Hi Everybody,

I live in Brazil and the only silver available to buy (not in jewellry form) is industrial silver which looks like buck shot.

I've been doing research on the internet and in the US the silver trades seem to be going for coins and ingots which must cost more than just the silver content.

I saw almost nothing for industrial silver except one site which sells silver shot but also said "Not for Investment".

Is it against the law in the US to invest in industrial silver or is it just a bad investment or just bad advice?

Hoping somebody can give me a good answer.

Best regards,

Steve

I can't imagine why it would be against the law. What's the difference, other than possibly purity?

I am not sure, but I think the issue is that when you try to sell it, the purchaser is too unsure about the purity and/or whether it is all what you representing it to be such that it is not very marketable.

Steve, schaafgregg hits on the issue.

Silver can exist in many, many forms. Some forms are what I call "self-assaying". Those would include (in the US) pre-1965 coins and Silver Eagles, Canada Maple Leafs, or Austrian Philharmonic coins. Most would include *smaller* ingots up to 10 oz. I would also include various Mexican coins including onzas or Libertads (some years of which are .999 silver, others are .925, but they are clearly marked and universally accepted) *MOST* buyers will accept top-name 100 oz bars, but many buyers WILL NOT accept 1000 oz bars without an assay if they have been out of the hands of the COMEX. An assay is about a $100 affair wherein your silver is tested for purity.

So your silver "shot" or "cornflake" as it is called has inconclusive purity. The day you go to sell it, an assayer will have to melt it into an ingot and then perform an assay.

From a refiner with a good reputation, silver shot is likely to be very pure but nobody will accept it as .999 unless YOU pay for melt > ingotize > assay.

You can also buy silver nitrate, which is 63.5% silver. But someone, somewhere, has to turn it into metallic silver.

You will find that the metals business has unavoidable frictions in it, some of them quite vicious. When you compare the frictions of transacting non-self-assaying form of silver, the stock market looks fabulous with $7 commissions for as many shares as you want to trade.