About
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All you never asked about Wolverine Silver
The Beginnings
This all started when I decided to sell some silver I had bought years ago. I began on eBay. I became particularly interested in fractional (less than 1 ounce) silver, because it offered a low cost way to invest in silver for those not able, or wanting, to buy 1 ounce at a time (like myself). For a discussion of the pros and cons of fractional silver, click HERE. I quickly realized that fractional silver was an under-served market. Particularly, the ability to buy small amounts affordably. I developed a way to ship via #10 envelope, allowing customers to purchase a single 1/10 ounce round without the huge shipping cost.
In those days, I was making 50 cents or less profit per round after expenses. Ebay was making three times that from my sales (see eBay, below). I decided to try direct sales, and WolverineSilver.com was born. Here, you get the exact same products, form the exact same person, with the same service you receive on eBay, for less.
My first break
My first "big break" came when The Golden State Mint agreed to offer me dealer pricing on silver. I made my pitch to them about wanting to provide fractional silver affordably. Either my message resonated, or someone at the mint was feeling generous, and I became a dealer. I'm sure I was their smallest dealer at the time, and I may still be. I will be eternally grateful to Golden State Mint for giving me that opportunity. You will see that Golden State's products dominate my offerings - they have great stuff, and the quality is top-notch. They will likely always be heavily featured at WolverineSilver.com, but I do offer product from other mints and continue to explore other mints and designs. (If you happen to be from another mint and are reading this, please reach out - I would love to talk).
FAQ: How do you have such low prices? How can you sell cheaper than the mint?
As to low prices, I accomplish that with access to dealer prices, and a healthy dose of not being greedy. During market upswings, I base my pricing on what I purchased the silver at as well as the current spot price. I "share" gains with the customer. Most other bullion sellers set their pricing based on spot alone, which makes sense for larger companies and mints. They bank profits during market upswings so they can prepare for the downswings. At WolverineSilver.com, when the market takes a sharp downward turn you will notice my in-stock pricing become less and less competitive. I won't sell at a loss - I will just hold inventory until the price (hopefully) goes back up. During downswings, my business becomes primarily PRE-SALE, where I can still offer competitive pricing due to my dealership status, ordering from the mint at current pricing and shipping to the customer when it gets to me, typically within 21-30 days.
FAQ: Why are some of your products more expensive that others, even though they are the same weight?
My dealership status grants me preferred pricing on some, but not all, designs. And it is only for copper and silver, which is why I don't offer gold (a good excuse vs. "I can't afford it"). The mint has certain designs that it prefers to maintain in-house with pricing. An example of this is the Aztec design. I don't know exactly why that design is "special" to the mint, nor why I can't get preferred pricing on it - nor is it any of my business. I'm just grateful I have dealer pricing on the vast majority of designs. I'm guessing mint pricing on the Aztec has to do with popularity - it is SUPER popular, for good reason, since it is a fantastic design. During market upswings my pricing difference for these particular designs decreases, and at some point all designs are priced the same. Keeping track of different prices is a hassle, so when everything in a category is priced the same it makes things easier.
What is Coming in the Near Future?
There are two things I am working on that I am quite excited about, and hope to unveil this summer (2026). The first is subscription service to enable regular, automatic, purchases of product. It would work the same way as major online retailers, allowing the customer to create an automatic order at a fixed interval. The interval (monthly, weekly, whatever), and quantity, would be user-selectable and the subscription could be stopped or suspended at any time.
The second development, which I am VERY excited about is the creation and offering of a custom round. This will begin as a 1 Oz. copper round that will subsequently be offered in 1 Oz. and 1/10 Oz. silver if it proves popular. It will prominently feature the North American Wolverine (for obvious reasons). It is part of a much larger project I have cooking in my brain, which is an Apex Predator Series consisting of up to 40 different designs. The wolverine would be First Edition, Limited Run. I will be offering it as pre-sale with special pricing in the (hopefully) near future. The home page will prominently feature it when it becomes available to order. Prior customers will likely be receiving an additional bonus for ordering.
FAQ: Is This a Good Time to Buy Silver and Gold?
The million dollar question! I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this subject because it is something I I have researched and thought about A LOT. Obviously, nobody knows for sure. You should do your own research. Taking the opinion of someone who SELLS a product is usually not the best place to get objective information. However, I'm the kind of person who says what he believes, so I would say "No" if I believed it - and would still sell silver, saying "hopefully I'm wrong." I will start the discussion with silver and cover gold after.
Here is my synopsis, discussion follows:
Silver at $80+: Buy for long-term horizon only, 2+ years.
Silver at $60-$80: Buy for mid to long term horizon, 1-2 years.
Silver at $50-$60: Buy for mid-term horizon or longer, 1 year.
Silver at $40-$50: Buy for short-term horizon or longer, 6 months-1 year.
Silver below $40: Buy as much as you can, as quickly as you can.
Right now: Buy a fixed dollar amount regularly, taking advantage of buying more when it goes down, and profiting more when it goes up. This is called dollar cost averaging, or DCA, and is a GREAT way to invest in anything.
The answer to whether RIGHT NOW is a good time to buy silver (currently around $76), is yes I believe it is a good time, as long as you can afford to hold it for awhile. One year ago I would have said solid yes full-stop, no qualification. And I would have been right - big time. I would have been "research and common sense" right, not "I'm a silver future price expert" right because I'm not, and no-one is. A year ago there was EVERY reason to believe that silver was undervalued and due for a price increase. For years there has been, and continues to be, a supply deficit and huge industrial demand (particularly for solar, batteries and electronics). Mining can't keep ahead of demand. Every economic indicator pointed toward silver being a great investment. No one knew the term (short or long) but nearly everyone agreed it was due to increase at some point.
One year ago (April, 2025) the spot price of silver was about $32 an ounce. It began a slow rise for a few months, then a steeper rise for a few, then it WENT NUTS, hitting a record high of over $116 in late January, 2006. I was selling quite a bit during those times because people were silver-crazy. I believe even those who bought at the peak will see long-term profit eventually. As I write this today (April 11, 2026) silver is at $76. So the real question is, knowing that silver was undervalued at $32, at what point did it hit, or has it hit, it's realistic market value? This is a huge question that nobody knows the answer to. I wish I did. Without going into detail, I personally believe it is currently a little shy of "real value". I think there is still some short-term gains to be had at $76, and definitely long-term gains. Most of the same reasons exist to purchase silver today as they did one year ago. Demand still outpaces supply. Industry still has a voracious appetite for it. At $32, it was a REALLY good buy. At $76, it is nowhere near as obvious a "sure thing," although one year ago anyone promising you it was s "sure thing" at $32 would have been over-promising. I still think it is a good buy, but would not AT ALL be surprised to see it go lower, down to the $50 range short-term, before rising again. If you use dollar cost averaging you can rejoice in the increased amount you get at the lower prices, instead of being bummed that your overall portfolio vale is going down.
However, I, as well as anyone else, could be COMPLETELY WRONG. It could go back down to $32 or less. I would be astounded, but it is possible. It could also go beyond $116 this year. Again, I would be surprised. In any event, my "final thoughts" on buying are this: I think it is a good time to buy, but DO NOT buy if you can't afford to lose the money within the next couple of years. At $76, I think it is a good long-term financial investment, as well as other reasons such as future-proofing, apocalyptic barter scenarios, etc. Regularly purchase a fixed amount (soon available on my site) to protect against downturns. Until I have subscription set-up, you can do it manually. With free shipping, there is no downside to repeated purchases. And the necessary qualifier: I AM NOT A FINANCIAL EXPERT AND THIS IS ONLY AN OPINION. ALL INVESTMENT CARRIES RISK, INCLUDING LARGE LOSSES.
Gold: Gold has had a remarkable rise as well as silver. Here is the number one reason my research has found that gold has done so well recently: BECAUSE. Yep, because. I have some biases against gold that I need to disclose. First, it is really expensive and I can't afford it. For the same price as a single penny-sized gold round, you can get six large 1 Oz. silver rounds, or over two tubes (50 pieces) of 1/10 oz silver rounds. Is this logical reason to opt for silver instead of gold? Nope. Does it affect my opinion? Yep! I like the aesthetics of bullion and I like to occasionally riffle through a nice stack of rounds. (Don't worry, my own, not the stuff I sell to you). So, yes, I have beef with gold because you get so little for so much. Another thing I have against gold is I like the look of silver better. One more very illogical reason not to invest in gold, I know. I just prefer the look of silver in most cases. Around my house, fixtures are made of white metal, not gold. If I were a bazillionaire I still wouldn't have gold everywhere - too gaudy for me.
OK, now for the REAL reason I prefer silver over gold: the use-case. 60% of silver production goes into industrial uses. This means it is being used to do real stuff that matters. It is our best conductor and essential in electronics, battery and solar technology. There are many other uses, but those are the main ones, and those markets are only getting larger. On the other hand, only 10% of gold is used for real stuff that matters. 40% of it is held as investment and 50% goes into jewelry. Industrial uses include applications where it's superior corrosion resistance is needed. Because it doesn't oxidize, it is used on things like electrical switch contact-points which can't have a protective coating applied, primarily electronics and aerospace. So 60% of the time, silver is involved in something "useful". for gold, only 10%. (Unless you consider jewelry and gold plated things useful. Some do.)
There is a number called the "Gold Silver Ratio" that indicates how many ounces of silver it takes to match the value of one ounce of gold. Or, put another way, if you have enough money to buy 1 ounce of gold, how much silver could you buy instead. Investors use this number to decide which of the two metals is a better "buy" versus the other. Right now (April 11, 2026), the gold silver ratio is roughly 63. This means for the same amount of money you could buy 1 ounce of gold, or 63 ounces of silver. Historically the gold silver ratio has fluctuated somewhere between 40 and 100, with occasional extremes going below 20 and over 120. Gold has always been more valuable than silver, ounce per ounce, the only question at a given time is HOW MUCH more valuable.
My problem with gold is when you ask WHY it is more valuable, the only reasons you can point to are 1) It is more scarce, and 2) It always has been more valuable. You CANNOT say "because it does more and better things for humanity." You cannot really say ANYTHING RATIONAL about why it has been, and thus will continue to be, seen as more valuable. And, personally, I believe as society advances we may grow-out of the "gold is better because it is" mentality. Will the younger generation flock to gold like the older generation? Will they blindly accept that gold is just superior in some non-definable way, or because it is more scarce? I think maybe not. A lot of things are scarce, but that doesn't make them inherently better. People worship gold, in my opinion, based on NOTHING MEANINGFUL. But maybe they always will, I don't know. I think times have changed a lot, though, and will continue to do so and eventually people may realize that assuming gold is superior is actually dumb.
eBay - thoughs and ramblings
As mentioned, this all started on eBay. I'm old enough to remember when eBay started. It was a great idea. It grew legs and took off. In those days, it offered a great way to buy and sell stuff between individuals with reasonable transaction costs. It was also a great way for fraudsters to get quick cash selling garbage or not delivering on promises. Ebay tightened its buyer's protections to combat this. They went too far, until the fraudsters decided that the money was on the buying side, claiming they never received a product, it wasn't as represented, etc. This resulted in sellers receiving charge-backs for items that were legit, shipped, and received. It has been a constant back and forth since that time.
The evolution of eBay has resulted in the current situation, which is good buyer protections, and good seller exposure to customers. The tradeoff is HIGHER PRICES to buyers and LOWER PROFITS to sellers. Currently, eBay typically makes 2 to 3 times as much money on a transaction than I do. My profit margin is often in the single digits. Theirs begins at 15% of the transaction, and if I want my products to actually be SEEN, I have to pay additional money for my listings to be more visible. In the end, when you buy from me on eBay, eBay gets about 20%-25% of the sales price, including shipping, straight into their own pocket. On eBay, we both lose.
I'm not bashing eBay, they offer a great service, but, particularly for low profit items, sellers are really squeezed for every dime. Of course, this results in higher prices, so buyers lose as well. What began as a "folksy" low-cost way for individuals to exchange goods has become a typical mega-corporate profit center. If you own eBay stock, well-played! If you are trying to get silver to customers at low cost, not so much.
I have a TON of experience with eBay. If you are considering selling on eBay I would be happy to share my knowledge, just email me. Going from an eBay buyer to a eBay seller is an entirely different world. If you experienced frustrations with eBay as a buyer, you will not BELIEVE what awaits you as a seller. It doesn't mean you shouldn't sell on eBay, just that you must have the thickest of skin to do so. You quickly learn that some people are insane, under the influence of substances, or just professional fraudsters or trolls. And when it comes to eBay having your back as a seller, forget it. It is all bot-driven madness. When the buyer of the silver round you sent the same day files a complaint because the "Barbie Doll doesn't have moving arms and it took 3 months to get here" eBay's bot will suggest that the best way to resolve the issue is to send a refund. It's that bad.
I will probably always have an eBay presence due to the exposure it offers. Some people repeatedly order from eBay, paying much more in the process, even though they know about my website. Same payment options, same product, same everything, lower prices. I've pretty much stopped trying to figure that out - some things have no answer.
The Weeds
This is where I really go off into the weeds. to anyone actually reading this, thank you! Maybe it will help you in some way. If so, shoot me an email. I love to talk about "stuff."
Thank you for your business!
Tom