Buying Silver

[Porter]

Funny this thread was started - I was just in a 7-11 this morning and the guy gave me change in half dollars. I quickly asked he he had any others, and bought them from him. Walked out with three 40% silver half dollars - 1967, 1968, 1969.

Awesome. Nothing like finding silver in circulation!

 

[AKguy1985]

in the past couple weeks i've seen atleast a couple 64 quarters and spent them because i thought they wernt silver! D'oh!!!!

 

[Dale00]

The only way the dollar value of gold and silver goes down is if cash is taken out of circulation. So the prediction of it's price coming down with a conservative take over of the govt may be accurate. I certainly hope so. I don't see precious metals as something you invest in like stocks. Their value is fixed, and owning them is something that will protect you from the crashing value of the dollar.

There is more than a little truth in what you say but money supply ("quantitative easing" e.g. QE1, QE2) is not always going to be the whole reason for the price of gold, silver etc.

Market psychology (excess optimism or pessimism) can also drive prices artificially high or low. That is my basis for saying that a strong conservative presidential campaign/victory and similar conservative takeover of the congress is likely to cause a drop in silver, at least temporarily.--> Investors may well say, "Hooray! Business is saved so sell silver and buy stocks"

Silver and gold also have industrial aspects. Gold prices were held down for some time by new mining technology that allowed extraction of gold from tailings resulting in an increase in the supply of new gold. I believe silver took a hit for some time because of decreased demand when digital cameras replaced traditional film, resulting in decreased demand for silver.

There is no such thing as a sure thing so don't get into silver too heavily. I remember when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market for silver, failed and the price dropped like a rock. I'm not seeing anything that dramatic happening today but a sizable pullback is possible.