Things I Don't Buy

Silver is cool, and there are lots of neat things to like about it.

Silver coins used to be the most common way for people to pay for things like groceries and clothes and housing. When you hold a circulated silver coin in your hand, you can see the wear from its history of people passing it one to another, from place to place, probably thousands of times. A coin that handling has left looking better instead of worse (always a matter of opinion) is called a Circulation Cameo.

Today, silver bullion coins come from all over the world in varying weights and with amazingly diverse designs.

You can collect Superheroes, Disney Characters, Star Wars Commemoratives, solid silver coins shaped like giant diamonds, and giant 5-ounce reproductions of the US Quarter, and these are all governmental offerings from different nations, so they also carry a face value in the country of their origin.

Privately-minted/created “silver rounds” and other collectibles like statuary, bars, and fidget toys also make a rich market for all kinds of collectors.

There are a few things I’d like to call out that I prefer not to buy.

First, I find silver rounds with any political figure on them generally distasteful. Naturally, this goes doubly for personalities that I don’t align with myself. I’m talking mainly about rounds featuring a recent former US President, but I also don’t care for queens and kings that are ever-present on coinage from the Commonwealth Countries like Australia and Canada.

I don’t buy Chinese silver. This is mostly because I don’t read any flavor of Chinese text so I have no idea what the words on the coin say, or even if it plainly says, “FAKE” in Chinese. Chinese coins that look close to an ounce are often actually 20 grams instead (with 31.1g/oz). This is not deceptive, 20g is closer to a common cultural standard there, like an ounce is here. Dating is also frequently complicated with older Chinese coins, but several other countries use unusual dating standards as well.

Many reproductions of desirable silver coins come from China and other Asian countries, and they are often passed off by sellers as real. This is particularly problematic on sites where sellers can set up their own stores like Ebay, Walmart.com, and Amazon.com. I avoid those.

I like to shop online at dealers that specialize in bullion and coins, and I also like to buy in-person at pawn shops, coin shops, and antique shops local to me. It’s always best when I can see things in person before I decide whether to take them home.

I’ve been seeing privately produced notes called Silverbacks and Goldbacks. They are made with silver and gold foil, and each note is marked with the weight of the metal that it supposedly contains. I don’t like these, because I think that they will not retain their nominal value. Even if the note does contain the claimed amount of gold or silver, how can the metals be retrieved and used? It would be very difficult to do, and it would take a lot of foil to gather a practically useable amount of metal for say, striking coins or coating a metallic surface.

I think I’ll write about the things that I do like to collect next!

Why I Like Silver

When I was about ten, my Dad gave me a 1 ounce silver round.

He told me a little bit about silver then, how the price is always moving around, and how it is used in lots of industrial processes, and how it's a soft metal, so when it goes in jewelry and coins that are meant to be handled, there's usually some other metal in there as well like copper.

Some time later, I think he followed the thumping noise to my room, to find me banging on that silver round with a claw hammer on the carpet of my bedroom. It was not perfectly round anymore, and though I don't remember what design had been on the face, I do remember that it was pretty messed up by all of the tools that I had tried on that soft, pure silver.

My poor shocked Dad took away the mangled slug and I never saw it again. Looking back, I'm just glad I didn't try that experiment on anything valuable or rare.

It took until after a divorce and a few other life lessons for me to start collecting silver a little more seriously. I hope that I'll have some of the little things I've collected for the rest of my life. But, the bulk of my collection is meant to be converted, at some point, into something better. Like possibly a house. Or maybe other metals. I don't know, but it works at least partially as a diversified savings account.

And, silver will generally keep up with inflation better than cash under your mattress. Silver was around $5.70/ounce around this time in 1987. Today, it's $21.85. I should have kept that ugly slug.