Silver has a quiet advantage over gold for the everyday buyer: a single ounce costs a fraction of what a gold ounce does, so the entry point is low to begin with. That raises a fair question. If an ounce of silver is already affordable, why would anyone buy it in tenth-ounce pieces? Fractional silver […]
Turn a U.S. coin over and look for a small letter near the date or the design. That letter is a return address. It tells you which building struck the coin, and behind each one sits a piece of American history: a gold rush, a silver boom, a war that shut the doors, a modern […]
Ask a room of gold owners what moves the price, and someone will point at the dollar. It is one of the oldest rules of thumb in the metals world: when the greenback slips, gold tends to climb, and when the dollar firms up, gold often goes quiet. The single number most traders watch for […]
Ask a longtime collector to name the most beautiful coin the United States ever struck, and more often than not you will hear the same answer: the Saint-Gaudens double eagle. It is a $20 gold piece from a vanished era, designed by a sculptor at the height of his powers and pushed into existence by […]
Watch a bullion market during a real scare and you notice something that seems to break the rules. The spot price on the screen is falling, sometimes hard, yet the coin you actually want costs more than it did a week ago, and the dealer says it will ship in three weeks if you are […]
Every few years the same headline makes the rounds: someone buys a plain government proof set at an estate sale, pries it open, and finds a single coin worth more than a car. Those stories are true, but they are rare, and they distract from a more practical question most holders actually face. If you […]
The American Silver Eagle is the coin most new buyers reach for first, and plenty of seasoned collectors never stop reaching for it. It is the official silver bullion coin of the United States, one troy ounce of .999 fine silver with a familiar striding Liberty on the front. It is also, by a wide […]
Gold and silver have an obvious appeal inside a retirement account. The metal sits outside the banking system, it does not report earnings, and it has held purchasing power across plenty of currencies that no longer exist. What surprises many first-time buyers is how narrow the door is. The tax code does not let a […]
On November 12, 2025, the U.S. Mint held a small ceremony in Philadelphia and struck the last circulating penny. After 232 years, the one-cent coin authorized by the very first Coinage Act had become too expensive to make, its production cost having climbed from about 1.42 cents to 3.69 cents apiece over the previous decade. […]
Ask most people what moves the price of gold and the answer comes back fast: interest rates. When the Federal Reserve raises rates, gold is supposed to fall, because money in the bank suddenly pays you something and a gold coin sitting in a drawer still pays you nothing. That story is half right. The […]
