Jim Skamarakas

All week I have been flipping through the dials at the hotel and seeing Silver Eagle coins for sale. Individuals, in boxes of 10, and in large H boxes. The US Mint precious metal coins are sold for their intrinsic metal values. People like the home shopping networks buy this in bulk, get them graded by NGC - NGC Certified MS69 is in front of me right now. MS mean Mint State - MS69 means Mint State 69

I fully undertstand people making these coins, and the tv shop at home networks sell them. What I do not understand is why anyone individual needs to buy 20 2008 Silver Eagles for $879, oh wait, while I wrote this the price dropped to $699.96 which works out to about $35 a coin.

Who buys 2008 Silver Eagles? Who buys 20 Silver Eagles?

Silver is going for $15 to $16 per ounce on the market today. Which means you are paying $300 for the silver and $400 for the minting and watching the guys yack on TV. Now they say the cost to grade a single coin as MS69 is $30 a coin. That is too funny to me to hear. So they are selling the coins for $30 in grading fees, $4 for the silver, and losing money on the silver, the shipping and handling, and the talking heads.

Numusmatic Guaranty Corporation MS70 for $249.96 - it just gets even sillier the more I watch this channel and write this post. The U is not a capital U but a lower case u, of course they are of the same size and font but apparently that makes it worth a huge difference in the coin to the sellers. But who put on their Christmas list to Santa, “Dear Santa, please send me a 2008 Silver Eagle, in my stocking but make sure it is graded and the package is not opened or you destroy the value”? And they are selling the coin for $50 less then last year now they tell me, even though silver prices have gone up. Truly a deal to pay this huge margin. I wonder if I can sell quarters at those margins?

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Categories: Soapbox
Tags: telemarketers, television