[asteram]

I've bought and sold silver and gold since the late 1980s. I don't speculate in it to make money, I just like some of its advantages. For one thing, it's hard to spend these days. If I have paper currency put aside, it's too easy to grab a few bills. With gold or silver, you have to find a buyer, so one tends to hold onto it.

Another thing I like about it is it is beautiful in and of itself and beautiful things can be made from it. Did you know that when you buy new silver and gold jewelry in the USA you are generally paying 10 times the value of the metal in the jewelry? Silver at $10 an ounce spot, but a $10 silver ring probably has less than 1/10th ounce of silver in it; same for gold.

I also like sterling silver flatware, eating utensils you know. Silver kills germs. Once one gets used to eating with real silver spoons and forks, the modern stainless steel ones look and feel cheap and fake. You can pick up sterling flatware very reasonably on eBay, and you can always sell it for it's silver value if you need to.

I have bought and sold a lot of silver on eBay, mostly flatware and bowls. For silver and gold rounds and coins, though, I usually go to the local coin dealer (look in the yellow pages of the phone book) and pay a slight premium over spot; no shipping to worry about, just walk in and ask them what they have in silver rounds or junk silver, or gold ounces. They will actually give you real gold and silver in trade for pieces of paper!

Your local coin dealer is also the quickest and surest way to sell your silver and gold; they are used to people walking in with gold and silver to sell-- that's how their business works.

One more thing- although the calculations above for old US silver coins appear accurate, the general rule that coin dealers use for "junk" silver coins is $10 face value contains 7 ounces of silver. 100 dimes, 7 ounces of silver. 40 quarters, 7 ounces of silver.