Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:25 pm
by aaa30040
Seems like a way to buy silver at spot. I think a silver mini is only 1000 oz.
Was the process easy?
What are the extra costs over spot?
In what size bars was the delivery? Small enough to split with a few/many people? Group buy?
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:35 pm
by silverstacker
Nope I never have but I've thought about it. Then reality hit me that I'm a collector/ stacker that doesn't own a business and enjoys the commradery of people on this site and choose to buy from those I trust and people I enjoy interacting with. The hobby / investment (for me) goes along with the educated, reliable and trustworthy folks on this site.
So...in answer to your question no I haven't
Brian
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:42 pm
by beauanderos
You're gonna take delivery on a 1000 oz bar. Get out the hack saw
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 7:27 pm
by highroller4321
aaa30040 wrote:Seems like a way to buy silver at spot. I think a silver mini is only 1000 oz.
Was the process easy?
What are the extra costs over spot?
In what size bars was the delivery? Small enough to split with a few/many people? Group buy?
Delivery on contracts only come in 1000oz bars. I believe there are delivery costs, but I believe they are minimal.
The biggest struggle is getting them to deliver on the contracts. This could be a 5-7 month process and in the end they might pay you $2-3 above spot to cash you out instead.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:05 am
by Treetop
I have no idea if it could work, but have wondered what it might do to comex if this became popular. Maybe places like RC and BS buying them and breaking them down into 10 ounce bars. Could one of those who make bars do it cost effectively? not sure, but would be fun to shake things up a bit.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:11 am
by beauanderos
Treetop wrote:I have no idea if it could work, but have wondered what it might do to comex if this became popular. Maybe places like RC and BS buying them and breaking them down into 10 ounce bars. Could one of those who make bars do it cost effectively? not sure, but would be fun to shake things up a bit.
The few bars even our combined forum memberships could purchase would have minimal effect upon COMEX. We're talking a couple of thousand ounces at most. How would that impact their delivery vaults, where millions of ounces are supposedly stockpiled? If you believe the CME.
Anyways, we don't need to do that. The private mints already fill that role. This is how they source their silver prior to fabrication processing.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 1:21 am
by Recyclersteve
First, you would have something that would be VERY difficult to sell. I imagine most coin dealers in the U.S. have never even seen a 1,000 oz. bar. I've been to some of the largest coin shows in the country and I've never seen one.
Secondly, my understanding is that you have to have a minimum of maybe 5 bars (I forget the number- could someone else chime in if they know the minimum?) to be able to take physical delivery. Even then, it would be difficult from what I've heard. In 2011 I read a number of places where they were talking about people being paid huge premiums to take cash. And, not to sound too pessimistic, how would you authenticate a bar so large?
Now if this is just a very small amount of your net worth, perhaps you can afford to be a contrarian in this regard. But, what if you needed a service desperately and all you have to pay for it is a 1,000 oz. bar. The person on the other end is likely to say, "I don't have change for that. It is like paying with a $10,000 bill." So, if you didn't have smaller denominations like 1 oz. bars, silver Eagles, junk silver, etc., you'd be in a world of hurt.
To make things worse these bars weigh over 68#, and since they are so dense and don't typically have lifting handles, they will feel substantially heavier. I've heard that people who work in the vaults need to wear steel toed boots to be safe. So this might be a case of being careful what you wish for. Hey, ten 100 ounce bars looks plenty impressive to most anyone.
If you are worth millions and can say you'd be fine even if you had the bar(s) stolen, then perhaps you'd be one of the few who could afford to roll the dice.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 6:30 am
by wheeler_dealer
I would agree with others. If you could complete this deal and take possession, what would your exit strategy be. Any future buyers or end users would probably want proof of authenticity, etc. It seems that smaller denominations would be more efficient even factoring in any slight premiums, especially if they were recognized bars or rounds.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 6:48 am
by IdahoCopper
The exit strategy is melting it and pouring smaller bits. There are members here who can help with that.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:18 am
by beauanderos
IdahoCopper wrote:The exit strategy is melting it and pouring smaller bits. There are members here who can help with that.
Well, heck. I know Rodie is good... but is this really the way you want to store your wealth?
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:20 pm
by neilgin1
wheeler_dealer wrote:I would agree with others. If you could complete this deal and take possession, what would your exit strategy be. Any future buyers or end users would probably want proof of authenticity, etc. It seems that smaller denominations would be more efficient even factoring in any slight premiums, especially if they were recognized bars or rounds.
me and some of the boys tried this once, but things didn't go so good, and we filmed the whole deal, I was the one that had to take the call, that's my voice on the other end of the call. we kept the Ag, as toll, and he's gone.
trading is a hard ball world, not for women and children, forget about it....and that's that. Vinny.
Re: Anyone ever bought a silver future and take delivery?
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 10:30 pm
by InfleXion
I've seen a 1,000 oz bar at a coin show a few years ago. One of the dealers from a neighboring county had it out on a display wall behind him at his table. It was a big old rectangular slug with half toning and half shiny.
Even if you could get one for the spot paper price by the time you paid for shipping and then melting it into sellable chunks and then more shipping it's probably not really worth it as a group buy.