[quote=flu]SK, if you don’t mind me asking. What do you mean by “junk” silver and gold? Are these jewelry/home furnishing items?…If so, have these actually appreciated from the time you bought them? I’m just curious how this works outside of the traditional coin/bullion….I was under the impression that most other forms of precious metals have terrible appreciation, but I don’t know anything about this.[/quote]
Junk silver is silver coins generally pre-1963 before they started adding copper. They’re 90% silver and sell for 90% of spot price less the dealers vig. The price per dollar stays pretty consistent across silver dollars/halves/quarters/dimes. These are all coins with no numismatic value.
Junk gold is jewelry kind of stuff with no actual jewelry value and they sell at spot price, adjusted for purity, less dealer vig.
None of the jewelry was bought for investment. At least by her. My wife’s late father was sort of an eccentric guy and he started buying metal in the early 60’s, maybe earlier. He had swiss bank accounts and safe deposit boxes at least as far back as ’67. He bought and sold businesses around the world and on most every trip he’d bring back gold jewelry for his wife and daughter (my wife). So she has what seems like an unlimited supply of gold chains, rings, pins, etc. So at least some of that was bought when gold was $35/oz.
Both junk silver and junk gold move the same way as spot gold and silver price. As I said a few weeks ago, to unload this stuff you have to have a dealer that doesn’t take too big a cut. The guy my wife (and occasionally I) deals with has a store that says “we buy gold”. It’s just one of those guys she’s built a relationship with. I don’t know exactly how he disposes of it, but I’m sure he’s doing something with gold and silver futures on a daily basis. I know he has at least a ton of silver on display in inventory. I’m guessing he lays off the gold as quickly as possible, though he has an inventory of at least 1000 gold coins. It’s an expensive business to be in.
