Learning how to buy silver and precious metals in a bar, or bullion form is the first thing you need to do once you decide to invest in precious metals.
When you learn how to buy silver ingots, you will find that they range in size from quite large, down to fractions of an ounce. Buying silver bars, or ingots, generally gives you more precious metal for your investment dollar. This is because you pay a much higher price per ounce for silver coins, or jewelry, by weight. The markup is much greater due to the artistry and labor involved in putting out a coin, or jewelry. Silver bars are the cheapest to produce of the common forms of investment silver and precious metals.
When learning how to buy silver and precious metals, look to see what bars are popular in your area.
You want to do this so that it is easier to sell your silver bars when you choose to do so. You also want to consider that if you buy too large a bar, you may have trouble finding a buyer later on. Unless you turn into a huge buyer, you usually want to stay with bars that run one ounce or less. If you do buy larger bars, make note of other people and other businesses in your areas that do a lot of trading in the larger ingots, to give you an idea of where you could sell when the time comes.
Once you learn how to buy silver, you need to learn where the best place to buy it is.
You can always buy from a private party, and you can always hit a place like eBay on the web. I would recommend that if you do buy from a private party, you enlist a reputable company that can verify the weight and purity. There are bad people that you might meet in any situation, and you need to have protection against any unscrupulous individuals.
When you find a good company to buy from, research its reputation before developing a relationship.
A good company will be very willing to provide references. You can also easily check to see if they have been mentioned negatively in the media. Government investigations are readily reported in the news. Once you find the company you wish to deal with, I suggest you make your first purchases smaller ones, even if you have more to invest. A good company will walk you through how to buy precious metals: even small ones, because they know if they provide good customer service, you will be coming back for more later on. This also allows you to learn the ropes by doing with the smallest risk.
When you learn how to buy silver and precious metals, always insist on checking the weights of any metals that you purchase. The closer your attention to detail, the safer you will be, and the more respect you will garner from those you deal with. When the company you choose sees that you intend to take an active and involved role in your gold investments, you will find your dealings go easier.
Once you know the “what” and the “how” of investing in silver and precious metals, you will start wondering about the “when”.
When should you invest? Is there a time, or circumstance that is better than others when investing in silver and precious metals? The idea in all investments is to buy low, and sell high: this is how you make a profit. That makes the answer to this one twofold:
1.) You do not want to sink all of your money that is available to be invested into just one area. Investing in smaller amounts of precious metals regularly is a good plan. One week, when you buy the price, may be up, which means you will walk away with less weight of the metal for your money, but the next week the price may have dropped, so you will then get more metal for your money. Doing it this way will average out, and you will do quite well. You will also find yourself being educated as to the “normal” fluctuations in the price of silver (Look at you: you’re becoming an “expert”!). You will also maybe be able to make some mental connections between the price going up or down, and what is going on in the news, with the banks or the stock market, which will, later on, give you an idea of what the price might do in different situations.
2.) If you have a chunk of money to invest in gold, silver, or other precious metals, then I recommend doing small weekly buys, always keeping tabs on the price. This way if you see a big dip in the price, you will notice it right away and know you can invest a larger amount that week.
If you have been paying attention while making your smaller weekly investments, you will be able to make an educated guess as to why the price dipped, and be able to guess if it will come right back up, or might continue down. Many people panic when the prices drop even a little and stop buying, but if everything you see tells you the price should come back soon, then that makes it an ideal time to buy more than you usually do. If you do so, then you will get far more metal for your money than you would have. When the price comes back, you will be a happy investor!
Note……… silver price Canada!