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I stopped at the bank. Strangely my venmo had exactly $4600 in it. Called my LCS wanted a Canadian maple all he had were AGE offered to sell for 2% over. I didn't stop in I guess I really just wanted a maple leaf....

LCS

I can buy one ounce bars at LCS 1.50 under and sell for a 10% premium on ebay. Ebay still makes more than I do on every trade though.

I did this Tuesday. Spot was hovering around $85. My DCA is sub $40 including the stuff I bought over the last year. Been pondering trading for gold or zeroing out my cost basis. With all the volatility as of late, I drove to a place that pays better than my local shop. Boy was I glad I did.
I sorted out some things that didn't quite fit where I wanted to continue in my stack. A chunk of Canadian wildlife 1oz coins. A few 10oz bars. Some foreign government mint stuff. That particular shop pays spot on nice clean ASE, but were -$1 due to the wild swings lately. Can't blame em. Still a good buyback price regardless. I decided to keep all my ASE, libertads, and maples. Those are what I plan to keep adding to the remaining stack for sovereign minted coins. Shockingly, Chinese pandas gave me the highest payout after ASE(???) followed by Phils, then Brits, and Krugs holding up the rear. Generic rounds almost -$2 back of the Krugs. It confirmed why I stack government backed bullion. And as much as I LOVE stuff from other government mints and think they do an on par or at times superior job to the U.S. mint, it reminds a stacker that they should be aware of their local market wherever they are for WHOMEVER they intend that stacks hands to be on in the future.
I wound up doing pretty good. I averaged about 4 back of spot altogether. I had 6 replica Morgan's I scrapped at a shitty rate that technically brought me down. 6oz at $47oz for scrap. Ouch. But I only ditched them because they were replicas of famous Morgan's from the Bradford exchange with "copy" stamped into the reverse. I have penty of real Morgan's that are in the forever stack and I will keep adding them as well as peace dollars. So to me, those were basically generic 90% silver rounds with "Scarface" and "Wide Eye Spikes" stamped in em. I got a fair price on everything else so in my mind, that was paying the piper.
Selling anything and mentioning it here usually gets collective groans from the community. I get it. Trust I was fighting my inner Smaug the whole drive down. I was at ease by the staff and the clean, nice environment in their shop. The lady I dealt with was very knowledgeable, looked at all my stuff, commented on how nice my stacked looked and told me I had desirable stuff and said she would shoot me a fair price. We triple checked, as she missed a few things during purchase order time-always be diligent! The small talk was nice. I had a large chunk of constitutional that I had with but had zero interest in selling. Part of my stack I inherited from my uncle. Huge history/civil war stuff. I have awesome things from him including confederate currency. She loved it and was really geeking out over the couple of 1865 6 cent sets in displays I have. Told me to keep that it's worth a chunk! I said I know lol! It'll only grow in value!
I'm pretty happy. Just because you sell doesn't make you a shitty stacker. I'll continue adding .999 bullion and constitutional moving forward. With this dip after I sold...no joke I'm going to the LCS today and combing through their cull bin of Morgan's and Peace dollars. I did the same at that other shop Tuesday. Got paid out and immediately bought one of each for spot😂🤷‍♂️
Be smart. Be safe. And as always...Happy Stacking!

That’s a great way to look at things. Honestly, I have the money for a Vegas trip (my rooms are free) for me it was more of just the idea that I planned to use part of this sale to totally pay for a trip and also put money away. I have no issue with the LCS making money and also know if I really wanted to I’d make more with some work. But just walking in with some rolls and walking out with thousands in profit feels incredible. The part I was unsure of was the 5oz quarters since I paid a good premium on them. But basically I think I paid about $110-$120 for the ungraded ones and I sold them for about $385 or more than 3x. Still the ASE I sold for more than 4x what I paid.

Oils up = USD up, I think we will see prices fluctuate with oil for now then when the real inflation hits it will go way up and then finally come back down with a thunk. Whe that is I have no idea, but I’m getting a couple ounces today! These ten dollar spikes tend to make people with some cooler stuff sell to my LCS so I can come scoop the cool shit a couple ounces at a time

My LCS pays 10% back on silver and a couple bucks higher on clean ASE. They would have done the same as you got which is treat the ATB 5oz as generic. In theory you could get more, but from a cost/convenience standpoint I wouldn’t worry too much about it

Actually, the week before the peak when spot was about $110, there were more buyers than sellers and my LCS was running out of American Silver Eagles.

Yes, many still buying! When I was selling my ASEs at over $100 each and waiting in line at my LCS, I saw them moving two green monster boxes of Silver Eagles. I heard one of them say “these are the last ones we have” as they put some of the tubes into the case!

I have heard on here to buy from and sell to a refiner but I have no idea where to find one near me.
Also how much closer to spot do you get dealing with them as opposed to a shop or LCS?

You need to find a different LCS - mine buys most gold for around 3% to 4% under spot. Even Pawn Spots don’t charge 40%

https://preview.redd.it/7wdd1q8rb81h1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95d37961a15bf8abe69c24dc8467132c88836f3c
Pocket piece. Love these. LCS has a safe dedicated to them.

My LCS just recently started requesting IDs on all trades and anytime you sell them something. I don’t like it but I’m guessing they do it in case something you sell them is stolen or along those lines.. none of my transactions have been large enough to justify tax paperwork though

If you buy anywhere other than a highly trusted LCS or online seller, it is up to you to test your gold. Coins can be measured and weighed (to verify density).
Problem with bars is the assay packaging prevents measurement or weighing - and they don’t publish dimensions so even if remove them, you can’t measure them.
The only other option is a Sigma PMV that can test through assay packaging or a grading slab, but they are minimum $1k

Local LCS probably has one.... I'm sure they would let you test one a couple of times.

This is good advice - ask your LCS if they can come close to matching the online price and you won’t have to worry about shipping.

LCS's have gone off the rails and they're running a heavy online campaign to soften the resulting anger for their 'variable' offers, which always seem to tilt heavily in their financial favor
I'm fed up with the hemming and hawing from all of the usual posters on this topic. They really ought to screw with their own money and keep their 'I feel so sorry for the poor dealers' bullshit to themselves.

That's the opposite, though, and if a dealer ever did that to me while in their place of business I'd dress them down right then and there. I can't offer better prices than the LCS but they can refer me to someone when they don't want to pay? Fuck that

In January 2026, I sold 100 Silver Eagles at my LCS between spot of $104 and $112. The line was out the door and I had to wait nearly an hour each time. I went 3 times because I wasn’t sure how many I wanted to sell. They were paying $4 below spot on the ASEs, were NOT buying 90%, and I don’t remember how much they were paying for 999 bars and rounds.
Honestly, it was kind of exciting to wait with the other people and walk out with record silver prices. I ended up with just over $10k and used it to pay down my mortgage so I can retire sooner!

Stopped at the LCS on the day off