As most of you already know that the Precious Metals Market continues to fluctuate up and down. The trend does and has over the decades continues its upward climb. And the downward falls always less than. Since the beginning of the new technologies is certainly one of the major reasons in why the precious metals are continuing its growth in cost. This is due mostly to the Industrial Marketplace and their uses for these metals, especially silver ( that I am and continue to be quite fond of ) and the devaluation of our dollar. The mines are now not being able to keep up with the demand. Some speculators are saying that silver will rise to $20.00 spot by this coming Christmas. Silver being a by product of other metals that are mined has to be removed chemically and refined from the other ores. A great website such as The Silver Institute goes into great detail (more than I can give on this for sure). Please check out this site as it is free and always open to the public.

I have answered many questions about silver and such over the past, being a seller of such on Ebay. This is what brought me to the realization that I should take the time to try and answer most of these questions using the guide, and review platform that is generously offered by Ebay.

Q1 Why do some bars of silver end up costing more than others?

A It depends a great deal on if it is new bars from lets say the well recognized mints in the world, or the older rarer bars that the mints that made them are out of business.  The older, uglier, hand poured and hand stamped bars almost always brings a higher price. There are many professional rare silver collectors out there buying this silver over the new silver, sometimes not caring about the cost, they just need it for their collection.

Q2 Then why do you sellers have to make so much money on the new silver being that the spot price is what it is?

A There are seller costs that you dont know about. We must find the silver, buy it normally at a very large quantity, to get a discount, but we are still paying around fifty cents over spot per ounce. An example would be if Silver Spot is $11.32 (todays high) A seller will have to pay $11.82 per ounce today to get it. We generally then buy at generally speaking of course 1000 ounces that we have tied up before we can try and sell it. Then we receive the silver in, scan or digitally take pictures of it, and then post it on Ebay. Thats the easy part. We now have fees to pay Ebay to list these items that can range anywhere from fifty five cents to alot more if we highlight the item, make it appear in bold, or put a border around the listing, or list a home page, or recognition in the search page!! I will not use the extras for this calculation. Right now that spot one ounce pc of silver costs the seller $12.82.  Some of the other costs a seller has are paying if we own a store on Ebay. We must pay Ebay a percentage of the sale price. And then for us that use Paypal, lets not forget that they get their cut when you pay us for an item.  Now that pc of spot silver has reached $13.47!!! Oh I almost forgot we have to ship the silver out. In my particular case I use Priority Mail that costs $4.05 to ship a pound or one ounce. This if you have noticed is what I use as a Sellers Discount.  I then add $2.50 for the packaging and handling fees that barely covers the bubble packages and other materials used in safeguarding this metal as to make sure it is not damaged in the mail. Whoooo sure glad thats done! Oh forgot, we have to answer e-mails from potential buyer that takes some time.  I was just thinking about this a little more, Gosh I'm not counting a cost for the time we put in to do all this!! Oh well my wife always tells me I am worthless anyway.

I hope that for those of you that read this that you can get a little more understanding of what the sellers has to go through by some of the comments I have made. And including some of the remarks to hopefully give you a chuckle or two. After all said and done, thank you Ebay for being there for all us sellers, as without you we wouldnt be doing this and having  all this fun!! And it is FUN!

Sincerely,

Clayton Wilson