LOL. Silver like your mortgaged house are not investment. All appreciating items are leverage against the USD. A great example was during the melt down... gas price was skyrocketing.. Your USD dropped in value. Meanwhile I used a monster box of American eagle to purchase one of the rental condos. (2009 a box of silver was $4750.. Post melt down was $23000.)
Now the clear and free condo is my own lil money printing machine which returned my initial cost of $4750 within 10 months.
Hatidua explained it very well on the mark up part.