Looking to buy silver. Whats the best source?

[mts]

Looking to buy silver. What's the best source?

I'm looking to buy $5,000-$10,000 worth of silver over the next month or so. I've been to the local dealers and the best I've found for halfs is $6. I'd like to pay significantly less than that. I read in another thread that dealers are potentially offering $4 (one person said that he gets 10.8 times face which is $5.40). I'd love to find the people that these dealers are doing business with. But I think that is probably going to be hard to do.

Anyway, here is the question. Where is the best place for someone like me to find a relatively large amount of junk silver coins, bars, and rounds? These sources come to mind. Let me know if you know of any others.

1) Coin dealers - I'm paying above spot at these places. Plus, I'm paying sales tax which is a double whammy.

2) Private individuals - I've looked at Craigslist but the prices seem to be as bad as the dealers. Some of these guys want way over what the dealers want because they've spent a lot of time collecting this stuff and are putting a higher value on it than melt value. I'm contemplating putting and ad on CL saying that I buy silver in hopes that people will contact me rather than going to a dealer.

3) eBay - I don't really like dealing with eBay to be honest. And the prices don't look that great. Plus I want to buy a bunch of it so individual shipping charges is likely to cost me a fortune.

4) Coin roll hunters - I'd love to work a deal with anyone out here who is looking to unload some silver. But I'm not interested in sending a check in the mail to some stranger on the Internet. You'd have to be in Ohio and willing to have me come pick up the silver with a cash payment. I also assume that CRH's know the value of silver and are less likely to give me a decent deal. It's the nature of the hobby.

5) Online - APMEX seems to be about the best price. I've seen others with decent prices but they don't want to deal in the smaller quantities that I'm looking for. APMEX is priced over spot though so although they beat the local dealers they don't beat them by much.

Thoughts? I appreciate the help.

 

[quitquit]

Re: Looking to buy silver. What's the best source?

Your best source for precious metals are ebay with online rebates. Bing offers an 8% rebate up to $200, and mrrebates offers a 3% rebate up to $30. You can ALWAYS buy precious metals for under spot if you know how to look. Add on top of that you can pay with your credit card and rack up additional 1% cashback! The bing rebate fluctuates anywhere from 8 to 35% throughout the year!! Im surprised no one here has recommended it.

 

[placerman]

Re: Looking to buy silver. What's the best source?

I second the ebay route.

If you know what to look for, you can often find some very very good deals there, especially for large lots of silver.

Look specifically for large collections, or large amounts of junk silver in one auction. Ive seen several of these auctions go for 75% or 80% of spot. These auctions don't happen every day (most of them are way overpriced) but they probably happen at least a few times a month and if you stick it out for them you will be well rewarded.

Second to ebay are places like APMEX. You can purchase a bag of 1000 face silver halves from them for very near spot.

Lastly, private sale can sometimes work out well. Although I have only bought a small amount of silver this way, the chance of finding a great deal isn't to be discounted.