I can't even find silver to stack. The local shops either aren't getting it in or are hoarding it themselves, which is hard to believe since turning it is their business. My last purchase was for junk silver coins since that's all they had.
I guess my only option is to go online for it.
Jason,
That is strange because right now wholesale premiums are dirt cheap on generic silver. I spoke the other day to one of my local guys who runs a "smaller" shop, and he was complaining that nobody is selling to him (due to lower price in spot market), so he has to buy wholesale to sell in the store. He said he can buy bars from refiners (he didn't say which one, but I know he has alot of NTR bars) for 40 cents or so over spot. He will then sell them for $1.75 or so over per ounce. He says he sells a decent amount at that price. He is in a smaller town with no real competition so he can charge a bit more. But if he was buying from sellers directly he could make more profit.
All the local stores I go to have display cases loaded with generic silver bars/rounds, ASEs and Maples, etc, so it is strange to me your stores don't have anything. I know some guys that sell in antique malls, etc, and will pull inventory during certain price swings, but right now whatever they sell can be replaced cheaper from a wholesaler, so there is no reason to hold back metals. And I don't consider these antique mall guys I know as real coin dealers per se, but instead are collectors who like to buy and sell for fun and profit but have full time jobs doing other things. Any legitimate brick and mortar coin shop (legitimate not in terms of legality, but in term of effective operation), will hedge their inventory in one way or another to protect from price swings downward, such as through futures contracts, etc. So there really is no reason to ever hold back inventory in theory unless the price drops so fast that wholesale inventory dries up and premiums skyrocket for a short time, which happened only twice since I have been a PM bug.
Lucky for you, if you are willing to buy online the big stores have cheap prices. SD bullion (silver doctors website) was advertising ASEs for 2.25 over spot. That is about 1.50 cheaper than what my best coin dealer will sell them to me for. Apmex has their name brand rounds for something like 70 cents over spot, etc. That's why when I read the PM bug sites that wheel out some guy that says they (comex, etc) are about to run out of silver I have to say that guy is a crook or just misinformed. You would not be getting generic that cheap if supply was nil at the wholesale level/or futures exchanges.
Marchas turned me on to a site called Bullionstackers.com that is a cool site for buyers/sellers to cut out the middleman (coin store). You might want to PM him about the site, he is a regular on there.
Just my opinion.
Jim
