Silver Bars * A Cost-Effective Option for Large Investments Silver bars, like gold, carry a certain allure over coins. Holding a brick in your hand can be exciting considering the intrinsic value of the metals. Of course, who can forget those scenes in movies where a large stock of gold or silver bars is found? Silver bars come in a variety of weights from different private mints throughout the world. Ranging in size from 1-ounce to 1-kilogram, there are many reasons why investors buy silver bars, including: -Lower premium price than coins -Uniform in size -Hedge against inflation -Belief gold/silver ratio will plunge from its current high of 50:1 to its historical average of 16:1 Besides these reasons, silver has many other industrial uses, many of which continue to see tremendous growth. Semi-conductors, computers, cell-phones and many other modern technologies have silver components, which is a great conductor of electricity. Because of this increasing demand for both industrial applications and investors, silver supplies are extremely tight. Mine production and secondary recovery has been declining for over 20 years in fact.