Top 3 Silver Bullion Coins to Buy - Protect against Inflation- Lowest Silver Prices

This list is going to be a little different than my Gold Coin list. When we are buying silver, there is a much lower chance of getting a fake coin and there tends to be a much lower markup over the spot price than with gold. Unless you are a collector and are looking for unique coins etc. (I do not recommend doing that for an investment) how much silver you get for your money is the most important thing to consider.   I am ALL ABOUT getting the most silver for my money...this leads to some fun and interesting purchases..but silver is silver!!

Rule #1 -  Coins that are .999 Pure silver  

I am not going to list the actual coins to buy as there are literally thousands of them out there that will meet our needs.  The easiest ones to buy will be "silver rounds" or coins that have .999 fine silver marked on them and are exactly 1 troy ounce.  These can be coins from private mints, mining companies or even governments (the Mexican ones are pretty common and  popular.)  You want to avoid sterling silver as they  have a lower silver content ( 92.5% instead of 99.9%.)  I would also avoid coins that are lower than 1 ounce in weight.  You want the coins price to be as close as possible to the spot price of silver, but you will pay a few bucks more as there is a value of value of having the silver in a coin and not a huge 1000 oz comex bar, which is about the only way you can get silver at the spot price.

I do like silver coins as they are pretty, easy to carry and store and I think that everyone just likes the idea of coins in general (like we are pirates or something with our silver coins hehe.)  I am also a big fan of silver bars and my main rule is get the most silver for the money, 1 to 10 ounce bars of silver are a great way to do this!  You will see silver bars from many mining companies and mints as well as "promotional" bars.  I am a big fan of the promotional bars, these were all the rage for a while and can be everything from "10 years of employment or employee of the year" type awards to ones to commemorate states, presidents etc.  You run a cross these at yard sales sometimes and good deals can be had on them.  Just make sure they are .999 silver and not sterling (92.5%) silver!   1 oz silver bars are also getting popular as it is apparently cheaper to make a bar than a coin so you might be able to get them for less!

The last option I like for buying silver is perhaps the most complicated. US coins that were minted up till 1964 are approximately 90% silver. You can purchase (usually in bags) these coins and they are a cool way to own silver as they are both silver and legal US coins so they have a "face value." In most cases, the value of the silver in the coins is greater than the actual face value of the coins so make sure you are not running off to spend these. You will come across these occasionally (pretty much every time I make a run to the Coinstar, I get some rejects and many times it is because they are old silver coins, which weight slightly less than current coins so the machine rejects them.  Once again, you want to pay as close to the spot market price as possible for this silver as well and it may take a little math to figure out how much silver is actually there.