My Silver Stacking Journey - From Skeptic to Believer (and a question about diversification)

• •Thought I’d share a bit about my silver stacking journey since I've been lurking here for a while and learned a ton from all of you.
• •About five years ago, I started seriously looking into hedges against inflation and market volatility.
• •Being a university professor, I tend to get pretty research-heavy with these things.

Thought I’d share a bit about my silver stacking journey since I've been lurking here for a while and learned a ton from all of you. About five years ago, I started seriously looking into hedges against inflation and market volatility. Being a university professor, I tend to get pretty research-heavy with these things. Initially, I was all-in on gold – it just seemed more "mainstream" for an IRA. Diversified a solid chunk of my 401k into a Gold IRA, probably around $300k at the time, using some tax-advantaged rollovers.

Then I started seeing a lot more discussion about silver, particularly its industrial applications and lower entry point. It really resonated with my research-driven approach. I began adding physical silver to my personal holdings about three years ago, mostly 1 oz rounds and some 10 oz bars. My strategy was to dollar-cost average, buying small amounts consistently, rather than trying to time the dips. I'm probably sitting on about $40k-$50k in physical silver now, stored securely here in Richmond.

My thinking with silver is that it's got more room to run in a high-inflation, high-demand environment, especially with the EV push and solar energy. Gold feels more like a pure wealth preservation play, while silver has that industrial upside. I've been using that Gold IRA Calculator lately to project diversified returns, just out of curiosity, and it really highlights the value of having both. It’s been fascinating to see how the two metals often move in tandem but with different volatilities.

Anyway, my question to the community is this: for those of you with both gold and silver in your retirement portfolios (either IRA or physical), what’s your ideal allocation? I'm currently sitting at about an 85/15 gold/silver split within my precious metals holdings, including the physical. I'm contemplating moving some more capital into silver, maybe to get closer to a 70/30 or even 60/40 split over the next couple of years. Is that overly aggressive given silver's volatility? Or is the current economic climate ripe for increasing silver exposure? Always appreciate hearing different perspectives.