SILVER

Many people have called me because of the short article I wrote about getting ripped off by World Wide Precious Metals. Most of you have been asking the same questions over and over again so I will do my best to answer your questions.

If you are interested in acquiring physical silver bars then the best place to purchase these bars is on eBay. The best search criteria to find these silver bars is "silver 100 bar". By typing these 3 words into eBay's search engine you will find many people selling 100 ounze silver bars. The best quality bar is made by Engelhard. They have a slightly higher mark-up than the other bars but they are easier to sell afterwards. You should expect to pay Spot price plus about $0.30 mark-up for each ounze. This means that if the spot price is $7.50 you should expect to pay $7.80 per ounze for an Engelhard silver bar on eBay. You will also have to pay the cost of shipping. Most sellers will quote this price in their listing so that there are no surprises after you make your purchase. The nice thing is that when you sell your bar on eBay you can also expect to get $0.30 above spot. This means that your only cost of the transaction is your shipping cost. The less you pay in fees to purchase silver the easier it is to make a profit. You never want to deal with a company like World Wide Precious Metals because of the 15% commision they charge you for each ounze that you buy from them. This excessive commission makes it much more difficult to make a profit.

The next place that you can buy silver is through Kitco.If you live in Montreal you can go pick it up from them and you won't have to pay for shipping. They charge about $0.60 above spot price for a solid 100 ounze bar of silver. As you can see this is more expensive than eBay but still far cheaper than Harold Seigel's commission rate. Their phone number is (514) 875-6484.

Written by: Sean Ross on October 2, 2005.