I started my journey of stacking silver roughly 3 years ago. When I first started out with this hobby it was fairly inexpensive. No matter how low the price of bullion was I was very happy with premiums. American Silver Eagles were my first and only choice. I watched a few YouTube videos that had online shops.
I initially used APMEX. And after my bug was satiated I started looking around at other sites and found that the "premiums" (which is the additional fee over the posted SPOT price) which were about $8 at the time. I was set to grab 5-10 American Silver Eagles at a time for those prices.
Three years later and wow! After the COVID19 came around scarcity ensued and premiums lifted off over $12 per Silver Eagle. I was devastated. Now I can't find the prized bullion coins with premiums less than $18 for American Silver Eagles. The price per coin literally doubled.
Are you seeking other inflation hedging hard assets? If so, what have you come across?