Building Wealth with Silver: How to Profit From the Biggest Wealth Transfer in History

First off, this book is aimed squarely at beginning investors. Which is what I wanted, but anyone who's already traded stocks or managed investments will likely be happier with more advanced material. This book gives a good overview of the topic, and is a respectable primer for a brand new investor. Enough details are listed to get you started, and the author highly encourages you to continue learning from other sources.The single best feature of the book is it's common sense, low-pressure approach. The author spends most of the book not selling anything. Instead, he offers practical advice like making sure you understand the mechanics of how different investments work before engaging in them. He is careful to point out that "leveraged" investments increase your potential risk as well as your potential profit and that Day Trading will require a lot more knowledge, time and effort than long term investing. He doesn't offer any magic formulas for success (other than buy low and sell high), but has some suggestions for minimizing risk and developing the right mindset for successful investing.Alas, at the very end he throws in a pitch for his own "buy my exclusive information" service. Sigh. Although the information in the book seems sound, you are left wondering if the whole thing is just a sales gimmick to sell you a phony a financial service. This both cheapens and makes me distrustful of the entire book (which otherwise seems be be full of good, if basic, knowledge).Before the sales pitch at the end, the author also turns a little loopy by saying that long term cycles in human civilization are somehow explained by the Mayan Calender (?!?) and that our current woes all date back to Nixon taking the US off the Gold Standard. He also predicts the demise of the Dollar as the world's standard currency. Fortunately, the author quickly leaves the Mayans behind, and the role of the Gold Standard and eventual fate of the dollar are controversial but certainly open to question. The author's various predictions and pontifications on the economic future are no worse that what you hear on TV every week, and much more believable than the rosy "everything is fine" that we get from the government.Overall, I would recommend the book as a primer on investing in Silver, although I would also highly recommend doing some further research as well. His predictions I would take as one man's opinion.

So maybe I would have liked this book had I not read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book about gold and silver. This book was really drawn out and seems to be filled with a lot of fluff. However, if this was the only book you had read on the subject you would have attained a lot of information. How Robert Kawasaki and the other guy did a much better job....sorry Mr. Herold

I don't think silver is a bad investment, but I do think that this book is full of misinformation. It's seems to be from one of those authors who've read "get rich quick" books and want to strike it rich from publishing a poorly-written book that they hope will become a bestseller and make them rich.On his website at [...] it says "Get the facts on silver production and consumption, and all the details behind silver's projected five- to eight-fold increase over the next several months." Do you honestly believe that it is likely that silver will rise 5-8x in the next "several months" (not years)? It certainly is not impossible, but I would say it is much less than likely. To me, it just reads like the usual marketing hyperbole from an ethically-challenged author.As for the substance of the book, I will just pick apart one important point in his thesis. Take the following paragraphs:"As you saw in the last chapter, a mere six hundred and seventy-one million ounces of silver bullion that is available for use are still found above ground, per the World Silver Survey of 2004. The updated numbers on this show that silver has been drawn down still significantly further, to a mere twenty million ounce by the end of 2009.""Between industry, photography, silverware, jewelry, and coins, there simply is no longer enough silver to go around each year. This deficit for silver is nothing new. The metal has been in a real supply and demand deficit now for sixty-three years, going all the way back to 1942."Because of the author's insistence on this "supply and demand deficit", and "above ground stocks being drawn down", you would think that sometime soon there is just going to be not enough silver and prices will skyrocket, particularly if it has gone from 600 down to 20 million ounces in just 5 years. (And that was 3 years ago!) Well, that's all bunk, and you can easily verify it for yourself, from the same organization he sources his claim. Download this file: [...], and go to page 20, where you'll see a graph of that is aptly called "From `deficit' to `surplus'", showing how in 2006 silver mine production plus scrap began to exceed fabrication demand excluding coins, and this gap has widened since then. In 2011, total supply was 1040 moz (almost all of it from mine and scrap), and 282 moz of these were taken up by coins and investment. So there was a ~27% surplus.To me, coins and investment demand should be included in the concept of "above ground stocks". What's the difference between a government holding silver in a vault, an ETF holding silver in a vault for investors, or someone holding silver coins? They are all holding silver and not consuming it. It is all above-ground silver potentially available for use in industrial applications, at the right price. Above ground stocks are not being drawn down, they are increasing.Another paragraph from the book, just in case you thought that his silly definition of "above ground stocks" is not an important part of his thesis:"Ten years ago, the world silver above ground available stocks were down to a still significant 500 million ounces. Two years ago, they were down to 144 million ounces existing. The end of 2009 saw these supplies drop more than 120 million ounces to 20 million ounces total, a staggering drop that indicates a problem with supply."There is no problem with supply. It's just that the interest of investors and coin buyers is picking up.Get your information from a better source.

This wondrerful book delivered exactly what I expected from it and more! I was searching for an informative read that would explain to me in detail the benefits in preparing oneself for the turbulent economic times ahead. with all the talk about investing in Gold and silver, I wanted to understand why gold and especially silver will turn out to be great ways to preserve wealth in the years to come and to build wealth too!!) The author does an excellent job of taking the reader through the harsh realities that await us but offers us tremendous hope, which is why I bought this book in teh first place. I can tell that he truly cares about and wants to help the reader build wealth as he himself has with silverJonathan

Very informative and practical book that considerably expanded my knowledge and understanding of silver and it's importance as an investment. I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to invest and who wants to understand what is really going on with international currencies and finances.

The book was good background on silver and it's many uses. Throughout history silver has proved to be money, now its uses are many and varied. Industrial and medical are some of the various uses.