More options are available to you when you’re buying silver than when you’re buying gold. With its long use in widely circulated currency, there are more vintage silver coins going around than their gold counterparts. The supply of silver is also greater than gold, allowing private mints to come up with more silver products compared to gold.

In buying silver, you can get much more for the same amount of money than what you can get in gold. As with gold, silver may be purchased in bullion, which comes in the form of bars, rounds and coins.

Silver Bars

Silver bars, or ingots, are the most common type of silver bullion. Largely minted by private companies, silver bars come in various sizes and weights, but the standard sizes are 100 oz., 1 kg, 10 oz., 5 oz. and 1 oz. The price per ounce decreases as the bullion size increases – a cost-saving factor that should be considered when investing in silver bars.

A silver bar is very dense, containing a large amount of silver in a small size. They are also uniformly shaped and sized, making storage easy.

Silver bars come with .999 or 99.9% fineness, which has been the standard for decades. Recently, however, the Royal Canadian Mint has created 100-oz ingots with .9999 fineness.

Consider who the mint is when buying silver bars. Bars with a reputable “hallmark” (stamp identifying the producer) can be sold and converted to cash more easily.

Silver rounds

Produced by private mints, silver rounds are mostly designed to look like coins, but are not legal tender. Like silver bars, they also have no collectible value, and function mostly as value storage. Each one-ounce round is 99.9 percent pure silver.

Pre-1965 U.S. silver coins

Another option to consider when buying silver in the U.S. is the Pre-1965 U.S. silver coin. Prior to 1965, American half-dollars, dimes and quarters were composed of 90% silver and 10% copper. Now also known as Ninety Percent Silver coins or junk silver coins, they are widely sought by investors around the country.

Pre-1965 silver coins are commonly available in “bags” with a total face value of $1,000. A $1,000-bag would be minted with 723 oz. of silver. However, because of wear, a bag of dimes or quarters will yield just around 715 oz. A bag of half-dollars will yield a higher amount – approximately 718 to 720 oz. – as they were not as widely circulated and endured less wear and tear.

Available editions are the 1964 Kennedy, Ben Franklin, and Walking Liberty half-dollars. Half-dollars often cost more than dimes and quarters not only due to their higher silver content, but also because less of them were minted and they’re more in demand. The Walking Liberty coins, in particular, command a higher price than the other half-dollars.

Uncirculated pre-1965 Ninety Percent Silver coins are also available at a higher premium, with uncirculated Walking Liberty coins having the highest price tag.

Silver coins    

The U.S.-Mint-produced American Silver Eagles have a one dollar face value so they are also called American Eagle silver dollars. It contains an ounce of .999 fine silver.

The U.S. Mint also regularly issues commemorative silver-dollar coins such as the Mark Twain Silver Dollar and the coin honoring the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service.

In buying silver coins, you might also want to look into national coins from other countries, such as the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf, the Australian Kangaroos and Kookaburras, and others.

Private Mints
When buying silver, it pays to know that silver bullions are minted either by government or private mints. Some private mints have been operating for decades and have earned an excellent reputation among investors and collectors.

Private mints help meet investors’ demand for silver bullions with guaranteed silver content. In particular, they produce silver bars, which the U.S. government seldom mints.

Private mints sell their products with a lower premium over the spot price, largely because the products have no numismatic or collectible value, and serve only as value storage.

Some of the most popular private mints are Johnson Matthey, Sunshine Minting and Ohio Precious Metals.

Give us a call to find out more about buying silver coins.