or old 90% like US dimes, 1/4s, 1/2s and dollars. The theory is after end of days silver and gold will return as real money and you'll need fractional pieces to make every day purchases like bread and water. Like mmissinglink I do not stack for those reasons. I stack because it is a savings mechanism for me. I like to buy alot of weird worthless stuff and make impulse buys. Stacking has changed the way I see value as I now look at prices of things in terms of an ounce of silver. It now takes 2 oz of silver to fill my gas tank up instead of $40 for example. It is just another means of storing wealth, diversifying my assets and to be honest it makes me feel good and a little different compared to my firends and family. I also like to hold and look at my assets, much more fun than looking at my computer screen and seeing numbers. Another thing to think about is end game. How are you going to get out and when? At the end of the day unless you believe silver and gold will be real money again like the doomsday guys (who knows anything can happen) you'll likely want to cash out at some point so you can use the money to buy things you really want like cars, houses, vacations etc. You may want to figure out your exit strategy. For me my goal is to sell at $50 per oz (right now, taking annual inflation into consideration as well). It might never get there or it might (it has in the past). Otherwise I will pass it on to the next generation and let them decide how to deal with it. Also be careful of the gold bug; it bites very hard. I came into this game looking at silver and I am now spending more of my $ on small gold coins. I'm turning into a dragon or leprechaun.
I prefer 90% junk, not due to doomsday expectations just because I like these more and I noticed they sell easier too, to other stackers. I don't see a "cashing out" either. I didn't "cash out" my former bank savings too. I just "sold"' euro's according to need for what I really wanted. Silver won't be different, although a more stable price will make that easier, so I try here to talk down peaks and talk up bottoms.
Welcome to the world of stacking Buy local, recognized and low premium bullion until you get a better idea of things, gauge the market and buy accordingly. Spend only what you can afford to lose.
This! I started in the" I'm just going to buy generic for weight" camp. Then I started to experiment since I was getting tired of looking at generics. After moving on I purchased atleast one from each mint. 1oz,2 oz then 5 oz and kilo coins O_O. I don't think I can go back to generic knowing a couple extra bucks can get me a masterpiece haha
I have been buying off eBay, but limiting myself (generally) to RAM packaged items e.g. Masterpieces. Been picking these up for relatively low premium compared to other items. Felt that in getting only stuff with COA for a start I'd be relatively safe (and from people who weren't selling 'odd' stuff). Any comments on that for a potentially safe-ish strategy???
Just be careful of eBay, lots of fakes floating around and you don't want to spare with your hard earned for some fake stuff :/
I find with the boxed stuff you rapidly run out of space and much of it isn't worth much over spot anyway. Unless there is a sudden interest in the Masterpieces I don't think the premiums on them will shoot up If you take them out of the box to save space you risk losing the boxes or certificaes and then they are worth less. However there is a good chance that people won't bother to fake the Masterpieces etc.
1oz (current mintage) coins - 10 oz bars low premium. Sell the bars when you inevitably spend too much on your new addiction.... After a year or so get a bit more adventurous. Good luck! OH, and stay away from stuff with coloured pictures on them...
Crow---There are as many different strategies as there are stackers. Some are "MS70 only," others avoid graded coins like the plague, some are proof legal tender only, others are generic bullion only, some are "designer bars" (Engelhard, J-M, PAMP,etc) only, others are cheap bars only, etc ad infinitum. Some love those badly overpriced (4x-7x spot) designer coins and gimmick coins (glass chips, paint jobs and fancy plastic packaging are sure warning signs) and others avoid them like the plague. I've been away from SS for a while, but there used to be one guy here whose signature line was "Buy 'em cheap and stack 'em deep!" Philosophy-wise, you can take your pick. That's why I go the balanced and diversified route---if any one portion of what I have loses popularity, I won't be totally screwed. The fancier and more expensive your stuff is, the smaller the market of potential buyers you'll end up trying to resell to. 1oz coins and 10oz bars sell easier and quicker than 10kg coins, a handful of common Morgans or Soverigns will sell easier and quicker than an equal number of >$2K Morgans or Soverigns, etc. I doubt you'll get hurt too bad by keeping things plain, common and simple. The further the prices you pay get away from spot, the more daring you're getting. Stick with the "local bullion" of the country you live in and you'll always have liquidity but if you go with crazy expensive popularity bubble stuff, you may or may not. House's advice is excellent starter thumbnail advice, Jislizard is right about storage space (which will get to be an issue after a while) and Phiber's right about watching for fakes on Ebay, too. Proceed cautiously and DYODD.
Make sure that wherever you purchase from, they can actually, physically, literally ship to your location and not to a town, say, 100km away because the courier "doesn't ship to your location" and the nearest regional depot turns out to be what looks like the back of a disused grain terminal. ... I could have been making any of that up.
