Bimetallic

CoinWeek and Coin World are good sources for US and Canadian mints, production, new releases, etc.
There isn't much mystery for the US Mint. They've been producing Silver Eagles like mad, 30 million ounces in 2020, double what they did in 2019. They'll probably exceed 40 million in 2021.
I'm surprised that they had enough silver to ramp up that much, even with the brief shutdown. They're legally required to source only American silver I think, like from Sunshine Minting in Idaho, one of their major suppliers of silver blanks.
So there's not a supply shortage for them. I don't understand conspiracies about silver mining or wholesale supply. There's hardly any money in silver, so all these goofy theories never made much sense to me. In a huge year, the US Mint earned maybe $660 million in revenue last year on Silver Eagles, if we assume an average silver spot price of $20. They charge their Approved Purchasers $2.00 per coin over spot for Silver Eagles, so I'm spitballing $22.00 per coin. Their entire annual revenue was less than Apple made in one week last quarter. Companies like Apple could buy and sell the entire silver bullion industry and not even know about it...
As far as their brief shutdown last year early in the pandemic, I've never seen that reported as anything but pandemic related. It definitely wasn't for changing dies or equipment to produce 2021 Eagles – they would never commence 2021 Eagle production in February or March of 2020... Bullion isn't like cars – they don't introduce a "Year X" product early in Year X-1. We don't normally get a given year's Eagles until January of the marked year.
In any case, they dramatically increased production, so there's no apparent shortage in their supply of raw silver from Sunshine Minting and whomever else. I expected them to run out of silver, but they didn't. CoinWeek has a good insider scoop here, where they report on the US Mint's conference call with its Authorized Purchasers: https://coinweek.com/bullion-report/us-mint-making-changes-to-meet-exploding-demand-for-american-gold-silver-eagles/
Other good sources are dealers, especially the ones that publish blogs or chime in on forums like this one or Reddit's Silverbugs. JM Bullion is one I remember chiming in when the retail shortages first dug in. And BOLD Precious Metals too. And SD Bullion has a very active YouTube channel. Stansberry Research too, the company Daniela Cambone left Kitco for – they have a big YouTube channel.

If you invest based on crude hunches, you'll probably lose lots of money. People have lost lots of money on silver.
A crude hunch is something like: "Silver demand and price will go up because of solar panels, electric cars, etc."
That's not a valid method of knowing anything about the world, and no serious investor would ever act on that amount of cognition.
To know or predict that demand will go up because of those things, you have to do research. And math. You have to find out to what extent silver is used in various products, and calculate whatever increase you expect in those products, along with any changes in the amount of silver used in those products.
That last part is critical because it's dynamic, not fixed. There's no law of nature that says you have to put X amount of silver in a solar panel. The trend in precious metals use has historically been downward in electronics and other products. Manufacturers are always trying to reduce costs when they can, and engineers figure out ways to minimize things like PM. So whatever amount is used today is not necessarily going to be the same in 2030.
But the key point is that you have to do research to know anything of this nature about the world. You can't know anything about future silver demand by just asserting a vague hunch. That's not anything. And if you go that route, serious investors will seriously outperform you. They'll be on the other side of those trades. Hedge funds, for example, are extremely smart and rigorous about research and data. They will find out exactly how much silver is projected in various products, and model and update it accordingly.
In general, silver is a small market. Gold is fairly small compared to lots of industries, and silver is quite a bit smaller than gold. You'd be surprised to know how little bankers care about it or think about it. It's not important to them. Relatedly, if you look at where and how wealth is created in this world, it's not in metals or commodities. It's in intellectual property, in starting new companies, based on innovative ideas. That's where the billionaires come from, at least the younger ones. The Airbnb guys are billionaires, created a whole new market. Same with Uber, Amazon, Tesla, etc.
If you want wealth, you have to create value, or fund people who do. You can't count on just owning a metal as a path to wealth. Maybe crypto could work out for some people, the people who got Bitcoin at a dollar or whatever, but in general speculation is iffy. Silver isn't special. It's always second fiddle to gold, and at least with gold there's a possibility of it undergirding a future cryptocurrency. That won't happen with silver. It's more of cool diversity investment. I love owning it, but it doesn't need to be the key to my life or worldview.

If you invest based on crude hunches, you'll probably lose lots of money. People have lost lots of money on silver.
A crude hunch is something like: "Silver demand and price will go up because of solar panels, electric cars, etc."
That's not a valid method of knowing anything about the world, and no serious investor would ever act on that amount of cognition.
To know or predict that demand will go up because of those things, you have to do research. And math. You have to find out to what extent silver is used in various products, and calculate whatever increase you expect in those products, along with any changes in the amount of silver used in those products.
That last part is critical because it's dynamic, not fixed. There's no law of nature that says you have to put X amount of silver in a solar panel. The trend in precious metals use has historically been downward in electronics and other products. Manufacturers are always trying to reduce costs when they can, and engineers figure out ways to minimize things like PM. So whatever amount is used today is not necessarily going to be the same in 2030.
But the key point is that you have to do research to know anything of this nature about the world. You can't know anything about future silver demand by just asserting a vague hunch. That's not anything. And if you go that route, serious investors will seriously outperform you. They'll be on the other side of those trades. Hedge funds, for example, are extremely smart and rigorous about research and data. They will find out exactly how much silver is projected in various products, and model and update it accordingly.
In general, silver is a small market. Gold is fairly small compared to lots of industries, and silver is quite a bit smaller than gold. You'd be surprised to know how little bankers care about it or think about it. It's not important to them. Relatedly, if you look at where and how wealth is created in this world, it's not in metals or commodities. It's in intellectual property, in starting new companies, based on innovative ideas. That's where the billionaires come from, at least the younger ones. The Airbnb guys are billionaires, created a whole new market. Same with Uber, Amazon, Tesla, etc.
If you want wealth, you have to create value, or fund people who do. You can't count on just owning a metal as a path to wealth. Maybe crypto could work out for some people, the people who got Bitcoin at a dollar or whatever, but in general speculation is iffy. Silver isn't special. It's always second fiddle to gold, and at least with gold there's a possibility of it undergirding a future cryptocurrency. That won't happen with silver. It's more of cool diversity investment. I love owning it, but it doesn't need to be the key to my life or worldview.

If you invest based on crude hunches, you'll probably lose lots of money. People have lost lots of money on silver.
A crude hunch is something like: "Silver demand and price will go up because of solar panels, electric cars, etc."
That's not a valid method of knowing anything about the world, and no serious investor would ever act on that amount of cognition.
To know or predict that demand will go up because of those things, you have to do research. And math. You have to find out to what extent silver is used in various products, and calculate whatever increase you expect in those products, along with any changes in the amount of silver used in those products.
That last part is critical because it's dynamic, not fixed. There's no law of nature that says you have to put X amount of silver in a solar panel. The trend in precious metals use has historically been downward in electronics and other products. Manufacturers are always trying to reduce costs when they can, and engineers figure out ways to minimize things like PM. So whatever amount is used today is not necessarily going to be the same in 2030.
But the key point is that you have to do research to know anything of this nature about the world. You can't know anything about future silver demand by just asserting a vague hunch. That's not anything. And if you go that route, serious investors will seriously outperform you. They'll be on the other side of those trades. Hedge funds, for example, are extremely smart and rigorous about research and data. They will find out exactly how much silver is projected in various products, and model and update it accordingly.
In general, silver is a small market. Gold is fairly small compared to lots of industries, and silver is quite a bit smaller than gold. You'd be surprised to know how little bankers care about it or think about it. It's not important to them. Relatedly, if you look at where and how wealth is created in this world, it's not in metals or commodities. It's in intellectual property, in starting new companies, based on innovative ideas. That's where the billionaires come from, at least the younger ones. The Airbnb guys are billionaires, created a whole new market. Same with Uber, Amazon, Tesla, etc.
If you want wealth, you have to create value, or fund people who do. You can't count on just owning a metal as a path to wealth. Maybe crypto could work out for some people, the people who got Bitcoin at a dollar or whatever, but in general speculation is iffy. Silver isn't special. It's always second fiddle to gold, and at least with gold there's a possibility of it undergirding a future cryptocurrency. That won't happen with silver. It's more of cool diversity investment. I love owning it, but it doesn't need to be the key to my life or worldview.

If you invest based on crude hunches, you'll probably lose lots of money. People have lost lots of money on silver.
A crude hunch is something like: "Silver demand and price will go up because of solar panels, electric cars, etc."
That's not a valid method of knowing anything about the world, and no serious investor would ever act on that amount of cognition.
To know or predict that demand will go up because of those things, you have to do research. And math. You have to find out to what extent silver is used in various products, and calculate whatever increase you expect in those products, along with any changes in the amount of silver used in those products.
That last part is critical because it's dynamic, not fixed. There's no law of nature that says you have to put X amount of silver in a solar panel. The trend in precious metals use has historically been downward in electronics and other products. Manufacturers are always trying to reduce costs when they can, and engineers figure out ways to minimize things like PM. So whatever amount is used today is not necessarily going to be the same in 2030.
But the key point is that you have to do research to know anything of this nature about the world. You can't know anything about future silver demand by just asserting a vague hunch. That's not anything. And if you go that route, serious investors will seriously outperform you. They'll be on the other side of those trades. Hedge funds, for example, are extremely smart and rigorous about research and data. They will find out exactly how much silver is projected in various products, and model and update it accordingly.
In general, silver is a small market. Gold is fairly small compared to lots of industries, and silver is quite a bit smaller than gold. You'd be surprised to know how little bankers care about it or think about it. It's not important to them. Relatedly, if you look at where and how wealth is created in this world, it's not in metals or commodities. It's in intellectual property, in starting new companies, based on innovative ideas. That's where the billionaires come from, at least the younger ones. The Airbnb guys are billionaires, created a whole new market. Same with Uber, Amazon, Tesla, etc.
If you want wealth, you have to create value, or fund people who do. You can't count on just owning a metal as a path to wealth. Maybe crypto could work out for some people, the people who got Bitcoin at a dollar or whatever, but in general speculation is iffy. Silver isn't special. It's always second fiddle to gold, and at least with gold there's a possibility of it undergirding a future cryptocurrency. That won't happen with silver. It's more of cool diversity investment. I love owning it, but it doesn't need to be the key to my life or worldview.

Mylar is used by professional archivists for documents, photos, and other materials, and seems to be a known safe and inert material. I think PVC is the only identified problem material in the polymer category. And acidic paper was a problem in both documents and the enclosures used for them (sleeves, boxes, envelopes). But acid-free paper is pervasive now, so it seems like PVC is the only problem material.

Nothing I know of retails for under £300. The Fisch is good, as Mr. Chard mentioned. It's not a machine per se, but rather an inert measuring tool that verifies the size, shape, and weight of popular coins. It has depressions and slots in which to place the coin to verify its dimensions, and a carefully designed platform to set the coin and test its weight. The combination of precise dimensions and weight provides a high confidence of authenticity – most fakes won't pass.
They go for about $200. The caveats are that they're designed for a specific set of popular coins due to the need for exact precision with the dimensions. There are several different Fisch models, some for silver coins, some for gold coins. Each model covers a specified handful of coins. A popular model in North America is the one that covers both Eagles and Maples.
The weight test is discrete and binary. The Fisch is designed like a seesaw or pendulum scale, where when you place a coin weighing exactly one Troy ounce on the marked area, the Fisch balances or something, while any deviation from that target weight will yield a failing result. There might be Fisches for 10 oz bars, but I haven't checked.
There's also a competing device costing a bit less. I forget the name, but it's generic sounding like "The Silver Coin Tester" or similar. It's essentially identical to the Fisch in its approach, with the slots and the carefully calibrated balancing for the target weight.

An ounce of silver is definitely not an ounce of silver, if we mean any ounce is worth the same as any other ounce. The difference in premiums refutes the equality idea. In the US, Eagles have much higher premiums than Britannias for some reason. In general, you can get spot for Eagles when selling to dealers, but not always for other coins, and certainly not for bars or rounds.
As far as the two types, it's early, but long-term I doubt it will matter much. If you were selling to new stackers a couple of years from now, they might prefer the then-current Type 2 Eagles. But it's hard to say. The Type 2 is a big disappointment because it doesn't have any noteworthy security features, which as I recall were promised. The US Mint is lazy and far behind the Royal Canadian Mint, the British Royal Mint, and even the Aussies. I would probably default to Type 2 at this point. Last I saw, the Type 1 had higher premiums or was already out of stock. I wouldn't buy either right now, since the premiums are still unusually high, but once they settle down I'd prefer the Type 2.

Oy, have any of you shipped small volumes of silver in large envelopes, aka "flats" in USPS parlance?
It looks like a great solution for 1 - 3 ounces or so. 10 ounce bars might work too, but as the value gets into hundreds of dollars / pounds it seems risky.
I discovered a while back that this is actually possible given the rules and specs for a Large Envelope / Flat with the USPS, and Large Letter with the Royal Mail.
It's much cheaper than even the lightest package price, e.g. the minimum price for First Class Package Service in the US. It will be less than two bucks in most cases, sometimes just one.
The rules stipulate that the envelope be no more than ¾ inch thick (or a full inch in the UK), with no more than ¼ inch variance in thickness. A one ounce coin, round, or bar will be less than ¼ inch thick, so that's not a problem.
They also require a certain level of flexibility, and the opposite – stiffness. The envelope can't be super rigid, and it can't be completely floppy like those poly mailer bags you sometimes see used for clothing. These issues aren't a problem, and any standard stiff paperboard mailer will work, as will most padded and bubble mailers.
People in the US often wrongly state that any padded or bubble mailer is a "package" and must be charged as one. I finally traced this myth to old USPS rate classes before 2007. Back then all First Class mail was charged the same, except that any mailpiece that deviated from regular letter dimensions had a Nonstandard Surcharge of less than a dollar. So all packages and large envelopes got hit with that, and there was no distinction between those envelopes and packages.
Then they introduced the Large Envelope class in 2006 or 2007, which rewrote the rules. Government employees are super slow and unaccountable, so they've been quoting the old policies decades after they expired...
It seems like small amounts of silver would be fine in a flat, but I haven't seen merchants leverage these rates. Most shipping software and resellers seem ignorant of the Large Envelope class and the opportunities it presents for small stuff. Sellers even send me banknotes as First Class Packages, even though they're in envelopes – I don't think eBay gives them the option.
Do you think silver would get damaged? It seems like a good stiff envelope would protect it, especially with some thin hard plastic inserts, or even just cardboard inserts. There's a great company in the UK called Lil Mailers or something, and they make strong ones.

The Royal Canadian Mint is probably the best government mint, at least the most innovative. They have some serious metallurgy and research going on there. The MintShield thing to reduce silver milk spots, the multi-ply nickel and copper plating on their steel circulation coins, their 99999 fine gold products, etc.
They also have good security features on their standard silver and gold coins. As an American, I'm embarrassed by the US Mint by comparison. They don't do anything. They never innovate. No security features. No 9999 silver. No 99999 gold. Not even a 9999 gold coin that isn't awfully ugly. Nothing for milk spots. Wasting precious copper and nickel on circulation coins decades after the rest of the world smartly moved to steel with thin nickel plating.
The British Royal Mint is pretty good, much better than the US Mint in terms of security features and purity (and in circulation coins). They compete with the RCM to win smaller countries' business to mint their circulation coins. That business-like competitive context probably helps drive those mints to innovate more overall.
Ultimately I prefer private mints as a matter of principle and ethics, but government mints have crowded them out such that there isn't as much money or innovation in private mints. Government mints have the advantage of being unaccountable to owners, shareholders, or investors, and enjoy a significant critical mass from their circulation coin operations. For example, the US Mint's annual revenue is over $3 billion, and the RCM has about $1 billion. The Royal Mint sees about £1 billion. I don't know how much is from their circulation coin monopolies, but whatever the amount is it's free critical mass. That's thousands of employees, lots of buildings, equipment, and labs that can be leveraged for precious metals products. Private mints have none of that advantage.
The Swiss are still pretty good though. I like the holographic gold Kinebars by UBS bank and Argor Heraeus. It's brilliant. And PAMP Suisse is outstanding as well, and they developed an anti-counterfeit feature for their bars that leverages optical scanners and smartphones.
I don't think government mints should exist unless there are explicit constitutional prohibitions against a government currency monopoly. It might make sense to allow a government currency if we thought it would be profitable enough to contribute significantly to a government's budget. But it could never be a coercive monopoly, and said government would have to compete with private currencies, and would have to accept any popular currency as payment. It will be interesting to see what people come up with in the future in more open competitive environments. In many jurisdictions, government mints also enjoy unfair tax exemptions not granted to privately minted bullion – I'd be sure to fully exempt all bullion and currencies from taxes in any new country. There's still a lot of room for innovation if the bullion market were to grow.
 

Guys there's third-party shipping insurance. Never rely on carriers' insurance. Any carrier insurance you pay extra for will be more expensive than third-party shipping insurance, with worse service.
Shipsurance, U-PIC, and InsurePost are the major providers in North America. You might have a different set in the UK.

Guys there's third-party shipping insurance. Never rely on carriers' insurance. Any carrier insurance you pay extra for will be more expensive than third-party shipping insurance, with worse service.
Shipsurance, U-PIC, and InsurePost are the major providers in North America. You might have a different set in the UK.

Thought I remembered this in the deep recesses of my mind. Finally found it!😊
 

Yeah, it's disappointing that there's no real information or public research identifying exactly what milk spots are and where they come from. That's such a basic requirement for proceeding further, and yet we don't have it. It might take a motivated individual researcher to do the requisite testing and analysis, perhaps a chemist or metallurgist.
@TeaTime It's not clear if you're talking about milk spots. You seem to be saying that "toning", "blooming", and "milk spots" are the same thing, but that can't be true if "toning" is synonymous with "tarnish" as seems to be the case. Tarnish is caused by sulfur in the air. It's usually a shade of brown. Milk spots are not tarnish, they have a fundamentally different whitish appearance, and they are not cleaned by the methods that clean tarnish (e.g. the aluminum foil and baking soda method).
Moreover, it's not true that all silver tarnishes or that all silver develops milk spots. I've never had silver tarnish if I keep it in Ziploc bags, tubes, or capsules. And lots of silver doesn't develop milk spots. The nature and cause of milk spots are currently unknown to the public.
It's a tough problem because these mints are government mints and their employees are government employees. This creates a dynamic that breeds complacency and entitlement, and a lack of accountability or the strong customer service mindset common with private-sector enterprises. The Royal Canadian Mint is the most business-like of them all, and mints coins for lots of countries around the world. They're very innovative with both their circulation coins and bullion. The (British) Royal Mint is maybe in second place on innovation, and they also compete for business minting other countries' coins. The US Mint has by far the most money/revenue of the world mints, but they don't do anything with it. They're the worst of the major mints in terms of quality and innovation – they have no security features, trail behind on purity, and their circulation coin production is extremely inefficient and uninnovative (still using precious copper and nickel as base metals...)
It would help if the US Mint and others rolled up their sleeves and did some simple research on the milk spotting phenomenon, the chemistry, etc. It's not rocket science. But these organizations seem to be extremely complacent and unaccountable. They don't really communicate. They don't even respond to emails sometimes. I wonder if a private mint will do some research, like Sunshine or Scottsdale. Their products aren't collectibles though, not like the proof, ultra high relief, memorial, historical, baseball champion something or other that the government mints issue. It's just so hard to get real communication from the government mints. Even major dealers like Chards don't get much of a response, and we live in a culture where it's normal for organizations like this to have people on staff who issue nonsense answers to questions for a living, PR people and so forth. Clear communication is increasingly rare.

Yeah, it's disappointing that there's no real information or public research identifying exactly what milk spots are and where they come from. That's such a basic requirement for proceeding further, and yet we don't have it. It might take a motivated individual researcher to do the requisite testing and analysis, perhaps a chemist or metallurgist.
@TeaTime It's not clear if you're talking about milk spots. You seem to be saying that "toning", "blooming", and "milk spots" are the same thing, but that can't be true if "toning" is synonymous with "tarnish" as seems to be the case. Tarnish is caused by sulfur in the air. It's usually a shade of brown. Milk spots are not tarnish, they have a fundamentally different whitish appearance, and they are not cleaned by the methods that clean tarnish (e.g. the aluminum foil and baking soda method).
Moreover, it's not true that all silver tarnishes or that all silver develops milk spots. I've never had silver tarnish if I keep it in Ziploc bags, tubes, or capsules. And lots of silver doesn't develop milk spots. The nature and cause of milk spots are currently unknown to the public.
It's a tough problem because these mints are government mints and their employees are government employees. This creates a dynamic that breeds complacency and entitlement, and a lack of accountability or the strong customer service mindset common with private-sector enterprises. The Royal Canadian Mint is the most business-like of them all, and mints coins for lots of countries around the world. They're very innovative with both their circulation coins and bullion. The (British) Royal Mint is maybe in second place on innovation, and they also compete for business minting other countries' coins. The US Mint has by far the most money/revenue of the world mints, but they don't do anything with it. They're the worst of the major mints in terms of quality and innovation – they have no security features, trail behind on purity, and their circulation coin production is extremely inefficient and uninnovative (still using precious copper and nickel as base metals...)
It would help if the US Mint and others rolled up their sleeves and did some simple research on the milk spotting phenomenon, the chemistry, etc. It's not rocket science. But these organizations seem to be extremely complacent and unaccountable. They don't really communicate. They don't even respond to emails sometimes. I wonder if a private mint will do some research, like Sunshine or Scottsdale. Their products aren't collectibles though, not like the proof, ultra high relief, memorial, historical, baseball champion something or other that the government mints issue. It's just so hard to get real communication from the government mints. Even major dealers like Chards don't get much of a response, and we live in a culture where it's normal for organizations like this to have people on staff who issue nonsense answers to questions for a living, PR people and so forth. Clear communication is increasingly rare.

Tubes in large part because the economics of silver sort of mandate that stackers deal in tube quantities. I might have obscured that. That reality makes capsules somewhat moot, unless you wanted to use capsules for each coin or bar in a tube, but I don't imagine anyone would want that expense.
Capsules are expensive and hard to open, especially Air-Tites, the flagship brand out there. I think there's probably some non-zero number of stackers who have cut themselves trying to pry open a capsule with a knife or scissors at some point. Not a huge percentage, but an easy to imagine scenario if you assume thousands of people out there trying to open capsules.
Capsules are only relevant for stray pieces, anything not purchased in tubes. For those stray pieces I just use Ziploc Snack Bags, because they're smaller and less flippy-floppy than the sandwich bags. If I ever want to add some silver to my stack, maybe a specific coin, I order a tube to get a better price per ounce. For example, last year during the dip before the pandemic, I ordered a tube of silver Kangaroos, which I've always wanted. The tube is free and the price is lower than singles, so it's a double-win!
The economics of silver bullion require a lot of discipline in controlling costs, so I never buy stuff like Kangaroos piecemeal. Then you also have to buy a capsule if you were going that route. I never pay sales taxes on bullion, shipping to my parents if I have to in order to avoid tax, and I never buy capsules or containers beyond the Ziploc bags. All that helps to improve profitability and reduce the extent of losses if silver goes down after I buy. I also only buy during dips or lows, never during the frenzies.

Yeah, it's disappointing that there's no real information or public research identifying exactly what milk spots are and where they come from. That's such a basic requirement for proceeding further, and yet we don't have it. It might take a motivated individual researcher to do the requisite testing and analysis, perhaps a chemist or metallurgist.
@TeaTime It's not clear if you're talking about milk spots. You seem to be saying that "toning", "blooming", and "milk spots" are the same thing, but that can't be true if "toning" is synonymous with "tarnish" as seems to be the case. Tarnish is caused by sulfur in the air. It's usually a shade of brown. Milk spots are not tarnish, they have a fundamentally different whitish appearance, and they are not cleaned by the methods that clean tarnish (e.g. the aluminum foil and baking soda method).
Moreover, it's not true that all silver tarnishes or that all silver develops milk spots. I've never had silver tarnish if I keep it in Ziploc bags, tubes, or capsules. And lots of silver doesn't develop milk spots. The nature and cause of milk spots are currently unknown to the public.
It's a tough problem because these mints are government mints and their employees are government employees. This creates a dynamic that breeds complacency and entitlement, and a lack of accountability or the strong customer service mindset common with private-sector enterprises. The Royal Canadian Mint is the most business-like of them all, and mints coins for lots of countries around the world. They're very innovative with both their circulation coins and bullion. The (British) Royal Mint is maybe in second place on innovation, and they also compete for business minting other countries' coins. The US Mint has by far the most money/revenue of the world mints, but they don't do anything with it. They're the worst of the major mints in terms of quality and innovation – they have no security features, trail behind on purity, and their circulation coin production is extremely inefficient and uninnovative (still using precious copper and nickel as base metals...)
It would help if the US Mint and others rolled up their sleeves and did some simple research on the milk spotting phenomenon, the chemistry, etc. It's not rocket science. But these organizations seem to be extremely complacent and unaccountable. They don't really communicate. They don't even respond to emails sometimes. I wonder if a private mint will do some research, like Sunshine or Scottsdale. Their products aren't collectibles though, not like the proof, ultra high relief, memorial, historical, baseball champion something or other that the government mints issue. It's just so hard to get real communication from the government mints. Even major dealers like Chards don't get much of a response, and we live in a culture where it's normal for organizations like this to have people on staff who issue nonsense answers to questions for a living, PR people and so forth. Clear communication is increasingly rare.

Tubes in large part because the economics of silver sort of mandate that stackers deal in tube quantities. I might have obscured that. That reality makes capsules somewhat moot, unless you wanted to use capsules for each coin or bar in a tube, but I don't imagine anyone would want that expense.
Capsules are expensive and hard to open, especially Air-Tites, the flagship brand out there. I think there's probably some non-zero number of stackers who have cut themselves trying to pry open a capsule with a knife or scissors at some point. Not a huge percentage, but an easy to imagine scenario if you assume thousands of people out there trying to open capsules.
Capsules are only relevant for stray pieces, anything not purchased in tubes. For those stray pieces I just use Ziploc Snack Bags, because they're smaller and less flippy-floppy than the sandwich bags. If I ever want to add some silver to my stack, maybe a specific coin, I order a tube to get a better price per ounce. For example, last year during the dip before the pandemic, I ordered a tube of silver Kangaroos, which I've always wanted. The tube is free and the price is lower than singles, so it's a double-win!
The economics of silver bullion require a lot of discipline in controlling costs, so I never buy stuff like Kangaroos piecemeal. Then you also have to buy a capsule if you were going that route. I never pay sales taxes on bullion, shipping to my parents if I have to in order to avoid tax, and I never buy capsules or containers beyond the Ziploc bags. All that helps to improve profitability and reduce the extent of losses if silver goes down after I buy. I also only buy during dips or lows, never during the frenzies.

Yeah, it's disappointing that there's no real information or public research identifying exactly what milk spots are and where they come from. That's such a basic requirement for proceeding further, and yet we don't have it. It might take a motivated individual researcher to do the requisite testing and analysis, perhaps a chemist or metallurgist.
@TeaTime It's not clear if you're talking about milk spots. You seem to be saying that "toning", "blooming", and "milk spots" are the same thing, but that can't be true if "toning" is synonymous with "tarnish" as seems to be the case. Tarnish is caused by sulfur in the air. It's usually a shade of brown. Milk spots are not tarnish, they have a fundamentally different whitish appearance, and they are not cleaned by the methods that clean tarnish (e.g. the aluminum foil and baking soda method).
Moreover, it's not true that all silver tarnishes or that all silver develops milk spots. I've never had silver tarnish if I keep it in Ziploc bags, tubes, or capsules. And lots of silver doesn't develop milk spots. The nature and cause of milk spots are currently unknown to the public.
It's a tough problem because these mints are government mints and their employees are government employees. This creates a dynamic that breeds complacency and entitlement, and a lack of accountability or the strong customer service mindset common with private-sector enterprises. The Royal Canadian Mint is the most business-like of them all, and mints coins for lots of countries around the world. They're very innovative with both their circulation coins and bullion. The (British) Royal Mint is maybe in second place on innovation, and they also compete for business minting other countries' coins. The US Mint has by far the most money/revenue of the world mints, but they don't do anything with it. They're the worst of the major mints in terms of quality and innovation – they have no security features, trail behind on purity, and their circulation coin production is extremely inefficient and uninnovative (still using precious copper and nickel as base metals...)
It would help if the US Mint and others rolled up their sleeves and did some simple research on the milk spotting phenomenon, the chemistry, etc. It's not rocket science. But these organizations seem to be extremely complacent and unaccountable. They don't really communicate. They don't even respond to emails sometimes. I wonder if a private mint will do some research, like Sunshine or Scottsdale. Their products aren't collectibles though, not like the proof, ultra high relief, memorial, historical, baseball champion something or other that the government mints issue. It's just so hard to get real communication from the government mints. Even major dealers like Chards don't get much of a response, and we live in a culture where it's normal for organizations like this to have people on staff who issue nonsense answers to questions for a living, PR people and so forth. Clear communication is increasingly rare.

This is frankly absurd, and hard to understand. He raised the issue of possibly bad bars, and when he has the chance to document a second bar he doesn't keep the results? Why would anyone make such a bad decision?
And then he says he didn't bother with a fire assay simply because SilverGoldBull reported that all its tests were good? What? This is so bizarre. Why did he raise the issue if he was just going to punt in such a craven way?
His behavior is hard to understand. Burying all the info in ridiculously long videos is also perplexing. Who is going to watch an hour-long video? The parts I saw had far too much meaningless filler content, a lot of non-substantive fluff about the "community" this and that. It's like he just enjoys talking. I can't imagine watching an hour-long video about a possibly bad bar. Five minutes is plenty of time to provide the info.

Is "capsuals" some sort of Royalist English spelling? Here in the Land of the Free it's capsules.
We use Ziploc snack bags for loose ounces. Capsules are a needless waste of money for silver bullion. The thing silver needs protection from is the air, especially the sulfur in the air which causes tarnish. You just need a decent seal, and so far a Ziploc bag serves well. I've never had any tarnish with them.
Capsules don't do anything useful unless you want to throw the coins at walls or something that requires impact resistance.
Tubes are for tubes, meaning 20 or 25 coins or rounds, depending on the mint. They're free when you order those quantities, and they prevent tarnish so they're great. I almost always order tube quantities because retail silver premiums are too high on small quantities.
There's no significant scratching because the tubes aren't being filled piecemeal – they come already full, so there shouldn't be any messing around with coins going in and coming out.
To make money on retail silver, what a lot of you call "physical", you need to be very disciplined about costs. Or even if you just don't want to lose money, you need to be disciplined. Lots of people lose lots of money on retail silver bullion. A good way to lose money is to buy piecemeal, one ounce here and there, small quantities. And then to buy fancy capsules, antitarnish strips, etc. You really shouldn't buy anything but the silver – your margins are too precarious already with the premiums. For knee-benders in the UK you're already in a hole because of your VAT tax on investment precious metals. Until you people do something about that VAT, contact your reps, etc. there's just no margin for stuff like capsules. Just buy tubes and don't pay VAT and you have a fighting chance of profiting.

Is "capsuals" some sort of Royalist English spelling? Here in the Land of the Free it's capsules.
We use Ziploc snack bags for loose ounces. Capsules are a needless waste of money for silver bullion. The thing silver needs protection from is the air, especially the sulfur in the air which causes tarnish. You just need a decent seal, and so far a Ziploc bag serves well. I've never had any tarnish with them.
Capsules don't do anything useful unless you want to throw the coins at walls or something that requires impact resistance.
Tubes are for tubes, meaning 20 or 25 coins or rounds, depending on the mint. They're free when you order those quantities, and they prevent tarnish so they're great. I almost always order tube quantities because retail silver premiums are too high on small quantities.
There's no significant scratching because the tubes aren't being filled piecemeal – they come already full, so there shouldn't be any messing around with coins going in and coming out.
To make money on retail silver, what a lot of you call "physical", you need to be very disciplined about costs. Or even if you just don't want to lose money, you need to be disciplined. Lots of people lose lots of money on retail silver bullion. A good way to lose money is to buy piecemeal, one ounce here and there, small quantities. And then to buy fancy capsules, antitarnish strips, etc. You really shouldn't buy anything but the silver – your margins are too precarious already with the premiums. For knee-benders in the UK you're already in a hole because of your VAT tax on investment precious metals. Until you people do something about that VAT, contact your reps, etc. there's just no margin for stuff like capsules. Just buy tubes and don't pay VAT and you have a fighting chance of profiting.

Is "capsuals" some sort of Royalist English spelling? Here in the Land of the Free it's capsules.
We use Ziploc snack bags for loose ounces. Capsules are a needless waste of money for silver bullion. The thing silver needs protection from is the air, especially the sulfur in the air which causes tarnish. You just need a decent seal, and so far a Ziploc bag serves well. I've never had any tarnish with them.
Capsules don't do anything useful unless you want to throw the coins at walls or something that requires impact resistance.
Tubes are for tubes, meaning 20 or 25 coins or rounds, depending on the mint. They're free when you order those quantities, and they prevent tarnish so they're great. I almost always order tube quantities because retail silver premiums are too high on small quantities.
There's no significant scratching because the tubes aren't being filled piecemeal – they come already full, so there shouldn't be any messing around with coins going in and coming out.
To make money on retail silver, what a lot of you call "physical", you need to be very disciplined about costs. Or even if you just don't want to lose money, you need to be disciplined. Lots of people lose lots of money on retail silver bullion. A good way to lose money is to buy piecemeal, one ounce here and there, small quantities. And then to buy fancy capsules, antitarnish strips, etc. You really shouldn't buy anything but the silver – your margins are too precarious already with the premiums. For knee-benders in the UK you're already in a hole because of your VAT tax on investment precious metals. Until you people do something about that VAT, contact your reps, etc. there's just no margin for stuff like capsules. Just buy tubes and don't pay VAT and you have a fighting chance of profiting.

This is frankly absurd, and hard to understand. He raised the issue of possibly bad bars, and when he has the chance to document a second bar he doesn't keep the results? Why would anyone make such a bad decision?
And then he says he didn't bother with a fire assay simply because SilverGoldBull reported that all its tests were good? What? This is so bizarre. Why did he raise the issue if he was just going to punt in such a craven way?
His behavior is hard to understand. Burying all the info in ridiculously long videos is also perplexing. Who is going to watch an hour-long video? The parts I saw had far too much meaningless filler content, a lot of non-substantive fluff about the "community" this and that. It's like he just enjoys talking. I can't imagine watching an hour-long video about a possibly bad bar. Five minutes is plenty of time to provide the info.

It's not about people wanting 999 silver – the commodities exchanges like COMEX are also basing everything on 999 silver. That's in their standard 5,000 oz. contract.
The retail silver market is small. Premiums are a given compared to spot price. Spot price is a futures price, I think maybe a month out. Volume is huge and transaction costs are tiny. It's all electronic (not "paper" like a lot of people grumble about).
Spot is the minimal baseline. Any kind of retail product is going to be higher, always. Retail silver introduces massive costs. Tiny volumes like an ounce or two or ten. Fancy manufacturing and finishes. Government mints, with all the standard incentive problems, excessive job security, apathy, and entitlement issues that make government organizations consistently inefficient. Shipping heavy physical products hither and yon. Losses from theft, fraud, and insurance against theft and fraud. Etc, etc, etc. A commodities market has none of those costs, and its purpose is primarily price discovery.
I don't know about the "greed" idea someone posted. Market prices are driven by market conditions. Some level of greed is almost always present in individual actors at some level of analysis, but greed doesn't matter independent of market conditions. Sellers don't get to arbitrarily dictate high prices because they feel like it, because they're feeling greedy or whatever. If the demand wasn't there, all the greed in the world would be irrelevant. I'm surprised that so many humans still lack a basic grasp of markets and economics in the 21st century. Believing that simple "greed" can explain a sudden increase in the prices of a good, as though it could happen at any time just because greedy sellers feel like it, is basically believing in magic or superstition. And it's logically incoherent, since prices would just rise to some crazy, infinite level, for everything, and they clearly don't.