Downsides to precious metals?

[Ops]

in end of world economics it wont do you any good.

 

[Burt Gummer]

I'll always recommend anything that you can physically possess. Yes, assets such as ammo, food, water, tools or a shovel. They will all do me good.

Anything digital that you trust to the banksters means you can be robbed with a keystroke. Not can be, will be.

 

[AMT]

I'd invest in the mining stock before I'd by the physical product. Just my opinion. Downside : Fake Gold, storage and weight. Then.....someone could just decide to rob you/kill you for what you have. Rrrrright......the police and the courts. Justice? LOL. But, that's really sort of another subject.

BUT......
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Besides....
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Aloha, Mark

Does this mean that you'd rather have a piece of paper that says you own _______?

When "they" deem the dollar is worthless, they'll deem that piece of paper is worthless too.

 

[ma96782]

Nah.....
I try to stay "liquid". For me, it's mostly about stock investing.

YEAH, Yeah, yeah.....not very useful if/when the SHTF.

But for me......

Metals = Lead

I'll buy and hold......loaded ammo and components. AND, not exactly all LEAD (brass cases, primers, powder, and bullets). But, if/when the price is RIGHT. I might be convinced to release some.

"Pssst.....hey buddy it looks like you're Jonezin'. You looking for some?"



Aloha, Mark

PS.....speaking of an ammo stash. Perhaps, one could/should think about this......

 

[GWS]

Reading through this thread again made me curious about the fake gold comments
The easiest test is to bite the coin. If you taste chocolate, it's probably a fake.
OK, seriously an easy test is to use a magnet. Neither gold nor silver are magnetic so if it sticks to your magnet---Fake!. Next would be to use unglazed ceramic, Rub the coin on that, Real gold will leave a gold trace on the ceramic Fakes will be black or at minimum NOT gold. There are chemical kits around $40 that use acid to check if your gold (or silver or platinum) is real
There are also devices that start at about $225 that will measure the purity of your gold item Wow, you say! $225 is a lot of money. True, but if you're buying gold, currently at $1626 per ounce, it really would be a worthwhile investment.
BTW I looked up the weight of a "standard" gold ingot and found they vary from 350 t0 430 Troy ounces, depending on the smelter.
So... that 350 ounce ingot will cost you (at the current price of $1627.74 per ounce) $569,709.00 plus whatever mark up the dealer demands.

While I'm certain there are a few members of this forum who could be able to buy 1 or more of these ingots if they felt like it, it's probably too pricey for most of us so many/most gold buyers probably are buying at most a couple 1 oz Krugerrands or Maple Leafs at a time for their stacking purposes and will be able to closely inspect the coins for their purity and hence, shouldn't worry about getting cheated.

 

[GWS]

Thanks for all the conversation. I think the reason he's been buying PMs this long is his distrust of government (I get it) and wanting to have something substantial in his hands. Heck, I remember when the Marks families in Spokane used to have money sewn into their sheets and stuffed in mattresses (probably still do, all those millions they got from the SCS raid screw-up) - but logistically it seems like it's going to be a pain to deal with down the road. It's not like any of it is likely to be tradeable for anything big, like a car, house, or fun NFA item.

You're wrong here. When silver was at $25/oz I took about 150 dollars, face value of pre-1964 dimes and quarters (90% silver) to a gold & silver shop.. I got enough to buy a PS90 plus ammo.

PMs do have value.

 

[hongkong2]

Well watch the show last man on earth they were playing Jenga with gold bricks so if it all goes down the crappa Guns and rounds is where it is at !

 

[ma96782]

I found this real world example (posted one day ago) about one person's buying and selling Gold adventure. Perhaps, it might encourage or maybe it'll discourage the wanna be Gold Bugs out there.

Mind you that it's NOT even close to a SHTF situation.

Aloha, Mark

 

[GWS]

I found this real world example (posted one day ago) about one person's buying and selling Gold adventure. Perhaps, it might encourage or maybe it'll discourage the wanna be Gold Bugs out there.

Mind you that it's NOT even close to a SHTF situation.

Aloha, Mark

What is the point?
This was hardly a scientific comparison. It was more like an apples and oranges comparison and that's not even considering the issue of his travel costs He would have done better taking it to a coin or jewelry shop. A pawn shop will always lowball you. In Thailand he hits a couple gold stores in an area with a high concentration of gold stores i.e. More competition = better prices and they were gold stores not pawn shops. I think he even acknowledged that might he have done better at a jewelry store in the US.
So, other than giving further proof that a pawn shop will never give you what your item is worth and that you might do better selling your gold in Thailand, if you can sell enough to also cover the costs of getting there, food and lodging and then getting back home. I don't see how this influences stackers one way or the other, SHTF or not

 

[ma96782]

"Thailand Rob." He's an American and lives in Thailand. He bought the gold in Thailand. And, he'll more than likely, end up selling the gold there. That bar of gold is for all comparison purposes, the same karat in Thailand as it will be in America.

I suspect that.......the vid was just to help people who may have been thinking about such "trading in gold".

YES, most of us here live in America. So well, good luck with your gold trading. That being said.......taking a $50 hit at the *pawn shop is your choice to make or you could shop for a better deal (if you wanted to). Oooops......OK, OK, ok........I forgot that some of you have "no problem" with paying the $50 for a transfer fees to exercise your RIGHT (say, when buying a $150 .22 caliber rifle). So be it.

Then Note : the Gold price is set via the NY trading system. Hummmmm.......SHTF.......will they still be trading? Whatever.

Bottom line......it's your money and where or whatever you invest in, is your choice.

*If the American Jewelry Shop offered to buy the same gold with "only" a $40 hit, would that make it "better"? Not to mention that, the various shops may actually be on a percentage scale (for sales and/or trades), NOT on a flat fee. Whatever. On that concept too.

Aloha, Mark

 

[GWS]

I'll say it again. Gold and silver have always been valued for nearly all of human existence. In an SHTF situation, no one will be going to a pawn shop to get potentially worthless paper money. Trying to assign "normal, everyday peace time values on PM's or cash won't make much sense if/when SHTF.
IMO, cash will probably be king at the very outset of SHTF but will rapidly fall off in value as the situation deteriorates, kind of like Weimar times. In SHTF world, there will be emergency needs. Medicines or medical care, fuel, food or shelter. Moral people will need to be able to barter.(the immoral being the looters and robber types PMs will be useful for that
Let's say let's say Sam has an 1 oz of gold or 80 ounces of silver but no gun. The S has finally hit the fan. Economic collapse has come and there's rioting and looting in the streets. Joe has a spare used Taurus revolver and a box of ammo worth a generous $300 dollars today. Let's also say Joe might be willing to take 1 oz. of gold or an equivalent value of silver for it. Now, If Sam has any brains he'll swap that gold or silver in a heartbeat because he'll know he needs that gun. . Is Joe gouging? Perhaps or perhaps not. That's really only for Sam to decide because if that gun saves Sam's or his loved one's lives, he'll call that deal a bargain. Joe, who had enough guns to sell now has that gold to deal for who knows what? Maybe a tank of diesel for his rig or maybe he just salts it away for better days. That's up to Joe
However, if history is any indicator, PM's will have value because they are real tangible items of known, historic value. There will always be someone who wants them.
Should they be the ONLY item in your SHTF toolbox? Hell NO! But should you have some PM's as an important trade item for the apocalypse and the reconstruction? Hell yes

 

[gmerkt]

So... that 350 ounce ingot will cost you (at the current price of $1627.74 per ounce) $569,709.00 plus whatever mark up the dealer demands.

Too large of a unit to be liquid in any emergency situation, these are only for large holders whose large bars would rarely see the light of day. In fact, you'd have a difficult time selling it to any established gold dealer locally.

I found this real world example (posted one day ago) about one person's buying and selling Gold adventure.

As previously pointed out, not an equitable comparison using a pawn shop vice a gold store. But there is always a spread between buy and sell.

About carrying gold around internationally in some kind of search for arbitrage. It wants caution, as gold is considered a restricted financial instrument in some countries. You might have to pay tax just to transit gold. Or it might get confiscated if not declared. Or a person might stand accused of smuggling.

Circa 1970-72 when I was in Vietnam, I used to get to the Gold Market in Saigon. Most product offered there was 18k jewelry, some .999 gold taels (SE Asian measurement) and so on when gold still had an "official" US price of $35 the oz, yet we weren't allowed to own it. The Saigon Gold Market price of course was higher than $35 / oz., yet nowhere near what it is now. I'm guessing maybe $50 / oz. in 1971. We weren't supposed to buy gold taels, but the US didn't care if we bought jewelry. I bought some 18k stuff for my stateside girlfriend, saved it up and sent it to her. By the time I got home, she was out of the picture and so was the gold. After all, it was a gift, it was hers to keep. I visited her about 11 years ago, she still had the gold. Plus a bunch of other gold that she'd gotten from other men friends over the years. A girl can't have too much gold.

During the time I was in Vietnam, President Nixon "closed with window" on dollar / gold convertibility for foreign governments. That was in 1971, and it almost immediately destabilized the price of gold upward. So the prices in the Saigon Gold Market reacted accordingly.

My view is that in a true SHTF situation, precious metals wouldn't be of much use. They are a bridging device to be used as a store of value. To later be converted to some other, acceptable form of commerce once the situation has settled down. If it ever did, depending.

However, PM might turn out to be of some use in a SHTF situation that was lengthy. A scenario where matters had stalemated enough that some segment of the population realized that a medium of transaction was needed beyond barter. In that case, small units of PM might work. .900 silver coins might work for smaller transactions. There are some gold bullion products that have thin, scored flats where you can break off smaller units. Valcambi makes some of these, probably others. I'm sure they find use in places in the Third World where bits of even unmarked gold work in commerce.

Reading through this thread again made me curious about the fake gold comments

I may have already left some comments about this, above, or maybe in another thread.

There is more fake PM offered for sale today than ever. Silver and gold. Some offerings are very bold, oft-seen ads on major social media sites. My local newspaper is so hard up for ad revenue that they take full page ads for fraudulent PM. In the case of the latter, the material isn't fake but it's rarity is greatly exaggerated and well over-priced.

All I can say is to buy from a reputable dealer. They all have an XRF scanner and use it on all metal that they take in. The scanner is also used to check stuff they get in from distributors to keep them honest. With a little digital powder scale, you can check weights on known units, like gold bullion coins. You can also check weights of silver coins, because the common material used for "decent" fakes is nickel-silver (contains no actual Ag). The bad fakes can be detected with a magnet because steel was used as the underlying metal.

Fakes are not limited to onesies and twosies. In 2019, there was major fraud in China involving 83 tons of supposedly gold bars. The bars were put up for collateral against multi-billion dollar loans, they were gold plated copper. This case also involved insurance fraud, because the company borrowing against it was able to get coverage through a Chinese state-owned insurer. I suspect there was a lot of heavy-handed Chinese political influence involved in this caper.

 

[hongkong2]

If you are coming to me in a SHTF situation to trade you'd better have more than PM's or jewelry to trade because they're worthless to me.

 

[GWS]

"Thailand Rob." He's an American and lives in Thailand. He bought the gold in Thailand. And, he'll more than likely, end up selling the gold there. That bar of gold is for all comparison purposes, the same karat in Thailand as it will be in America.

I suspect that.......the vid was just to help people who may have been thinking about such "trading in gold".

YES, most of us here live in America. So well, good luck with your gold trading. That being said.......taking a $50 hit at the *pawn shop is your choice to make or you could shop for a better deal (if you wanted to). Oooops......OK, OK, ok........I forgot that some of you have "no problem" with paying the $50 for a transfer fees to exercise your RIGHT (say, when buying a $150 .22 caliber rifle). So be it.

Then Note : the Gold price is set via the NY trading system. Hummmmm.......SHTF.......will they still be trading? Whatever.

Bottom line......it's your money and where or whatever you invest in, is your choice.

*If the American Jewelry Shop offered to buy the same gold with "only" a $40 hit, would that make it "better"? Not to mention that, the various shops may actually be on a percentage scale (for sales and/or trades), NOT on a flat fee. Whatever. On that concept too.

Aloha, Mark

 

[Burt Gummer]

If you are coming to me in a SHTF situation to trade you'd better have more than PM's or jewelry to trade because they're worthless to me.

Totally fair statement. As someone who has some PMs I just see it as better than Fiat currency printed out of thin air with no intrinsic value. Commonly used ammo, basic tools, food - all more practical in a true SHTF scenario.

 

[GWS]

"Thailand Rob." He's an American and lives in Thailand. He bought the gold in Thailand. And, he'll more than likely, end up selling the gold there. That bar of gold is for all comparison purposes, the same karat in Thailand as it will be in America.

I suspect that.......the vid was just to help people who may have been thinking about such "trading in gold".

YES, most of us here live in America. So well, good luck with your gold trading. That being said.......taking a $50 hit at the *pawn shop is your choice to make or you could shop for a better deal (if you wanted to). Oooops......OK, OK, ok........I forgot that some of you have "no problem" with paying the $50 for a transfer fees to exercise your RIGHT (say, when buying a $150 .22 caliber rifle). So be it.

Then Note : the Gold price is set via the NY trading system. Hummmmm.......SHTF.......will they still be trading? Whatever.

Bottom line......it's your money and where or whatever you invest in, is your choice.

*If the American Jewelry Shop offered to buy the same gold with "only" a $40 hit, would that make it "better"? Not to mention that, the various shops may actually be on a percentage scale (for sales and/or trades), NOT on a flat fee. Whatever. On that concept too.

Aloha, Mark

Who has "no problem" paying transfer fees here in Washington? What choice do people have that would allow them to not pay these fees?
How do you get around paying the fees for transferring a firearm here in Washington?

 

[asiparks]

in an end of world scenario, the value of gold is set at your level of desperation.
If you're dying of thirst and the guy with the bottles of fresh cold water decides that your 1oz of gold= 1 bottle, then that is what it's worth.
Is he gouging ? No, because that chunk of gold only has value if Mr Waterseller can himself trade it for something of greater value, otherwise it might as well be a rock. Given other usable commodities- water, food, bullets, medical supplies, insulin, probably toilet roll again etc have greater utility and trade value than something of "notional" value like a shiny yellow pebble.

Sure, gold has increased in value, but you only benefit from that when you liquidate it.

 

[UnderFire]

I call it boomer Bitcoin. They are just shiny rocks. They have no real purpose, no real value. Just a market that is set by the market itself, along with big wig market movers and the idea that it is a "hedge against inflation".

If you want to invest in metals, lead and brass hold their value well.

 

[ma96782]

Who has "no problem" paying transfer fees here in Washington? What choice do people have that would allow them to not pay these fees?
How do you get around paying the fees for transferring a firearm here in Washington?

I suspect that Rich People have no problem with an extra $50 (or maybe even more). It's probably even considered as "chump change" to them.

++++++

Imagine......
Paying for a License........

To attend a house of worship.
To speak out at a public hearing about some controversial subject.
To create art that might be seen as objectionable.
To publish (or broadcast) a non-Govt approved point of view on any subject.
Etc...... Etc.......

+++++++

More about the fees......
The politicians and anti-gun voters were probably thinking:

1) Anyway, only the police and military should have guns.

2) What an easy way for the State to make money while putting up more barriers to gun ownership. Hey, if you can't afford it......you weren't worthy of gun ownership anyway.

3) It'll be easy to raise the fees in a couple of years. MO MONEY, Mo Money, mo money.......

4) Yeah.....the money could be used for supporting the homeless and illegals. Yeah.....a "redistribution of wealth".

5) It's not even a 2nd A issue. Because, it's actually a TAX. Just like the NFA fees.

6) It's about keeping people SAFE. Even keeping criminals SAFE too. #CLM= Criminal Lives Matter

7) Anyway.......anyone, who wants to own a gun is MENTALLY SICK. Like all those NRA Members and/or TRUMPY-NAZIs (aka: Republican Voters) etc..... etc......

8) Besides, people who like/want to own guns are "Mentally Sick People". Yup, we need to also protect them from themselves. It's all reasonable and common sense. They may not see it because they aren't reasonable nor exercising common sense. Yeah......"Mentally Sick People" shouldn't own guns.

I'm sure that most any anti-gun person could LOGICALLY (according to them) probably think of more reason(s) to thwart a good citizen(s) from exercising a RIGHT.

Rrrrrright........

Aloha, Mark

PS.....getting back to the subject of PMs. It's......

UP TO YOU.

 

[GWS]

I suspect that Rich People have no problem with an extra $50 (or maybe even more). It's probably even considered as "chump change" to them.

++++++

Imagine......
Paying for a License........

To attend a house of worship.
To speak out at a public hearing about some controversial subject.
To create art that might be seen as objectionable.
To publish (or broadcast) a non-Govt approved point of view on any subject.
Etc...... Etc.......

+++++++

More about the fees......
The politicians and anti-gun voters were probably thinking:

1) Anyway, only the police and military should have guns.

2) What an easy way for the State to make money while putting up more barriers to gun ownership. Hey, if you can't afford it......you weren't worthy of gun ownership anyway.

3) It'll be easy to raise the fees in a couple of years. MO MONEY, Mo Money, mo money.......

4) Yeah.....the money could be used for supporting the homeless and illegals. Yeah.....a "redistribution of wealth".

5) It's not even a 2nd A issue. Because, it's actually a TAX. Just like the NFA fees.

6) It's about keeping people SAFE. Even keeping criminals SAFE too. #CLM= Criminal Lives Matter

7) Anyway.......anyone, who wants to own a gun is MENTALLY SICK. Like all those NRA Members and/or TRUMPY-NAZIs (aka: Republican Voters) etc..... etc......

8) Besides, people who like/want to own guns are "Mentally Sick People". Yup, we need to also protect them from themselves. It's all reasonable and common sense. They may not see it because they aren't reasonable nor exercising common sense. Yeah......"Mentally Sick People" shouldn't own guns.

I'm sure that most any anti-gun person could LOGICALLY (according to them) probably think of more reason(s) to thwart a good citizen(s) from exercising a RIGHT.

Rrrrrright........

Aloha, Mark

Yeah yeah I get all that. What you haven't addressed is: What other choices are there for someone to transfer a gun here in Washington? Don't complain about rich people. If I was a millionaire I would still resent paying for this but regardless of how I feel about it, I gotta pay. If I want to buy a gun from a complete stranger, I am not taking a chance on that guy being a loony or cop looking for a bust, so the transfer goes through an FFL. He isn't going to eat the cost of the transfer so again, What option do I have? If I want the gun I pay the FFL, and the FFL pays the state. I already donate hundreds of dollars each year to the SAF, GOA and NRA to fight these laws, but until they beat these laws in court, rich or poor, we all have to pay. If you have a way around that fact. I'm all ears.