Earlier this year the SO encouraged me to buy a silver American Eagle coin. He has been a coin collector for a long time and buys one of these coins new from the US Mint every year. I figured it was a good idea in case of an apocolypse and I needed precious metals to buy medicine or in case the werewolves came and I needed silver to make bullets. Obviously I watch way too many movies!

I went to the bank to buy my coin. I figured the price per coin would vary daily based on the price of silver. They didn’t. The bank had a set price for the year. This seemed wrong to me so I started researching. Little did I know that it would create a monster.

I decided that there was way too much to learn about buying old coins. Besides, I like shiny and pretty. In the spirit of buy what you know I decided to start collecting coins with animals on them. I’ve put some constraints on myself so I don’t go crazy. I’m sticking to 1 oz silver coins. That lets me focus on a few lines. I also am cheap so I try to get them in the $20-30 per coin range including shipping. The spot price of silver per oz has gone from $13 to $18 this year. Add on some money for collectabiIity and middlemen and you get my price range. I love studying eBay for deals on coins. I love the thrill of the hunt.

China makes panda coins. They come in all different sizes and metals. Each year the panda is a different design. This makes them collectable so the price tends to be higher than just the value of the metal.

Here are the three I have so far. Two are 2009 and the other is 2007.

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I haven’t told the SO that I’ve caught the coin bug. He might think I’m crazy for buying my coins based on pretty pictures instead of value or historical something-or-other. There are a few coins that I have that would absolutely kill him. I’ll show those ones off later!