Thinking of buying gold coins...

[Camelfilter]

I have to disagree; I picked up $1500 in Ag a couple years back as a fun way to hold onto some cash for a bit and it tanked 30% right after I bought it. It took a year to get back to breaking even and that had to be a little higher as dealers will charge a buck an ounce or so to buy it and a buck an ounce to sell it. Buy something better.

Same can be said about anything purchased as an investment. Depends on whatever market, and such.

 

[Siglvr]

Well, I don't know what a good investment really is. But I will note that if you can pick up Federal HST ammo for half off, that's a great deal. Every one should be well stocked up by now . Link is down in the Great deals thread.

 

[gmerkt]

I have to disagree; I picked up $1500 in Ag a couple years back

Let's wait a while to see on this one. The ratio between gold and silver right now is very wide. Silver has great potential for gains. Time will tell but silver has been a pretty good store of value for hundreds of years.

 

[asbtg]

Same can be said about anything purchased as an investment. Depends on whatever market, and such.

That is certainly true depending on the particular investment. However, shy of a point it hit nearly $50/oz. it has remained stable and some might say artificially-depressed for decades. It's a poor performer for investment, though fun to play pirate...

 

[leadcounsel]

Well, I don't know what a good investment really is. But I will note that if you can pick up Federal HST ammo for half off, that's a great deal. Every one should be well stocked up by now . Link is down in the Great deals thread.

100% agree.
$1700 can get you 4,000 rounds of premium self defense pistol ammo right now. FAR more useful than 1 oz of pretty soft metal.

 

[Angie]

I didn't say this was all my money though. This is just a small portion of it. I have enough to buy 6 more houses here, I just want to diversify a little bit...I am also looking at a vacation house in Las Vegas and Florida since I go to both frequently. I usually take 2-3 trips a year either to those or Hawaii, London, etc.

But yes I am buying more real estate, although after issues with 3 of my tenants in the last couple months, I'm really starting to hate being a landlord lol. Entitled liberals are a PITA to have as tenants. Gotta love people who can't afford to even rent a house unless they do it with 4 people total, yet want to tell me how to be a landlord when I can carry all my mortgages by myself and own multiple rentals with huge down payments....

Wow. All this and modesty too.

 

[wired]

Wow. All this and modesty too.

Screw that. Why is it such a taboo to talk money?

 

[Angie]

Screw that. Why is it such a taboo to talk money?

It's not taboo to talk about money at all. However, I find it obnoxious when people feel the need to tell others how much wealth they have. But that's just me. Obviously you feel differently.

 

[wired]

It's not taboo to talk about money at all. However, I find it obnoxious when people feel the need to tell others how much wealth they have. But that's just me. Obviously you feel differently.

I have no problem talking about money. How much I have or how much they have. I have a reasonable amount and I have no issue discussing that with people who have squat and with people who have LOT more. I see not even the slightest amount of obnoxiousness in the concept.

 

[Lazyfaire]

I think people have to define whether they are buying commodities as an investment or as a hedge against a SHTF scenario. Gold and silver, to name the 2 main choices, are both prized by others, are relatively rare, and are easily divisible and portable. But $10K dollars worth of gold fits in your pocket while $10K worth of silver is going to be much more difficult to carry around.

If its a SHTF scenario then mostly what will be bartered would be silver, and I would have silver quarters and silver dimes. Most trades would be of smaller denominations. Some small gold coins would make some sense.

But what do we all have that would increase in value in such a case? Ammo. Might be a better medium of exchange down the road.

 

[wired]

The S would really have to hit the fan for ammo to be any sort of real commodity. 'm sure there are people who think that is going to happen any day now and to the extreme. The rest of us arent worried about ammo as a means of exchange and see it more as something that goes out the barrel of a firearm .

 

[Lazyfaire]

The S would really have to hit the fan for ammo to be any sort of real commodity. 'm sure there are people who think that is going to happen any day now and to the extreme. The rest of us arent worried about ammo as a means of exchange and see it more as something that goes out the barrel of a firearm .

Then you are buying as an investment. Neither have really done that well as a hedge against inflation. Gold's price has bounced around and has not really shown an increase in the face of market jitters. I was a gold bug back in the day too. Stocks have done much better.

 

[Camelfilter]

I think people have to define whether they are buying commodities as an investment or as a hedge against a SHTF scenario. Gold and silver, to name the 2 main choices, are both prized by others, are relatively rare, and are easily divisible and portable. But $10K dollars worth of gold fits in your pocket while $10K worth of silver is going to be much more difficult to carry around.

If its a SHTF scenario then mostly what will be bartered would be silver, and I would have silver quarters and silver dimes. Most trades would be of smaller denominations. Some small gold coins would make some sense.

But what do we all have that would increase in value in such a case? Ammo. Might be a better medium of exchange down the road.

In normalcy, ammunition as trade, barter, sale, absolutely! Always has value, standard value variables depending.

Personally, if the world went all catywompous, I would not be selling nor trading ammunition.

Maybe, and that's an extremely unlikely maybe (in an extremely unlikely future anyways...), 22lr or bird shot. However those could still be used against you & yours.

So, IMO, better options to take down to "barter town" would be excess harvest. Just like everyone else.

Folks with portable skills, and old school home methods would do well. Distilling, bee keeping, soap making, tanning & working leather, wool processing, portable machine tool repair setups. Those types of things.

Unlikely canning/home canned goods, simply being as jars & lids (even with tattler type reusable seals) would be a finite limited resource.

 

[leadcounsel]

The S would really have to hit the fan for ammo to be any sort of real commodity. 'm sure there are people who think that is going to happen any day now and to the extreme. The rest of us arent worried about ammo as a means of exchange and see it more as something that goes out the barrel of a firearm .

Let me offer a non-traditional or different view of investing.

I "invest" in items that I fear I can't get later or can't get at a reasonable price later, and ammunition is one of those. I have no plans to "sell" or "trade" it away in a SHTF scenario. I plan to be able to continue to have an inventory at yesterday's low widely available prices when everyone else is without ammo. This allows me to practice, train, hunt, and defend if necessary when others cannot.

Take the .22LR scare. I had plenty when others had none.
Take the surplus ammo market. I was buying crates of cheap Tokarev and Mosin and Mauser ammo at pennies per round. Probably 10x as valuable now. I ain't selling.

So in that sense, an "investment" means I have it and don't have to pay current premium prices to get it.

Gold, eh. I don't need it, never have, and the only value it provides is circuitry on my computer chips. It's a really silly thing to put money in IMO.

 

[EHJ]

The S would really have to hit the fan for ammo to be any sort of real commodity. 'm sure there are people who think that is going to happen any day now and to the extreme. The rest of us arent worried about ammo as a means of exchange and see it more as something that goes out the barrel of a firearm .

Tell this to people in California.

 

[Snip]

Gold and silver are lousy long term investments. There is no dividend paid ever. It can be hard to move, and can be easily lost in a fire, or just misplaced.

 

[Aispuro]

.

 

[Bushman]

Same can be said about anything purchased as an investment. Depends on whatever market, and such.

Exactly. Buying and not realizing there is a holding period is a novice move. Holding period is a factor. Any investment has holding periods. Buying gold and expecting it to go up constantly right after buying is....well...

Assets also don't correlate. Investing 101. Gold does great when stocks are down or there is economic uncertainty. You buy assets that don't correlate. When one is down, the other is up, so you sell the one that is up and invest more in the one that is down with the profits and keep repeating that. This is pretty elementary stuff....

But ultimately gold is a poor investment over even decades long holding periods. It's better than cash, but not really an investment. It will help cash keep it's value over the long run, but not by much.

 

[Bushman]

Well, I don't know what a good investment really is. But I will note that if you can pick up Federal HST ammo for half off, that's a great deal. Every one should be well stocked up by now . Link is down in the Great deals thread.

Found the thread, missed the deal....