Archie, I didn't mean to obfiscate the issue any further but I will try to explain. Say a person decides to invest in silver.. the three most common forms for him to buy his ounce of silver would be in pure bullion form, 90% silver US coins, or 40% silver coins. He will have to pay a premium over spot for each form based on risk. The premium over spot per ounce for silver in coin form would be higher than for bullion because no matter how low silver goes, the coins will always be worth face value. Say hypothetically all the silver investors decide to bail on the silver market and invest all their money in high end AC chips. The price of silver drops to $1 an ounce. The portolio for the person holding their silver investment in pure bullion form would then be worth $1 per ounce plus some small premium. For the person holding their silver investment in 90% or 40% US silver coins, the value of their investment would drop to the face value of the coins since the intrinsic value of the silver would be less than the actual face value of the coins. The face value of 40% silver coins containing an ounce of silver would be over twice as much as the face value of 90% silver coins containing an ounce of silver, hence the slightly higher premium per actual ounce of silver contained for the 40% silver coins. Like AC chips, the coins are always redeemable at their face value. You just have more face value if your ounce of silver is in 40% silver coins instead of 90% silver coins, so the better downside hedge for the 40% coins accounts for the slight premium per ounce of silver over 90% silver coins.