Buying Silver?

Remember you will have to buy silver with a premium on top of that price. You will not be able to get it for the spot price. The price will also differ depending on how you pay for it. You can also reduce the price based on the amount you buy. I personally use APMEX. Have been very pleased. They ran a sale about a week ago for $.79 above spot so I picked up a good chunk. I would also recommend that you not only look at the buy price but also the sell price or the price they will buy it back from you for. The smaller the difference, the better the product. And just like anything else in this world, you pay a slightly higher premium for a more recognizable brand.

Lots of silver coins for sale on Ebay. Morgan dollars, etc. Always wonder what that is really worth.

I love buying silver. I just go to my local coin shop in Lafayette and make periodic purchases. The intent is to leave it all to my daughter one day. I prefer Morgan Silver dollars and Silver Eagles and every now and then I'll pick up a 10 oz bar. Once my silver stash gets big I will trade some in for gold.

What (and who) is the best price for a 100 ounce bar?

It starts with the value of silver per oz. Any premium paid for a Morgan as an example, is many times not worth paying.

I think the melt value of a silver morgan is under $12.00.

So there's a premium to spot, and a premium for mints and coins (Silver Eagles) that are perceived to be non assay at higher values.

I had sold some silver is the $40's, and assay wasn't required, so my experience has been there is not much need to pay any more premium than absolutely necessary.

I don't imagine silver at $15 is a bad long term buy. But there are several things to contemplate. The gold/silver ratio. Silver pricing is largely driven by the paper market, more so than most every other commodity. And we have have large shorts open, both from institutions and hedgers, and not quite as much by retail speculators. Not as large of short positions as they were recently, but large enough that you can figure out how they will unwind, if indeed they need to unwind. We have the Fed appearing to soften some of their comments about rate increases.

I've not bought any siver recently, but I wouldn't be opposed to it as one assets class in a balanced portfolio of asset classes. My preference has always been silver over gold, or for shorter term plays, options on SLV. Deep in hte money leap calls are prices attractively, and have a certain loss, and a relatively small cash outlay. As an example, January 2018 $11 SLV is $4.25. That's a long time to unload calls that would likely be profitable well before silver reached $15.25, and not an unreasonable speculative play in my opinion.

I know many don't agree, but I buy junk silver coin lots on ebay when the price is right. I have accumulated a few pounds of 90% silver coins at less than spot in most cases.