Investing In Silver - A Sound Business Solution To A Secure Personal Portfolio

Why Invest In Silver?

Over the years we have been offered many ways to hedge against inflation and recession. A lot of these methods are "paper", and the thing about paper, whether it is money or stocks, well, it can suddenly just become worth the paper it is printed on should something happen.  In other words, paper investments, as well as electronic investments can sudden be worth absolutely nothing.

Throughout history the wealth of persons and nations has been backed by precious metals in one form or the other. Gold being the predominant one and silver being another.  Not certificates, but actual hard, real metal bullion in whatever form it may be in.

The price of gold is very high right now and simply out of the price range of what a "normal" person, such as myself, could truly invest in.

I choose silver to invest in.  I like the feel of silver and it is not astronomical in price.  As of this writing silver spot prices are a tad under $21.00 per troy ounce. (Update: 8/24/2019 - Silver Spot prices are way down @ $14.58 per ounce.)

One can visit various precious metal websites of companies that deal strictly with bullion and get some decent pricing, especially if you are looking at buying in volume.  Many sites will sell silver bullion, rounds and coins at slightly over the current spot pricing.

There are many sites that you can check current silver prices at.  I will include a few links at the conclusion of this article.

There are also plenty of options to purchase silver bullion on sites like Ebay.  I have bought from there quite often and with some effort and doing a ton of bidding, every so often a good deal will slip through and you will win the auction.  The main thing on Ebay is to set your upper limit on what you will bid, and never go over that.  Sometimes I place bids up to a month ahead of the close of the action.  Many times you will be emailed you need to increase your bid, but again, stick with your original bid and you will gain from time to time.

There is an industrial side to silver as well. Silver is widely used in jewelry as well as electronics and water purification.  Keeping that in mind, you have peace of mind knowing that silver is not just a precious metal, but a way to store value and the value and demand as an industrial metal.

The most popular way to invest in silver, with the lesser amount of cash spent, is to purchase silver bullion bars.  These bars are .999 pure silver and can always be converted to cash easily. One step higher is the silver bullion coins.  Coins are usually only a few cents per ounce higher than bars.  They are just as easy to convert into cash and have the advantage of being small and easy to handle.

Think about silver as providing your portfolio with a secure foundation!  Every investment portfolio needs that.

Live Precious Metals, Gold, Silver and more, links below:

Kitco live silver spot pricing

Monex Live Precious Metals spot pricing

Photo Credit: Dale

New Dishonest Tactics By Ebay Auction Power Sellers - Beware

You Can No Longer Bid On Ebay With Confidence

Over the years I have bid on silver bullion auctions on Ebay. In the past, I have made a decent profit from buying and then selling silver on Ebay.

Most recently however, things have changed on Ebay dealing with precious metals. Many sellers are using some very dishonest tactics.

They will list, in my case, silver bullion with no reserve.  Of course that means that there is no bottom end price and a person could win the auction for any amount at the starting price or above.

In the last three days, I have had three different sellers have such auctions and I have bid on them.  Some have been pretty healthy bids up into the hundreds and thousands of dollars.  My bids are always under silver spot prices for the moment, simply because my hope is to make a profit. Sometimes I will go a tad over.

Now these three sellers will leave the auction running until the last few minutes and if they don't get what they deem to be enough in bids, the cancel the auction and you get a notice from Ebay saying the auction has been cancelled.  Talk about unfair and doing away with the whole concept of auctions!

I have contacted two of these Ebay Power Sellers and they always do have an excuse, a date was wrong, or they double listed the item, etc.  Unacceptable. These are "power sellers" that have sold thousands of times on Ebay.

I have checked the three cancelled auctions and have found the exact same item up and running.....re listed for another try.

What this is doing is creating a situation that is driving folks away from Ebay in droves.  Many are looking at alternatives, such as myself.  As I learn of more options and alternatives to Ebay, I will be writing some reviews here on the blog about them.

Photo Credits: Flickr Creative Commons