Legal Tender - Silver Bullion Coins For the Collector Or Investor
December 19, 2008
This article will provide a General Description of Gold, Silver, & Platinum Bullion
A lot of people are familiar with bullion coins and bars, and you see them offered on TV or on websites, but the sheer number of these products may cause even the experienced investor to pause. They are similar in nature, they move up or down directly with the price of gold, silver, or platinum on a daily basis. And, their buy and sell prices are easy to comprehend.
They are precious metals and as such are measured by the Troy ounce, as compared to your bathroom or postal scale weight which is called Avoirdupois. For the record 14.58 troy ounces = 16 postal scale ounces. The Troy ounce is approximately 10% heavier than the Avoirdupois weight. These bullion products move directly with the New York Commodity Exchange, which opens for trading at 5:30 AM and closes at 10:30 AM California time. After the Comex (Commodity Exchange) closes the price of these coins usually remain fized until the beginning of the next trading day. However there is an aftermarket which may cause quote changes.
A definition of bullion coin: one in which there is little premium above the content or weight value of the coin. You are buying only the commodity itself. Coins like this will increase in value if world markets go up and will decrease in value if world markets go down. This happens because bullion manufacturers produce large numbers of them each year, and eliminates the idea of these coins being rare in any sense, this is not the same for government issue bullion coins.
Silver Dollars – For Collectors or History Lovers
November 13, 2008
United States silver dollars have long been prized by coin collectors, but they also have a background that’s valued information for lovers of American history.
Thomas Jefferson first proposed minting a silver dollar coin in 1785 and when Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, projected a monetary system for the emerging United States of America, they began producing the coins, including the Flowing Hair silver dollar in 1794.
Silver dollars were minted in varying degrees of silver content until silver became scarce. When the incredible riches of Nevada’s Comstock Lode were discovered in the late 1850s, silver prices plummeted and the Treasury Department was required by Congress to begin producing silver coins. The Trade Dollar was minted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania specifically to improve trade with the Orient – mainly China.
Coin Collecting - Avoid Worthless Silver Coins
October 30, 2008
A worthless silver coin for collecting purposes is any circulated silver coin that is only in fair condition and has value to collectors beyond the value of the silver bullion it contains.
This is an unofficial term used in the United States and Canada. Junk silver is not scrap silver. These coins can still be spent in the US and Canadian markets for the value stamped on the coin. However, coin collectors call them “junk” because they have little numismatic, or trading, value.
The Mercury and Roosevelt dimes, the Washington quarters, and the Franklin and Kennedy half dollars are the most popular US coins collected for junk silver. These coins, minted before 1964, contain 90% silver composition, with 0.7 troy ounces of silver per each dollar of face value. Kennedy half-dollars minted from 1965 to 1970 contain 40% silver composition, so they are collected but are not as popular. The Peace Dollar (minted from 1921 to 1928, then again in 1934 and 1935) is also collected for its silver value, which is high at a little over 90%. However, these are more rare and may have collectible value beyond the value of the silver.
The Top Five Morgan Silver Dollars
September 12, 2008
Why waste everyone’s time? Let’s skip the appetizers and get to the meaty stuff right now: The Morgan silver dollars poised to increase the most in value in the years ahead are the 1895, 1892-CC, 1894, 1878-CC, and the 1883-CC. Pretty bold prediction, eh? At this point, the reader now has three options: (1) Stop reading and act upon this information, (2) Stop reading and get on with life, or (3) Continue on, evaluate the analytical approach to identify the “Top Five” Morgan dollars, and then implement a variation of (1) or (2) above. If you’ve gotten this far, we encourage you to continue on with option (3).
First, a little background info on the Morgan silver dollar…
The Morgan silver dollar is today one of the most popular of all collector coins. First minted in 1878 following the passage of the Bland-Alison Act, the new dollar was named after its designer, George T. Morgan. Political pressure by powerful silver mining companies, in a gambit to stabilize the price of their commodity at artificially high levels, created the impetus driving the legislative action. Bland-Alison led to the overproduction of silver dollars, resulting in millions of these unused “cartwheels” languishing in bank and Treasury vaults. Indeed, few coins have ever been released under more dubious circumstances than Morgan silver dollars. Minting continued until 1904, and then again for one more year in 1921, when the series finally came to a close.
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