Size matters? Stacking Silver

K

Kelsey

New Member
Newbie Stacker, Probably a question covered abit but the more I read the more confused I get and guess best to ask directly the people in the current stacking environment.

What size to stack ie 10oz, 1kg bars?

I've already recently acquired 200 1oz coins, as aiming for a fairly decent investment might get messy if I stick to 1oz coins.

Thinking of stacking some bars, wondering what size is the most sensible approach, what size for example is snapped up quickly on this forum 10oz or 1kg, or what's easiest to sell back to dealers?

Stacking as wealth protection. Don't think I'd ever be desperate to sell (no debts fully own own home etc) however might flip oneday for Gold if Gold dropped etc.
 
Generally anything 1kg or under no matter what it is, will get snapped up immediately if at or close to spot and will go even quicker the smaller the weight.

I noticed it is slower to move 100oz bars + compared to the above, more likely due to the outlay cost for that size.

If it is for wealth protection and only investing in silver, just get cheap generic items as close to spot as possible and under 1kg if you ever need to move them quickly. If going with gold I would suggest the same but there seems to be more of a market for high premium coins and bars.
As you said it was for wealth protection, I would diversify and pick up some gold as well as silver.

Best of luck and welcome to the forum.
 
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Oh yes, the age old problem, do you get big bars that are closer to spot but may be difficult to sell due to their size or do you get smaller bars with a higher premium that are likely to be easier to sell later due to their size? I have made a decision not to buy anything above 5ozs so that I get a happy medium between size and price. It is more of an art than a science, just buy the size you are comfortable with.
 
G'day Kelsey,

First off - Welcome :)

As a dealer that both buys and sells silver and gold I would suggest for silver anything 1kg and under is good - target whichever is the lower premium at the time. Larger bars usually have a much lower premium (1000oz bars you can usually buy for about $1oz premium) but there is a very limited secondary market when you come to resell and you will struggle to get even spot back for it.

Best thing is to buy a variety of sizes/types. Then when you want/need to sell you can satisfy whatever the current "trend" is. Also means that if you only want to liquidate a little - you have some smaller sizes and you're not having to sell a 15kg bar because you need/want a quick thousand dollars.

Also if you chose to sell your bullion back to a dealer you will get a better price for the smaller bars. I know here (Bullion Now) we would offer you spot for bars up to 100oz in size. When you go above that size we start having to lower our buyback price due to the prices we can resell them for (due to lower demand for big bars).

malachii
 
If you want most bang for your buck you can't beat low premium 1kg bars. That's what I did and is why most of my stack (about 80%) are 1kg.
 
All of the above is great advice. Keep an eye out for bullion dealers with sales of "buy back" bars and coins. It'll take some looking but you may find some decent coins and bars at a good price as compared to brand spanking new bullion...if you are not a collector, rather a buyer for melt value / long term investment.
 
I just try and get what ever is closer to or lower than spot the 5 kg bars to give your stack a push along
 

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Thanks everyone for the clear answer and the welcome.
So 1kg or under should be fine for future liquidity. leaning towards 10oz bars as my sweet spot, though larger may get me closer to spot, guessin if I buy 10oz in bulk I might get part of the way there in discount.

StewyD32, yeah few days ago I purchased a few oz of gold (in new Ram 1 oz coins), also I have a few gold sovereigns and last month I did go a few platinum 1oz coins (intend also swapping for gold should it again rise above gold), ......thinking about it I've started to get carried away before I had a proper plan ;)

The plan is to eventually go mostly gold, I just feel gold in currently comparatively overpriced v silver (and platinum), so stacking mainly silver for now. If i'm wrong well silver is just fine too ;)

Malachii, I don't envy dealers in this crowd ;) seems everyone wants to buy at spot then sell for spot..........dealers asking for the smallest of margins (margins that would kill most retailers in most areas) and they scream rip off...........:rolleyes:
 
The cheapest way to buy silver – not counting dealer promotions – is Billion Vault. They've nailed their business model, and have great transparency and regular outside audits. Right now silver is $15.66 per troy ounce. Right now at Bullion Vault, you can buy it for $15.71 – that's a nickel over spot pardner.

Of course we want to hold some silver in our hands, have some physical on premises as they say. So let's take a look at my dealer price comparison spreadsheet. Scroll right to see the columns for various bars. Notice how only eight dealers offered kilo bars? And look under "Cheapest 10 oz bar" and notice how almost every dealer had 10 oz bars in stock.

This suggests that kilo bars will be less liquid. I think your 10 oz sweet spot makes a lot of sense after looking at my spreadsheet. So now your task is to find the cheapest 10 oz bars. According to my spreadsheet, SilverGoldBull had the best price on New Year's Day and is likely to be the best today (I think it was their house bar, which makes sense – fortunately, and unlike Silvertowne, their house bar looks quite good). Silver.com and Golden State Mint are the next cheapest. (NOTE: I did several price checks before New Year's Day, and the relative pricing among dealers was fairly stable.)

(I earn affiliate commissions from some of these outfits, but prices are prices and I let the chips fall where they may. For example, SilverGoldBull and Silver.com don't have affiliate programs, but I'm promoting them anyway because they were among the best...)
 
Kelsey said:
Hi Alloy, I'm in Australia, good info all the same.
Click to expand...

Glad I could help – I forgot all about this post for some reason. Must have been half asleep when I wrote it. I'll do a price comparison of Australian dealers at some point. And I'll get to gold too.

By the way, is shipping from New Zealand to Australia expensive? I wonder if I should include NZ dealers for a sort of Oceania-focused comparison. Singapore has some good dealers too – I assume it's too expensive to ship from there to Australia?
 
Hi Alloy,
It can be somewhat of a pain importing anything to Australia. Import duties, currency exchange etc Though a few days ago purchased some silver coins from Canada seeing how that goes (was something I was chasing but wouldn't be a normal habit). I mostly like to purchase domestically.
Couriers have taken over collecting import duties, and can make it a pain., hold things to ransom, and claim taxes that they aren't meant to claim.

I over a year ago imported a guitar from the USA, had to pay import duties then it arrived completely destroyed. Insurance paid out on the guitar immediately, but despite filling out all the forms making a claim for my import duties back, many follow ups, I've not seen them refunded :) so more hassle then its worth to keep following it up.

Not sure about cost of shipping from NZ.

Cheers
Kelsey
 
This probably sounds complicated, but over the years I've leant towards things that are priced between 1-4 days of the median Australian wage (assuming a 5-day work week) - with me leaning toward 1-2 days for silver and 3-4 days for gold. Premiums are typically reasonable and they (generally) have high liquidity. In practice atm that implies items priced between $210-$840. (Of course, if you can get a good quality lower priced item at spot then jump on it.)
 
Agree with all the recommendations that the best way is to buy 10 oz bars or generic rounds, they are easy to trade and usually dealers have special offers on them. For example Silver Gold Bull, Provident, SD Bullion, JM bullion sell 10 oz bars or rounds at spot price for new customers. Or you may check price comparison chart and find the cheapest bar, coin or round
 
I got quite a couple of 100 oz bars when I started stacking. This was before I found this forum. My mistake was to think that since an oz of gold costs $1800, 100 oz silver is not much more expensive but I didn't consider that the market for silver is different from gold. The same person who will buy a 1 oz gold without a second thought may only be willing to buy a 10 oz silver bar.
 
I got a 100oz bar not too long ago, just one and only Canadian bar
its liquidity that taking me so much time to start picking up more for the long term hold
during discount/promotion, it is better to just pick up the cheaper coins
but very slowly will pick up each for a few variety of those big bars
 
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