ebay silver supply- ramblings

[wagsthadog]

Hi all-

I go on ebay a few times a week, though I'm not a hardcore sniper, I've got some observations that I wonder hold any bit of truth-

I wonder how much silver is left out there- Since post #1, I've been a fan of 90% silver, so that's what I usually search for and what this is based off of, but:

Say you go on ebay. Type in the most generous catch all query, 'silver coins' - you'll likely come across over 100,000 listings... so you think, "whew, no shortage here!" but, look closer-

I guesstimate roughly half of those listings are for overpriced, professionally graded single coins or collections, numi stuff, and not really for bullion investing.

Probably 10% is for coin related supplies that were caught in the seach words, like 'silver coin tubes' or 'silver coins book', etc-

Probably 20% are for very smallish listings, like two or three coins, or a small handful of dimes or quarters- definitely what you want, but isnt there anything bigger?

Probably 5-8% are for non-Us silver coins, which are nice but also in short supply, and can be tricky to sell.

Ebay recently forbid copy coins from being listed on its site, but lo and behold they still pop up, so put that down for another 3%-

There's also silver jewelry, which can pop up under those search terms, which is also nice, but can be tricky to price and sell, and not really for investment- figure 5% on that.

So, what does that leave....about 5-10% of that 100,000 listings are for fairly priced, good size (5-200FV) lots of silver bullion. (assuming youre looking for 90% silver) ....to say nothing of the freaks who ask 35Xface on circulated roosevelt dimes...

Ah, you say, but doesnt that refresh every week? Yes, I answer, but now we have to include the relistings of people that didnt sell last week, and most of what doesnt sell are the numi coins and supplies, so that further bloats the search results and means less bullion..

At least that's what I guesstimate- bottom line- just good old silver is not as common as you may think on the surface!!

JMO wags

[neilgin1]

i like to ramble.........good morning sir, what i do on Ebay....search wise is type "silver" in the box, and highlight "coins" in the drop down, that will bring to the left column menu which has an entry for "US coins" and at this time there are roughing 214,000 offerings, i click on this, and go down to "rolls", which has roughly 500 offerings.

i personally prefer rolls, i'd rather save my frns and get rolls, rather than individual coins.

what i've noticed is that about half the offerings arefrom "cappers"...thats what i call them. They're scamsters, plain and simple, they'll put a silver coin at the end of a paper wrapped roll, it can be anything from a worn mercury dime to a BU Franklin half.

then about a quarter of the offerings are "buy it nows", with offers way above market price.

that last quarter of the offerings are what i go for......and there is still 90%'ers, quality rolls to be had, the biding IS intense, so if you want the rolls, be prepared to bid up.......for instance, 50's era Franklins in either BU or Gem/BU will trade over 30 times face value, even when the board shows 23 time face.

Its VERY rare to find rolls AT melt value. Now when you talk about guys offering rolls of dimes at 35 times face, you mean the $5 rolls?....that translates out to 70 times then....When i quote, i go by $10 face value rolls, is that what you're refering to?

in a bull market, buying physical, in retail amounts, and i include rolls as "retail", you'll always be paying above melt, which is predicated off the futures market that A. trades in 5000 oz contracts.....and B. given that about 5 large bank prop trading desks make sport out of bear raids, which in my opinion makes it a dubious market to attain price discovery...its cooked. Its THERE, its still used as the benchmark, but its a cooked market.

as far as Ebay, in the last six-ish months i noticed that Morgans in rolls have kind of disappeared, as well as Peace dollars, as well as ASE'S....the new HOT rolls, are both 40's era Mercury dimes and Walking Liberty Halves in solid dates, GEM/BU condition, these rolls can go for anywhere from 40 times to 75 times face.....next up in the "hot" class are 1950's era Franklins, in GEM/BU's always trade above 30 times face, to up to 35 times face.

You can always tell who's cleaning out their recently deceased granpa's old coffee can of 90% silver American coinage, these are the circ rolls that will say "90% silver quarters 1935-1964....of course, the biding on these simmers down, and they'll trade maybe 26 to 28 times face.

its not much different from any commodity traded as futures, you'll see Mar 13 CBOT corn trading at say, 725 the bushel, but at the country elevator, they'll buy it from you at march minus 30..or 40, just depends....so you get 6.85-95 cash.

xame thing if you are even NEAR a "coin shop"....i dont care if you got the most blast white roll of 90% GEM BU's, that dealer is only going to give you melt value. i dont blame the old boy, thats how he survives, that thin basis between bid and ask. Still, personally, i never do business with coin shops, mostly coz i live rural and the nearest ones (three) are over an hour away, and two, they prefer slabbing and selling single coins...

well, you have a good day, aint it fun to ramble?...serious, silver, copper and nickel stacking is FUN....its the only way to bank these days...dark days of institutional dishonesty and greed, that erodes the public trust. respectfully, neil

[SoFa]

Ebay is not a great gauge of silver supply because of the fees.

Let's say you have a generic 1 oz silver bar. Right now it is worth $32 in silver. You had to pay a small premium to acquire it or manufacture it.

You need to get over $38.50 to break even (assuming $1.64 to mail it and a typical 20% discount in final value fee).

On the other hand, it might be a decent indicator of demand since you can see what kind of inflated prices average people are willing to pay.