“All appearances aside, everyone should have at least some of their money outside of the banking system. So preserve your wealth today, and buy coins that were made when money was still money, and not the tacky copper chits we’re forced to use now.” ~J Krause
With the price of precious metals now on the rise, there is talk of gold and silver showing up in the news once again. With this renewed interest in commodities, it reminded me of my silver buying spree of the past 3 years. After the price plummeted in April of 2011, I have bought more silver than I care to admit, mainly because of its affordability and potential growth in the years to come. Silver is a great way for middle and lower class folks to put their money into safer assets, since its price is so much more accessible than gold.
Of course, an asset isn’t so safe when you buy it on the highs (which I learned when I bought my first ounce before April of 2011). Fortunately, gold and silver have largely reached a plateau in price. They are very near the price of mining and manufacture, which is to say, they’re pretty cheap. Now is a great time to get into the market if you haven’t already.
Since we’re striving for an affordable way to move our dollars into assets, one of the cheapest ways to do so is to buy silver coins. Not the collectible kind though. That’s a whole different ball game. If you just want silver, junk coins are the way to go.
For the uninitiated, junk silver typically consists of American coins minted from the early 20th century until 1964. During that time, most of the coinage was made up of 90 percent silver. Anything from before that time period is usually considered collectible. Anything after 1964 has no silver (with a few exceptions I’ll get to in a moment).
If you don’t have the money to buy silver in big bullion bars, Ebay is the cheapest place to buy junk silver. They happen to have a very active silver market, where you can find a large selection pretty much any time or day of the week. After spending a lot of time hunting down junk coins on Ebay, I perfected my procedure for spotting and procuring the best price for silver, which I’m going to share with you below.