I have more silver than gold. So far the wrong allocation, as gold has outperformed going from 1200 to 1750 while silver only 15 to 18. Though you can easily sell silver for 20-21/oz because there is a shortage of physical silver for sale. I don’t expect that premium to last however, probably in a few months the “physical premium” will go back to its normal $0.75 – $1 an ounce.
Silver shows a higher propensity to spike however. It hit 50 about 15 years ago, and in 1980 it also hit 50, which is an inflation adjusted 150/oz.
Governments hold gigantic gold reserves, but few have any silver reserves. Either a decision to stockpile silver, or a decision to sell gold, could let silver greatly outperform. China in particular has been a big buyer of gold, even though they had a silver rather than gold standard for most of their history.
The recent low of $250 for gold was partly attributed to the UK government selling off its gold stockpile:
“The UK eventually sold about 395 tons of gold over 17 auctions from July 1999 to March 2002, at an average price of about US$275 per ounce”
My two favorite gold coins are 20 francs that are .1873 oz (both French and Swiss are the same size) and $5 us coins that are .2324 oz. A few years ago using ebay and credit card promos, I was able to get them at 2 or even 3.5% below spot price when spot was $1200. Wish I had got a lot more.
1oz bars and coins are heavily targeted by counterfeiters, and also harder to sell.
