Silver Bullion Investor vs Silver Collector
What type of investor are you? Are you only keen in buying the cheapest silver bullion bar you can get or your are keen in the latest Perth Mint’s Lunar dragon? Do you hunt for limited edition silver coin? -or do you glue yourself to silver price chart all day long like a hawk?
There are two types of physical silver investor. They are namely The Bullion Investor and The Collector. Today we will discuss the difference between them.
The Bullion Investor’s Behaviour
- Buy more of silver bars
- Interested only in the value of silver.
- Buy high silver content bullion. At least .999 finest and above.
- Buying and selling based on COMEX silver price.
- Design of the bar does not matter at all.
- Are usually less emotional on their silver portfolio.
- Understands candlestick terms like Kicker Pattern, Bullish Abandoned Baby and Dark Cloud Cover.
- Set cash out targets – Sell off when Silver at USD$X/oz.
- Would buy paper silver (futures, stocks or funds on silver).
- Tarnished silver bar means silver is genuine.
- Read investment and financial news.
- Say statements like, “I am seeing a bull! Buy when it breaks resistant at USD$X/oz! Charge!!!”.
The Collector’s Behaviour
- Buy more of silver coins
- Interested in beautiful/rare/special coins.
- Value of silver is based on “the rarer the more expensive”.
- Are usually more emotional on their silver collections.
- Understands coin grading terms like About Uncirculated, Uncirculated and Brilliant Uncirculated.
- Do not have a specific cash out plan.
- Would buy silver accessories like velvet casing and oak wooden casing.
- Tarnished silver means they need to clean the silver.
- Read coins and mint’s product news.
- Say statements like, “I’m looking forward for XYZ silver! Limited edition! …. and it is so beauuuuuuutiful~”.
^ Bullion Investor will do his own reading on the Silver pricing.
The Joy of a Bullion Investor
Bullion Investor enjoys telling tales about how he or she managed to time the market and stocked in at the lowest possible price.
^ Collector would queue all night long for first coin releases.
The Joy of a Collector
Having the ability to purchase first release coins of a series would mean the world the them.
Profiting
A Bullion Investor may apply multiple strategy such as swing-tradings, shorting, futures or holding to make profits. Behaving just like a stock market trader, Bullion Investor may cash out within hours of trading if it hit its target. Unlike stock, Silver does not yield any interest or dividend. Therefore, the only way to profit is by capital gain. Buy low, sell high.
A Collector buys limited minting silver coin when it is widely circulated. He or she will then lock it up for years. Profit will start kicking in when the minter stop minting the coin. Just like fine wine, the rarer it is, the better the price is. For a collector, current silver spot price may not be relevant to them. Some silver coins may be multiple times higher than the silver spot price!
The drawback on Collector’s investment is liquidation. Many would not pay the premium when Collector wanting to sell off in bulk. A Collector needs to sell to another Collector to profits. The best channels to sell are in collector clubs, road shows, seminars or selling at lelong.my or mudah.com.my.
^ Kitco.com’s buyback price. Captured when Silver Spot @ USD31.45. Note that off-production coins are priced closely to generic bullion coins. There is no money to be made here for Collectors.
I am a Bullion Investor
I enjoy crunching charts. I monitor the movement of silver prices before I make my killings.
Even though I like special edition bullion coins, I do not buy all the prettiest coin in the world. I like the current Canada Wildlife Series in particular because the premium over a standard Canadian Maple is minimal. Same goes to the Chinese Panda. I would buy some of them as collections. Again, this is mainly because the premium over standard bullion coin is minimal. Comparing that to a Perth Mint Dragon Lunar, I reckon Canadian Cougar and Chinese Panda are better buys.
So, what type of investor are you?
References:
- https://goldsilver.com/article/investor-beware-numismatic-collector-coins
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_grading
- http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/candlestick.asp
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_pattern#Simple_patterns
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