1) Avoid Silver shot .
Silver shot or silver grain refers to silver granules or really tiny balls essentially, usually being around a ¼ inch in diameter. These tiny silver balls are formed during the sterling silver casting process by throwing molten silver into cold water. This action makes silver break up into small silver pieces.
And there’s a few reasons I believe that you shouldn’t buy them. The first is that there not very high demand and a lot of dealers simply don’t want them. If you plan on melting the metal anyhow there might be a reason for buying, but in terms of owning it’s just impractical. It’s not visibly appealing and it’s not easy to store.
(2) Buy from someone reputable. There’s plenty of online dealers that are reputable like SD bullion, JM bullion, Apmex and many more. I’ve bought from those listed several times and never had any issue. Another important thing to do is to test your metals once you receive them. If you don’t have the tools consider taking it to a local dealer who can test it for you.
3) Only buy one type and brand. I believe it’s important to diversify with different sizes and shapes. And there’s advantages with this, a brand or private mint could go out of business, and this could make the premium more valuable. While I don’t stack to speculate, it is one nice built in advantage. Also, having only one type can make liquidating more difficult if you get in a pinch. So, if I only have 100 oz bars, and I need $500 in cash I can’t exactly break up the bar- unless I melt of course.
(4) Buy an uncommon type of round or bar. And many will disagree with this, but I like the keep my stacking simple. This is just my personal preference, but I avoid things like 10oz coins and odd weights for gold and silver. For gold, I pretty much always to stick to coins up to an ounce as its all I can afford. If I could buy a 10oz bar, of course I would and for silver I love the 10oz size.
Thanks
