It’s hard to give advice on exactly what to buy, since your motivations and plans may be a bit different, so there’s no easy answer to this.
So it’s almost going to double on a “plan your stacking” and “set stacking goals” and “stacking styles”
It is often suggested to plan your stacking and setting some goals. I would also say to set a budget of a monthly ounce count to add. It’s addicting and even though it does double as an investment and form of saving, it’s very easy to start spending too much on silver.
This is probably a good idea, there’s lots of different silver out there and you have to consider gold and other metals too. A perfect example most people may reference is why buy a 100oz silver bar when you can just buy an ounce of gold. It’s much easier to store and it’s also good to diversity across precious metals. (I’m not going to even present the debate regarding the gold to silver ratio vs its historic ratio and ratio as physical metal in excisions and suppression of silver price.) Honestly I don’t follow it that much, I’ll admit right now, I’m mostly a collector over an investor.
Collector vs Stacker
It’s not always a clear division, but let’s just put it out there, some silverbugs collect and some stack.
For collectors it’s all about the cool and unique silver, the one of everything, the year sets. Heck if you collect generic silver or just annual coins or can scour the junk bin at you LCS you may not even spend much more/oz than the stackers. But generally the collector is willing to spend a couple dollars more per oz of silver. Of course this adds up over the ounces, but at the same time if you think the silver price is already much suppressed and undervalued what’s a couple extra dollars per ounce.
For he stackers it’s all about the ounce count. They buy the most generic bullion at the best process. They can probably build a wall or a little house with all the 10oz bars they have. They scour the internet for every at spot deal and save up to buy the dips, or wait for the amazing deals to really add weight to the stack.
Of course you can always be somewhere in the middle, this is where planning your stack comes in. Maybe you decide you want to go 50/50, or let yourself 10-20% of your stack for more fun stuff. I used to think I was going to set a ratio, but I’ve since just went with 100% collector. I still have a nice little stack of silver and it’s damn fun to display, look at and show off. I hope to never have to sell it in a pinch, so I’m not too worried about the premium and feel it will still have more than enough value long term and still be silver if the bottom ever falls out.
Generics vs Numismatics
You can see that what you choose to stack will changed based on your goals and what type of silver bug you are. Stackers will focus more on junk silver and generic bullion. While collectors will focus more on the other types including; numismatics, graded silver, poured silver and semi-numismatics.
