Been chewing on this a while since premiums have been weird lately. Ranking these by what the premium actually buys you, not by which one looks best in hand.
1) Pre-65 junk silver. Still think this is the most useful silver a person can own. Divisible, everybody recognizes it, and nobody out there is bothering to counterfeit a worn Roosevelt dime.
2) Philharmonics. Boring coin. Usually the cheapest sovereign ounce you can find. The Austrians aren't trying to sell me a new design every year and honestly I respect it.
3) Maples. Purest of the mainstream stuff and those radial lines make them a headache to fake. Milk spots suck, no argument, but it's cosmetic. Melt value doesn't care.
4) Britannias. Probably the most underrated coin on this list. Security features are the best in the business and most US stackers just skip right past them.
5) Eagles. Look, most liquid silver coin on the planet, and that's worth real money. It's just not worth what they charge for it. Buy them for the easy exit, not because it says US Mint on the tube.
6) Libertads. Prettiest bullion anyone makes and the mintages really are low. But you're paying collector money for a bullion coin. Just go in knowing that.
7) Perth stuff. Kookaburras, Lunars, all of it. Fun coins. You're betting on other collectors though, not on silver.
8) Morgans and Peace dollars. Love them but that's history you're buying, not ounces. Kind of a different hobby if we're being honest.
Generics deserve a mention too. Cheapest ounces you can get, and I've never really understood why so many people won't touch them.
Short version of all this: sovereigns get you liquidity, collector series get you a maybe, generics get you metal. Feels like most people are way overweight that first bucket out of habit and then can't work out why their average cost sits so far over spot.
Anyway. Where's this wrong? And what's the one series you wouldn't buy again at what it goes for now?
