We’re going to zero in on four key principles that we believe will help you make smart decisions as you seek out opportunities to buy and invest in silver coins.

Learn

The first thing you may want to do, is look through the SilverCoinCommerce™ archives and learn as much as you can about silver. We work hard to provide intelligent, thoughtful articles that we hope will be of value to you. Even a seasoned investor may pick up a tip or learn something new. As with anything, the more informed and knowledgeable you are the more likely you are to make wise decisions, and get the best deals.

Research

Why is all precious metals measured in Troy ounces? Why not regular ounces and what, if any, is the difference? This question is a basic, but one you should know before even thinking about buying any bullion.  What years were “junk US silver” coins 90% silver, and did this ever change? These are really good questions that you should spend some time researching prior to any purchase. The higher level of expertise you have, the better decisions you will make. The most important thing, is make sure you know what you are buying, what condition it is in, and how its current value relates to the current market. Is it worth silver content only? Is it a collectable?

-Remember to visit SilverCoinCommerce™ to read up. We’ll also gladly research any topics you ask us to, as long as they are related to SilverCoinCommerce™.

Budget

Keeping a stash of silver coins is just a good idea. Along with a water purifier, some food storage, and emergency first aid gear. Like all of these items, their value may increase exponentially in a real crisis. So one way to look at this, is unlike some of these items, silver coins are not likely to degrade like food stores might.

Think about this. Let’s say you buy one cup of coffee, or some other food item on a regular basis, that,.. well, you could probably do without. Do that every day for a week, maybe a month, then a couple of years,… I think you know where I’m going with this. Let’s say you put aside 8-10 dollars a week for a silver coin investment plan. At the current price (17-ish) you would be able to pick up a 1 ounce coin every two weeks (or about 3, Kennedy fifty-cent pieces, 90% silver). After about a year, guess what, you’ll have over a pound and a half of silver!

If you think about it, by cutting back on bad foods you don’t really need anyway, what you are doing, is exchanging body fat ounces for silver ounces. Not a bad deal! –I know, funny.

Let’s take a 10 year goal here. If you applied the same logic, at the end of 10 years you would have around 260 ounces of silver, worth (at the time of this writing) about  $4500.00. A pretty painless investment plan, that, if silver goes up, could gain you a tidy profit. **In 1980 silver climbed to $49.45 per ounce.

Patience

Getting a good deal is important. Watch the market price, come up with a good strategy, and implement it. If you want to buy from dealers, make sure you know what you are buying, and what costs are included. If you’re buying from a private seller, then make sure they are the owner. –goes without saying, but if it stinks, and you pick it up, you will stink as well.–  Be fair, offer a bit above what they could get at the coin shop, and make a friend. You never know when the tables might be turned.

Conclusion

We hope that helps you get started purchasing and investing in silver coins. Our preference is that you then take these coins and start conducting commerce. This could be done between friends or businesses, and is a great way to increase awareness of the real money mission of SilverCoinCommerce™

Pete Skenandore
Via ProBlogPartners

Of  all the precious metals, silver seems to lend itself as the ideal one to be used for daily commerce activities. It has the six aspects of money in a classical sense. It is consistent, convenient, divisible, durable, has utility value, and cannot be created by fiat.

Silver is a very well known precious metal and  has a long history of being  used as a medium of exchange and as a store of value.

It has been used for thousands of years as money. In fact silver has been used in more places and for longer periods of time for money than gold.

Features of money

Desirable features of money are for  it to be liquid, easy to trade, and easy to transport. Given the fact that precious metals have a high value to weight ratio; copper, nickel, steel, zinc, oil amongst other things cannot be considered practical as money. It should also have the ability to be divided into small units without wiping out its value. It should also be fungible; this means that one unit or piece should be the same as another. It should have a certain weight, or measure, in order to count it in a certifiable way.  It should store value, meaning that it should be strong and  last a long time. It should also be something difficult to forge, and its authenticity should be easily identifiable.

Junk silver  fills all of the above mentioned catagories. Other precious metals such as gold and platinum are not divisible into small enough coins to be useful in the general marketplace. Sure you can get one-tenth ounce gold coins, but they are still worth over $100 each and that does not work as a convenient medium of exchange when going to pick up a gallon of milk. These 90% silver coins are very easy to identify since look like our current US coin currency, but are easy to keep seperate by the date minted i.e. before 1965. Another easy way to verify the 90% silver coins is to look at the edge. A post 1965 coin that has been used as currency will show copper while the pre 1965 will not.

Other benefit with the junk silver is that it is not easy to forge, since made by the US mint and highly recongnizable. It is also easy to assess value by either weight or in multiples of face value.

Therefore going to the store for that gallon of milk would be much better served with some 90% silver in your pocket since a junk silver quarter is worth $3.14 at todays silver spot price of $17.37 per ounce.

Amazingly versatile, silver’s value goes way beyond coinage. Silver, also know as the chemical symbol Ag (Latin: argentum) has qualities that make it highly desirable for industrial uses as well. It boasts the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal. It is highly malleable, and has a high reflectivity, not to mention beauty, strength and resistance to high temperatures.

Traditional Uses of Silver

Silver has enjoyed a long history of use in coinage, jewelry (sterling), and silverware. Photography was a huge consumer of silver until traditional photography methods shifted dramatically to digital—no more silver, just really expensive ink cartridges! Interestingly, silver’s use in industry continues to climb because of new industrial uses in technology and medicine.

Industrial Uses

Batteries – Silver-oxide batteries are replacing lithium-ion batteries more and more due to environmental and safety concerns. Small button-shaped batteries are almost 35% by weight, however they also contain harmful chemicals (mercury) so they are not consumer-recyclable.  On the positive side, Silver-zinc batteries utilize water-based chemistry with no lithium or flammable liquids.

Catalysts – It is estimated that over 700 tons of silver are used annually to produce two chemical compounds – ethylene oxide and formaldehyde. Ethylene oxide is used as a foundation ingredient for flexible plastics like polyester textiles. Formaldehyde is used in solid plastics, adhesives, resins, plywood and particleboard. Formaldehyde is also used to produce surface coatings, packaging materials, automotive parts, insulating materials and many other products. (too many in the author’s humble opinion)

Electronics – Silver’s excellent electrical conductivity makes it invaluable in the manufacturing of switches, tv screens and circuit boards. New applications include inks for RFID tags used, and hopefully contained to, inventory control (prevents shoplifting).

Bearings and moving parts – Silver coatings increase the durability of moving parts and ball-bearings because of high durability in extreme tempuratures.

Brazing and Soldering – Silver’s high resistance to corrosion and high tensile strength as well as conductivity make it a perfect brazing and soldering metal. It also has a natural antibacterial effect.

Medical – It has only recently been discovered as to how silver’s anti-bacterial abilities work. Silver interrupts cellular activities of bacteria critical to survival. MRSA (Staph supergerm) is resistant most antibiotics, so many hospitals are incorporating silver-imbedded equipment, surgical tools, and other items to help curb cross contamination. Nano-silver particles are used as a delivery mechanism for silver ions which are being incorporated into many new antibacterial products.

Mirrors & Coatings – Silver can be polished to nearly 100% reflectivity.  Mirrors have been around for hundreds of years, but now silver is being incorporated in different coatings to help reflect the hot rays of the sun on windows and reduce sun exposure to the eyes with an eyeglass application. Silver ions are also being incorporated into paints and coatings to inhibit surface germs and fungus.

Solar Energy – Silver paste is used in almost all crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, the most common type. Silver not only increases the efficiency of solar energy collection as electricity, it also is used in Solar farms that use the collection of the suns rays as heat to produce steam powered generators.

Water Purification – A silver coin in the water bucket over night may not just be an old Cowboy’s solution to clean water. Silver ions are now being used in all sorts of water purification processes. For hospitals, community water systems, pools and spas.

We’ll add/modify this list as we become more aware of other uses for this remarkable metal. Silver’s origins as money, may have grown side by side as its utility was explored and discovered. It makes sense to use silver as real money, as its use and value extends into so many important industrial uses.

Pete Skenandore
Via ProBlogPartners.com

 JUNK SILVER:

Junk silver is not junk at all,  it is actually very valuable.

Junk silver is an informal term used for silver coins which are in fair condition and have no numismatic value above the bullion value of the silver that it contains. The word “junk” refers only to the value of the coins as collectibles and not to the actual condition of the coins; junk silver is not necessarily scrap silver.

COINS THAT ARE CONSIDERED JUNK SILVER:

US silver dollars, half dollars, quarters, and dimes minted before 1965 contain 90% silver.

1965-1970 half dollars, and 1971-1976 Eisenhower dollars contain 40% silver. The Eisenhower dollars that contained 40% silver were issued as collectibles only and are generally not found in circulation. The Eisenhower dollars that were circulated were minted in the 1971-1978 timeframe and are composed of copper and nickel; and therefore not considered junk silver.

The only US nickels that contain silver are the ones called War Nickels that were minted 1942-1945 when nickel was in such high demand for use in armor plating that Congress ordered its removal from Nickel coins. The War Nickels are 35% Silver, 56% Copper, and 9% Manganese.

There are a number of forein coins that could be put in the junk silver catagory as well, but will only discuss Canadian coins as others are not likely to be used in the United States as commerce. The coins from our neighbor to the north that would fit into the junk silver catagory would be Canadian half dollars and dollars minted before 1968, they contained 80% silver. Canadian dimes and quarters minted before 1967 are  80% silver. Dimes and quarters in 1967 were isues in both 80% and 50% silver varieties. 1968 Canadian dimes and quarters are 50% silver.

AMOUNT OF SILVER IN COINS:

As a rough guide, there is approximately one troy ounce of silver in any combination of  90% U.S. junk silver coins which have a face value of $1.40. So for example, if you have a mismatch of 90% silver U.S. coins that totaled $15.40 in face value, that would be about 11 ounces of silver. At todays silver spot price of $16.49/oz multiplied by 11 ounces would be a silver value of  $181.39, not bad for a pocketful of change.

Another guide that could be used to determine the value of  junk silver would be its face value. Face value could be figured by multiplying the silver weight of a dollars worth of coins by the current spot price.  90% silver U.S. coins which have a face value of $1.00 contain 0.7234 troy ounces of silver, if uncirculated. So 0.7234 X todays spot price of $16.49 equals 11.93. Therefore take 11.93 times the valu of your junk silver to find out its worth.

Junk silver could easily be converted to use in daily commerece by either using its weight or face value.

Armin Voigt

Hello, my name is Armin Voigt. I grew up on our families’ cattle ranch in rural North Dakota, and by rural, I mean really rural. The nearest neighbor was five miles away. I commuted 25 miles to attend high school.  The graduating class was 42 students, and we had what was considered a big class for the town of Killdeer, which is the largest city in Dunn County with a population of only 722 people. My wife Lori and I moved to Idaho in 1996, we have a chocolate lab named Moose, that keeps us company at our home on Indian Creek south of Boise, Idaho.

I am currently employed by Micron Technology, Inc., which makes memory devices for computers, cell phones, cameras, etc. Lori is self-employed and works with the deaf and hearing impaired.

On Feb 1, 2010 I became the Editor of SilverCoinCommerce™, which I am very excited about. It might just be time for us, as American citizens to take a closer look at our monetary system and start inching back towards a commodity based currency, preferably backed by gold and silver. My aim, as Editor (and contributing Author) is to present interesting articles about the history of money, coinage, precious metals, constitutionality, and maybe even open up conversations and opportunities about how to use existing silver coin supplies to conduct day to day transactions within our communities.

I’m looking forward to your feedback, comments, and any suggestions you might have on how to make this website better.

Thank you for visiting,

Armin Voigt
Editor
SilverCoinCommerce™

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