Junk Silver – a Good Investment. What?

In today’s uncertain market and dangerous times with inflation looming and the possibility of savings and wealth being destroyed, it’s been often advised to invest in precious metals. Silver and gold. It’s also a growing opinion that investing in these physically holds more value than investing in them through the markets.

Silver is known as the poor man’s gold. It’s affordable to most of the population, it’s still relatively easy to obtain and, let’s face it, it’s pretty to look at. The feeling of security you will have holding physical silver cannot be over-stated.

One of the ways to obtain silver and invest is with what’s known as junk silver.

What is junk silver exactly? Well, it means different things to different people. One coin collector may say that a very worn Franklin half dollar is junk as it doesn’t fit into their higher valued, better conditioned coins. To others, it means silverware, tea sets, jewelry. Whatever the case, this sector of investors hold the belief that “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it” saying that if there is a crash in the stock market, it won’t matter how many silver stocks you own, they are just paper and worthless.

It takes about 3 Franklin half dollars to make up 1 ounce of silver. In a pawn shop or online auction site, you could pay $3-5 for a well worn coin with the mindset you are investing into the metal, not the coin. There is a small premium for buying these coins no matter what the condition so always watch the commodities markets and then look for bargains.

Sterling silver jewelry is abundant and can easily be found at yard sales and estate sales for literally pennies on the dollar of what silver is worth on the markets. Sometimes, even stores have great sales on their silver jewelry. Not only are you adding to your jewelry collection this way, you are also investing in the metal itself. Once you have the mindset that you are, indeed, investing in metals, you will not look at a sterling silver necklace the same way again.

Some people prefer coins, some people prefer the other forms. No matter which appeals to you more, diversify your “junk” into all forms because if you only want sterling silver jewelry, you will miss out on a great deal on a silver dime and vice versa. Keeping your options open and your mind focused on the metal itself, you will soon find yourself with a lot of this precious metal as an investment tool.