Silver or Gold?

Silver or gold is a fascinating question and there are good reasons for investing in both metals in a variety of ways.

Gold is considered more valuable because of its rarity and also due to personal preference hence it's higher value per ounce than silver.

Gold generally runs at 55 times more valuable per ounce than silver. Yet silver is used in industry much more than gold and silver has more industrial applications than gold. It is also in shorter supply. Silver has actually almost tripled in value while gold double over the past few months.

Gold has been used as a transactional medium for many years but it is silver coins that have formed the basis of most exchange mediums. In other words more people have used silver for money than gold. Possibly due to the difference in value. Most purchases are of the smaller kind and using a one ounce gold coin to buy some bread milk and cheese is a lot different to carrying a one ounce silver coin.

In the coin collectors world it is very much a matter of taste, as well as affordability. Some people prefer gold, others silver. Silver coins are much easier to collect as one would have to, in theory, collect around fifty silver coins to one gold coin. For investment and storage purposes however, storing a one ounce gold coin is much easier than storing fifty one ounce silver coins.

Of course this applies to bars and wafers as well. The main difference of course is with coins is that some coins, due to their rarity and limited issues, can have an additional value not shared by bullion bars. The other difference here, as far as this is concerned, is the shape.

Investors on both sides will give you good reasons why either gold or silver is the bees knees when it comes to investing. The truth is, both are excellent investments and, when it comes to coins, both have some wonderful and beautiful coins that give great pleasure.

So whether you are a silver or gold collector, the mere fact of collecting and enjoying the coins and bars will likely give you much pleasure in the years to come.