(Part 2) Top products from r/Silverbugs

Depends on your budget. You would have a hard time finding a worse scale than an American Weighs Scale, made in China using the least accurate electronic weight sensor in the world.

This one from Amazon is quite a step up, but still very inexpensive.

The world's best scales are made in Japan with the world's best weight sensors, also made in Japan. This Tanita 200g capacity is an excellent scale. I own both. Buy calibration weights for either. The cheaper one will calibrate with anything from 500grams down, (in ten gram increments) but the Tanita will only calibrate with 200 grams. Buy the 2 100s that Amazon suggests. You can calibrate both scales with those.

A simple test to show the sensitivity of a scale is to see how low of a weight it will register. Cut some pieces of paper into half inch squares. Each will weigh about 0.01g. Starting with a calibrated and zeroed scale, place a single piece of paper on the tray and see if it registers. Most cheap scales, including yours and the $17 one I recommend will not move from zero until you get to at least 0.04g, and then they must be placed all at once. The Tanita will register each piece of paper as you add them.

Remember that the electronic weight sensor in any portable scale is susceptible to to permanent damage if exposed to a very strong magnetic field like those from the silly rare earth magnets that many people think are useful to show silver purity. (They don't anyway.)

I recommend the cheaper 500g capacity scale because it has the ability to do a specific gravity test on ten ounce bars and coins. And with a piece of that size, you don't need 0.01g accuracy anymore either, 0.1 will do the trick.

Of course. Get your stuff packed up ahead of time, take your time with this, tape and cushion the tubes if they are in tubes, make sure everything is immobile, use papers or whatever to fill any void space, because these will be heavy. The green plastic monster box won't fit in any of the flat rates, so pack those with your other home items. If you want to apply the gummed craft tape shit at home to save time, this is what I'm talking about. Determine when your local post office is the least busy and try to go then, because you're about to back things up a bit. If you can pick up some registered mail forms with your flat rate boxes ahead of time, that will save you some time as well. Bring your packages in and tell the postal worker that you'd like to ship the flat rates with the registered mail service and insured. You simply declare a value and attest to the contents on the forms. USPS is pretty confident that registered mail won't get lost, so they won't need to inspect the contents unless you have a nosy or ignorant postal worker, which is possible as I've found the working knowledge of the average USPS employee to be all over the place. If you haven't already covered every seam and I mean every seam at home with that insidious, contemptible, craft tape garbage, you will have to request the tape, wet sponge and scissors at the front desk. They should have it for free, but who knows, maybe call ahead. Now get ready for some real fun. You'll probably have to move down to some unoccupied part of the counter, fumbling around like a dolt. It will take you a good while and copious profanity to apply that Satan-spawned crap at the post office, then you'll be ready to pay and ship. You may get a little grief if your desk clerk is a spindly-armed weakling, but all should go well at this point. Just get organized and prepared ahead of time, I know you've got the move to contend with, but don't cut corners here, as it will leave your custody and make its way across the country without you. JM Bullion does a [pretty good] (https://www.jmbullion.com/how-to-ship-silver-and-gold-safely/) write up about it too. A couple of tips: if you do the crap-tape at home, use a small round sponge in a shallow dish filled with water, with the sponge sitting slightly above the rim. You cut to length and glide the gummed side of that horrid tape over the wet sponge's surface and quickly apply. More is better as they take registered mail very seriously and the tape is there so that they can apply metric shit-tons of little stamps to the surface to insure that no employee breaks the seal for a peek. With four monster boxes, you're going to become top-ace at applying that awful shit. Also, only the exterior box need be taped. Go in, act like it is completely normal and get your job done. The majority of the bill will be registered mail and insurance, silver is down now, so hopefully it will be less than I remember. Try a calculator on the USPS site and get an idea. You perhaps can see now why I would drive it, but only you are the best judge for your situation. Either way, a little inconvenience to accomplish your goal. Despite what others have said I have no reservations about bullion in USPS registered mail, but ONLY registered mail. I speak from direct experience here, same process same monster boxes. Good luck my friend.

For me, I've found the best value in having two scales. I have this one for smaller items. It goes to the nearest tenth of a gram, so that's good enough for me for smaller quantities. This is good for jewelery, small coins, etc.

For weighing a whole stack or something, I also have one of these. It's only accurate to the nearest gram, so the small one is better for small quantities, but this one supports up to eleven pounds and is definitely the best you'll find for the price. I also measure stuff other than my stack on it as well, so this is a decent multipurpose scale.

This book is specific to the Peace Dollar series, but I thought it was a great read. Covers the debasement of US coins as well and of course the mythical 1964-D Peace Dollar.

This is the scale I use. https://smile.amazon.com/Smart-Weigh-SWS100-Digital-Pocket/dp/B00EPO9M2Y
It claims accuracy to 0.01g but its probably more like 0.03g. It's good enough. To get a really good scale you will need a Japanese brand like Tanita which will cost at least 5x more. https://smile.amazon.com/Tanita-LYSB00IGFIXC8-ELECTRNCS-1479J2-Mini-Scale/

When I started over a year ago, I bought the Red Book and the Blue Book and the ASE guide.

• A Guide Book of United States Coins 2015: The Official Red Book Hardcover (Official Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins)
  
• Handbook of United States Coins 2015: The Official Blue Book Hardcover
  
• American Silver Eagles: A Guide to the U.S. Bullion Coin Program, 2nd Edition
  
  But it sounds like you want the Red Book. It's a general price guide to US coins.

Buy mailers here.

Print postage at a discount through paypal with this link after you're logged in.

Buy a scale to weigh packages if you don't already own one. Even a cheap $10-20 one from amazon or eBay, whatever.

EDIT : The USPS website is good for ordering FREE supplies as well. You'll eventually need small flat rate boxes at least. I wouldn't pay for anything through them, the markup is crazy. Amazon has 6 pack rolls of tape atm for $7 as an add-on item as well.

> so I only have to pay federal income and capitol gains.

The slaves from various plantations used to argue about who's master was nicer, more wealthy and provided better living conditions.

Yes, that actually happened, which can be read about here:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

I feel you. Though, I feel a reasonable counterpoint might be "how sturdy did you expect 1/1000 of an ounce of an extremely malleable metal to be?" FWIW, I can definitely commiserate. When I get a full set I'll update you on what I think.

Edit: I am also planning on getting several 1/1000 notes to use as bookmarks in the copies of The Creature From Jekyll Island That I give out to people I'm trying to save.

Edit, the second: Worth mentioning, however, as that last statement might give you the wrong impression, I am actually an advocate for the silver standard, not the gold standard, but could be convinced to embrace bimetallism at the right ratio, namely 16:1.

> Executive Order 11110

Ah yeah, that could be it. I've heard about that, but only in JFK conspiracy-land. I think I read about it in a book called Crossfire, which is an interesting read. I don't recall the specifics of the Executive Order but I think the gist was Kennedy was trying to replace "Federal Reserve Notes" with silver certificates.

Good call.

The Redbook is pretty good for coins but it doesn't really have an in-depth academic approach to the history of each coin although I know that they also make individual guides for certain coins like silver dollars.

I would recommend the most current Blue Book for a guide on what you can expect coins to really be worth. On common silver though just figure current melt value, as the blue book was printed when silver was about 20% higher than it is now so the minimum prices will be high.

Rule #1:

NEVER talk about Silver Club.

You've probably already told some friends, and siblings/parent will also blab. Odds are high your house is gonna get ransacked the next time the family is out of town. If you can change the combo to the gun safe, do it right now. If anyone needs their gun out of there, you can open it for them without them seeing the combination, until you can get a high-rated anti-burglary safe that you can bolt down. If you can't change the combo on the gun safe, then, like anewmolt says, don't store it all in one spot. Don't hide it anywhere obvious, like your sock drawer or in your bedroom closet or in a bookcase.

And tell NO ONE where you hid it. The only way two people can keep a secret is if one is dead and the other got to him before he could tweet or post on Facebook.

Take a detailed inventory, as skakid suggests. Even old silver bars can sometimes be worth more than melt value if they're Engelhard, for example.

Now for some fun stuff.

Take all the old coins, and "eyeball" their grade yourself here: http://www.pcgs.com/photograde

Just find your coin, and scroll through the photos while using a magnifying glass on your coin, until you find the grade that's worse than yours. Also, for US coins, you can buy the Blue Book, which gives you detailed criteria. $15, $10 for Kindle.

You can search prices at PCGS or here: http://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/us/ to give you a ballpark figure.

He also has the #1 Best seller on Amazon in the category of "Ship Pictorials"

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Lost-Treasure-Tommy-Thompson/dp/0871137321/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458060256

For melt values look at this site:

Silver Calculator


For collector values I would get this book(Its 6 bucks shipped):


US Coin Blue book

I recommend this tape for registered. If you use a shiny tape the post office stamp won’t work. They need to stamp something over the center opening and the stamp won’t stick to clear tape.

The author has an upcoming book: One Nation Under Gold: How One Precious Metal Has Dominated the American Imagination for Four Centuries

Amazon has them for $68.99 with free shipping.

If you're pricing pick up at a copy of the Red Book ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0794842151?cache=bb7517826f2f08657a1e990bc33ef16c&pi=SY200_QL40&qid=1406981440&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1) they have coins priced on their condition. Remember most people won't pay the full amount their listed at unless their graded by Ngc or PCGS. However you can look on eBay at closed auctions to see what people are paying for them. Then list your coins for sale with good pictures and say 'you grade them' on any coin not graded by PCGS.

You can buy a nice scale for under $10 on amazon

Getting one of these books will help

Get a Red Book. It will show you which coins have potential beyond melt value. But don't rely on the prices in that book -- they're typically high retail.

I tend to use snippings of cardboard I have from boxes and shipments I receive (amazon, ebay, whatever). Make a little book of cardboard to tape the coins/bars in flips or bags inside of. That then goes inside of a bubble mailer. I then tape that up very well, wholly enclosing a shipping label I generate at paypal. I use this tape copiously.

If it goes into a SFRB, or MFRB, I also use strapping tape to seal up the edges and corners.

I have never needed to ship via any method other than USPS thus far.

tubes are rectangular for bars

Here is something you may like

CoinSafe tubes:

• These rectangle ones for 1 oz bars
  
• These square ones for 1 oz generic rounds
  

This. To be specific, this is the Red Book /u/e30kgk is speaking of (links are for .co.uk)-

Current Edition of Yeoman and Bressett

Yeoman and Bressett 2016 pre-order

This is the book about the hunt--I couldn't put it down!

http://www.amazon.com/Ship-Gold-Deep-Blue-Sea/dp/0871134640/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0AW0VW23FPEME7SEXEJW

Definitely get a scale if you don't have one already. I recommend this one.

It's a good little scale that you can carry around with you. It'll weigh up to 100 grams so wouldn't be very useful for large stuff but if you wanted to check the weight of coins or other small stuff it should do you just fine.

EDIT: Oh, I should add, pick up some silver testing acid. It's a destructive test but if you are really uncomfortable or really unsure then this is definitely the way to find out if it's real or not.

Definitely research ways to tell if something is real or not and never settle for one test. Do three different tests on it to be sure. Best advice though, if your still uncomfortable after the tests or at any point, just walk away.