Should I Buy Silver and Gold for an Investment?

For much of human history, we have valued precious metals, especially silver and gold. In today’s world, we not only appreciate the unique beauty of these metals, and use them in our jewelry and to adorn ourselves, but we also buy silver and gold for investment purposes.

Making the decision to buy silver and gold, when one is looking at the purchase as an investment, is a wise call to make. Readily available in bullion form, including bars and coins, when you buy silver and gold, you are buying a tangible investment that will pay-off in the long run.

According to most investment advisors, it is essential that everyone’s investment portfolio be well-diversified, which means including at least 15 to 20% precious metals in the composition. This is should be reason enough for you to consider buying silver and gold. Another good reason to buy silver and gold is that these metals are easily converted into cash, should that need arise. Even better, their worth is fairly stable, meaning that your money will be safe, instead of buying additional stocks whose values can plummet on the slightest market rumor of poor sales or potential earnings forecasts.

The demand for precious metals is ever-increasing in the global marketplace, with both economic powerhouses of China and India gobbling up much of the silver and gold on the market. In the U.S., the technology and manufacturing sectors are also large consumers of silver and gold and that demand is forecasted to continue to grow. Now is the time to buy silver and gold, because your metals are going to increase in worth as the world demands more of these increasingly-scarce precious metals.

According to an article on Resource Investor (http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2013/01/11/2013-gold-silver-outlook?t=precious-metals), looking at the interest rates in the U.S., and assuming – as many do – that they are going to continue to climb, “…then that would be even more bullish for precious metals and bearish for conventional assets like bonds and stocks.” For the savvy investor, putting money into precious metals, making a buy of silver and gold, is an excellent call.

When you do decide to buy silver and gold, do your own research, look at the various types and weights of these metals available, familiarize yourself with the market and pricing, and make an intelligent decision.

Should you buy silver and gold as an investment? Only you can make that ultimate decision; however, I think it’s a good bet that it’s an excellent choice that will strengthen your portfolio and pay-off in the long run.

Should I Buy Silver Dollar Coins?

My love of silver dollar coins started when I was little: when I’d lose a tooth, the tooth fairy would bring me a silver dollar. And that’s where my collection of silver dollar coins began. Now I’m older and the tooth fairy doesn’t bring me coins any more – of course, I’m not losing teeth, either, so maybe that’s a good thing. But I’ve been thinking about that childhood passion and wondering: should I buy silver dollar coins? And if I should, why?

I started my research at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_coin_(United_States)) learning about the history of silver dollar coins. And I did learn a lot, but what I gathered was that it’s only the old silver dollars that are worth any money, and then that’s basically for collectors, who are looking at the rarity of the coin and the condition, not really the silver in the coin, itself. So part of the answer to my question about buying silver dollar coins is that it depends on why I’m buying them.

Next I went to Silver Coins Today (http://www.silvercoinstoday.com) and read about the current silver dollar coins being minted in the U.S. In 2012, the U.S. Mint produced two types of silver dollars for collectors: the Star-Spangled Banner Silver Dollars and the Infantry Soldier Silver Dollars. Also, the Mint produces four silver dollar coins each year that have four different presidents on them. All of these are sought by coin collectors, which helps me to answer the issue of whether I should buy silver dollar coins with the conclusion that if I’m interested in building-up a collection, then I definitely should.

Also at Silver Coins Today, I was able to research some of the silver dollar coins that I’d received as a child, including the Peace Dollars and the Morgan Dollars. Those, apparently, are worth some money to collectors, which is good to know, should I ever decide to part with them.

I think that I am going to add to my collection of silver dollar coins, because I like the idea of having a collection that spans my lifetime; and should I ever need to sell them, there are collectors avidly seeking at least some of what I already own. 

So my conclusion to the question of should I buy silver dollar coins is an unqualified yes. Now I just need to decide which ones I will buy and how many I will purchase. I’m going to have fun doing more research and gradually building-up my silver dollar coins collection.

I’m Thinking About Buying Some Gold Bullion Bars

I’ve been thinking about buying some gold bullion bars for a while, now. Gold is a good investment, right? And I already have some gold bullion coins. Now I have enough money saved up to actually buy the bars – those lovely, dense, stackable gold bullion bars that are 99.9% pure gold.

According to the investment experts that I’ve been reading – like Bullion Supermarket  – gold bullion bars are a good investment right now, while our financial future in the U.S. is a mess and countries elsewhere, like in Europe, are having money troubles of their own. And then there’s all of that political instability all over the world – every time I turn on the news it seems like there’s fighting and wars. That’s scary, too.

But gold – specifically gold bullion bars – are a good investment and will protect me and my family against that kind of instability. Gold maintains its value, even when paper money does not. And that’s important because everyone knows that we’re headed for a recession.

If something horrible were to happen, I’d have my gold bullion bars and they would allow me to get through the rough times. After all, gold is the ultimate form of monetary wealth, recognized, desired, and accepted all over the world. The gold bullion bars I am buying now could be converted into cash, should it ever come to that.

More optimistically speaking, though, the gold bullion bars I’m going to buy are for my retirement. Better than stocks, which go up and down so often, fluctuating over the silliest little things, gold is stable and is projected to remain stable in the future.

I could even sell a bar or two to help my kids get through college or in case of some sort of family emergency. These gold bullion bars are going to be there for us when we need them, and they really are a great investment for the future.

As for where I’m going to be buying my gold bullion bars, I’ve been doing a lot of online research – looking at prices, availability, customer service, shipping costs, and shipping policies – and while there are a lot of companies to choose from, I’ve decided to go with Merit Gold. Overall, I really like their pricing / mark-up and shipping options, and their customer service reps know their stuff and didn’t try to strong-arm me into buying stuff that I didn’t want. So Merit Gold is my choice for buying gold bullion bars.