Dig deeper into silver to get results

Silver investment. How often have you googled that term or some form of it?

Go ahead, admit it, you have. Every collector does.

In fact, whether we collectors admit it or not, every collector is a silver investor.

Our collector coins are appreciating in value on the back of the bullion market.

But there is more to silver investment than owning some physical metal, but the pure investors might not realize it at first.

Silver investment also involves specific knowledge. As far as this goes, collectors get a jump on investors here.

The first question is what form should the silver you buy take?

The object should be to buy the maximum amount of bullion for the lowest possible price if you are just an investor.

How do you do this?

Many people simply opt for the current silver American Eagle. It is a handy ounce and it is widely available. But the premium can fluctuate day to day depending on market movements and how many other buyers are chasing these particular coins.

Collectors have the option of buying historical coins that are made of silver that don’t contain even troy weights.

If you buy $1,000 face value bags of pre-1965 silver dimes, quarters or halves, the numismatic business considers them to have 715 ounces of metal, not 723 ounces as it would if every single coin had no wear on it.

The missing eight ounces accounts for wear.

Collectors pick this up as they breathe, investors have to seek out this kind of information.

To be a skilled silver investor, it wouldn’t hurt to hang around with collectors.

Sure, you can read reports that bullion will be $100 an ounce by Christmas, but to maximize profit in that move, it pays to learn what you are buying, where you are buying it and how you will store it.

Collectors tend to have those answers.

Lucky us.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."