Silver bullion rounds
From Silver Bullion Bars, Coins and Rounds. Silver Ingots and Junk Silver. Silver Prices
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What are silver rounds?
Silver rounds are silver bullion products which made from .999 pure silver and looks like silver coins. What is the difference between silver coins and silver round?
- any silver coin has legal tender status but silver round doesn't;
- silver bullion rounds does not have any face value;
- rounds are usually minted by private mints or refineries.
Silver round are made for precious metals investors and collectors. They often have designs that resemble famous coins, people, animals, events, presidents, religious, places etc.
For counterfeit and vending machine protection, private mints in the U.S. are not allowed to produce silver rounds with the same diameter as U.S. Mint issued silver coins like American Silver Eagle coins, so silver rounds have different diameter.
1-oz silver rounds
Most rounds weight 1 troy ounce (1 oz or 31.101 grams) of pure silver. Silver coins like American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs or Mexican Libertad coins also have 1 oz of silver but 1-oz silver rounds have different diameter and thickness.
The price of 1-oz silver rounds is based on current silver spot price. You can expect to pay for each silver round the price of one ounce of silver with a small additional premium over spot silver price.
Investing in silver bullion rounds
Investing in silver rounds is a popular and attractive way of investing in silver bullion. Silver bullion rounds are a convenient, safe, low priced, portable and very liquid. Silver rounds offer privacy, take up very little storage room, easy to buy and sell, count and stack.
Buying 1-oz silver rounds is an excellent way to invest in silver bullion because the premiums for the rounds over the silver spot price are often less than the premium for legal tender coins like American Eagles or Canadian Maple Leaf coins. 1-oz silver rounds often can be bought for $2 less premium than silver bullion coins.
It may be possible to produce silver bullion rounds at a lower cost than equivalent coins, although the Royal Canadian Mint, The Perth Mint, and the U.S. Mint, are all quite competitive on the prices of their respective 1-oz silver bullion coins. But you should know that silver coin values always include higher premium over spot price.
1-oz silver rounds have one of the lowest premium over silver spot price, less than half the premium of American Eagle Bullion coins while the 1/2-oz rounds have a higher premium than 1-oz silver rounds.
But you should know that the lowest premium over spot have not the silver rounds or silver coins but silver bullion bars, especially 1000 and 100-oz silver bars. So I recommend you include in your portfolio also 100-oz silver bars, especially bars made by well-known refiners. Engelhard silver bars and Johnson Matthey silver bars are good choices.
But if your main purpose when buying silver is collecting then you should stick to rounds or coins. Silver rounds are much more interesting for collecting than large 100 ounces bars.
Types of silver rounds
Silver bullion rounds are made in a number of different weights, although 1-oz is the commonest type. Silver round coins are available in both brand name and generic.
1-oz silver rounds are made, issued and marketed by a number of different refiners. Some silver rounds made by reputed refiners have attractive designs and are well-made with a high quality finish, others look rather cheap and nasty (generic rounds).
Brand-name silver bullion rounds
Brand-name silver rounds include the 1-oz private mint produced by Engelhard, Wall Street Mint, Johnson Matthey, A-Mark Precious Metals, The Northwest Territorial Mint and Sunshine Minting. These 1-oz silver bullion rounds will display the name or hallmark of the mint that produced them. The most known and the most valuable one ounce silver round is Engelhard Silver Prospector. Engelhard Prospectors were minted by Engelhard but has not been produced since 1988.
Engelhard Silver Prospectors
Engelhard was the first company to market 1-oz silver bullion rounds in the late 1970s. Engelhard Silver Prospectors soon dominated the world 1-oz silver round market. Even Johnson Matthey, which introduced an inspiring series of Freedom Rounds centered on the Bill of Rights, was unable to compete. Engelhard Silver Prospectors was issued during 1983-1987. Engelhard Prospectors generally come in tubes of twenty-five rounds. Sometimes Prospectors were packaged individually in protective plastic packets. Because of the excellent striking and because it carries the Engelhard name, Engelhard Silver Prospector sells at higher premiums over spot than do the Sunshine silver rounds and the Indian Head/Buffalo silver rounds. Since Engelhard Prospectors are no longer produced, they are difficult to buy and occasionally can be purchased on the secondary market on Ebay or from local silver dealers.
What is a good price to buy Engelhard Silver Prospectors now? They are hard to find and do collect a premium so what should you pay for them?
Average price on generic 1-oz silver rounds are about $2 over spot so for Engelhard Silver Prospector you would pay about $2.50 or may be even $3 over spot silver price.
Buffalo Silver Rounds
The Buffalo silver round is the other very popular silver round coin among silver collectors and precious metals investors. Buffalo 1-oz silver round design carries the Indian Head on the obverse and Buffalo picture on the reverse. This design is based on the design of the nickel which was minted in 1913-38. The most known producer of Buffalo Silver Rounds is Wall Street Mint.
Sunshine Minting Silver Rounds
Sunshine Minting produces popular silver rounds. The Sunshine Minting silver rounds depict an eagle flying through the sun and are called Silver Eagles.
Sunshine Silver Eagles aren't to be confused with Silver Eagles, that are legal tender USD1 silver investment coins minted by the US Mint.
Pan American one ounce and 1/2 ounce silver bullion rounds
Pan American Silver bullion rounds feature the well known "Silver Hammer" logo of Pan American Silver Company on the obverse and a classic miner drilling for silver ore on the reverse. Pan American rounds are one ounce or 1/2 ounce and are minted from .999 fine silver.
Generic 1-oz silver rounds
Included in the category of generic silver rounds are all of the silver rounds produced more than the last thirty years by firms that are no longer in silver bullion business. Also included are 1-oz silver rounds marketed by little firms which are nonetheless in company but are not well-known.
Generic silver rounds generally do not display the manufacturing mint's hallmark or name, and they come in a myriad of designs. Sometimes generic rounds are loose in a bag, like pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver coins. Sometimes generic silver rounds are packaged in tubes.
Generic 1-oz silver rounds typically have a smaller premium over spot than the brand named rounds. Simply because of their lower premiums, generic silver rounds are favored by numerous silver investors.
Where to find silver rounds for sale
Surprisingly there are few places to buy silver rounds. Silver bullion rounds, the investment option with the lowest premium, isn’t the most well-liked option for many precious metals investors. Yet, even with the restricted retailers, there are some outstanding options.
Provident Metals holds its own in terms of price and service. I counted six different designs; the small or big ordering size accessible; in addition to designs and order sizes, the price is very competitive and reasonable, which is why Provident Metals wins in Very best All Around.
The hardest thing is to find a place to buy super small orders. The place to buy as little as one ounce was Littleton Coin Company. The price, however, was absurd. Littleton offers a “Snowman Season’s Greetings 1 oz. Silver Round” for an absurd markup above the price of silver. For investors, it doesn’t make sense to order a single ounce of silver at such a high premium. It’s a a lot better concept to order little orders of 10 or more silver rounds because of the premium on a single once.
Additionally to Littleton Coin Business, Provident Metals excels in offering single ounce orders as well. And using the number of unique designs, Provident Metals makes it simple to diversify your silver rounds investment portfolio.
The options for customers looking for more than 1 oz. increase substantially. For those investors searching for 10-100 silver rounds, appear to Lynn Coins. Lynn Coins provides numerous designs and choices for silver rounds at an attractive price. A low premium on each item providing makes Lynn Coins the best location to buy small orders of silver rounds. 1 point of disappointment is the restricted stock they hold.
A fairly new business fits the bill for medium orders. TMG Silver or Silver50 has a competitively priced choice of silver rounds in numbers of 100-499 at one price and above 500 at an even lower price. At this time Silver50 has 3 designs, all replicas of stunning coins: Peace Dollar Replica, Mercury Dime Replica, and also the Buffalo Nickel Replica.
Orders of 1,000 or much more, a very large order, is very best served by BargainBullion. At very low premium over spot silver price, BargainBullion has the lowest prices for very big orders of 1-oz silver rounds. It’s a joint-venture with a mining company, refining business, and the art bullion dealer. Shipping sirber rounds from BargainBullion is extremely fast, insured and registered.
But it is not hard to find silver rounds for sale. You can find any silver round (brand name or generic) on Ebay, Amazon or from your local silver and coin dealers.
