Why Silver?

[Razloga]

I have noticed while lurking and reading that many of you seem to be gathering silver for after the zombies arrive.

Why?

Gold has always been more expensive, Gold has risen and fallen in price along with silver.

In the event that something happens, I read many people bringing up the point of weight. In that (for example) 1000 rounds of .22 weighs less than 1000 .357's. Well isn't it the same with silver/gold? Wouldn't it be prudent to have 1lb gold instead of 10lb silver?


Please educate me...

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[jordanka16]

Maybe it's so people can melt it into bullets to fend off werewolves?

 

[Razloga]

I'm not into the gold thing but I think it has a bit to do with silver being more usable. Maybe a loaf of bread will cost $20.00 so it would be easier to use your $20 silver coin than try to shave off $20 of gold. I think it has to do with being user friendly.

Wouldn't you be able to carry small gold sheets or coins?

And werewolves are easy, just pretend you are a vampire (NOT the twilight kind )...

 

[jordanka16]

Wouldn't you be able to carry small gold sheets or coins?

VERY small, a $20 gold piece would weigh about 4.7 grains, and would be about 14 cubic millimeters. That's tiny.

I should add that that's for pure gold, an alloy would be bigger, but not much.

 

[Arkarayne]

I think also it goes back to Back-In-The-Day, when silver, gold, copper, were used as actual currency. silver was the most common currency, gold being more like hundred dollar bills, not something everyone carries in their coin-purses. Copper isn't bad either, but it's much more a utility metal then cold cash.
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Some Numbers to remember:

480 grains/Troy Ounce (heavier then a "regular" ounce)
31.1 grams/Troy Ounce
15.4 grains/gram

copper by the ounce(0.21c) or pound($3.35)
silver by the gram(0.57c) or ounce($17.72)
gold by the grain($2.31) and gram($35.65) and ounce($1108.70)
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that's going off of current prices though, when SHTF, it'll be VERY arbritrary, by area and by seller/buyer mostly.

That said, precious metals are, precious. Doesn't hurt to have it.

 

[Camtender]

National Inflation Association Declares Silver Best Investment for Next Decade

<broken link removed>

We are less than three weeks away from entering the next decade. The most important thing you need to know entering 2010 is that silver is the single best investment for the next decade. In our opinion, investing into silver is the only sure way to tremendously increase your purchasing power over the next ten years.

Throughout world history, only ten times more silver has been mined than gold. If you go back about 1,000 years ago between the years 1000 and 1250, gold was worth ten times more than silver worldwide. From year 1250 to 1792, the gold to silver ratio slowly increased from 10 to 15 and the Coinage Act of 1792 officially defined a gold to silver ratio of 15. The ratio remained at 15 until forty-two years later when the ratio was increased in 1834 to 16, where it remained until silver was demonetized in 1873.

The gold to silver ratio remained between 10 and 16 for 873 years! It is only over the past 100 years that the gold to silver ratio has averaged 50. History will look back at the artificially high gold to silver ratio of the past century as an anomaly, caused by the dollar bubble and the world being deceived into believing that fiat currencies are real money, when in fact they're all an illusion. Next decade, the fiat currency experiment will end badly in a currency crisis. The wealthiest people will be those who bought silver today and were smart enough to research and pick the best silver mining stocks.

While the vast majority of the gold ever produced remains sitting in vaults, 95&#37; of the silver produced has been consumed by industry for thousands of applications in such tiny amounts that most of it will never be recycled and seen on the market again. Nobody knows the exact above ground supply of silver today, but most likely it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 billion ounces. That's a total worldwide market value of only $17.4 billion, when the world has over $7 trillion in foreign currency reserves, mostly in fiat currencies that they will need to diversify out of due to rampant inflation.

Besides the fact that the world has been ignoring the monetary value of silver, silver prices are artificially low due to a large concentrated naked short position. It's not a coincidence that the day silver reached its multi-decade high of over $21 per ounce in March of 2008, was the same day Bear Stearns failed. Bear Stearns was a holder of a massive short position in silver. In our opinion, this was likely a naked short position because there is nobody in the world who owns such a large amount of silver for Bear Stearns to have borrowed.

The reason why we believe the Federal Reserve was so eager to orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns, is because Bear Stearns was on the verge of being forced to cover their silver short position. Because the silver market is so small and tightly held, if Bear Stearns was forced to cover their short position, silver prices could've potentially rose to $50 per ounce or higher overnight. The world would've seen how economically unstable our country is and confidence in the U.S. dollar would've rapidly deteriorated.

JP Morgan still holds the silver short position they inherited from Bear Stearns. The concentrated naked short position in silver today is the largest short position in the history of all commodities, as a percentage of its market size. Eventually, JP Morgan will have to cover this short position or it could jeopardize their existence.

The best evidence that the short position in silver is naked and not backed by real silver, is the differential between what silver trades for on the Comex and what real people are willing to pay for physical silver on eBay. Every hour on eBay, there are dozens of one ounce silver coins selling for approximately $25. That's about a 43% premium over the current spot price of silver. With so much demand for physical silver, we doubt the silver shorts in the paper market will be able to manipulate prices downward for much longer. A major short squeeze could be right around the corner and silver could take off in a way that shocks even those who are most bullish.

 

[TAT2D]

Gold has risen and fallen in price along with silver.

I haven't looked to verify it, but someone (the TSP guy?) said gold and silver traded in a fairly uniform ratio for a long time, but in the last year or so gold has run away. Assuming they return to that historic ratio, silver would be the one to be holding.

I'm looking to start buying 'precious metals' just because I think the dollar is in for a long bout of weakening.

MrB

 

[dobeman]

the heck with silver or gold. I believe guns and ammo are far outpacing inflation. I can see bartering with bullets.

 

[LogicBomb]

back in the time of the romans 1oz gold bought you a nice suit
back in the middle ages 1oz of gold bought you a nice suit
in the 1920's 1oz of gold bought you a nice suit
today 1oz of gold buys you a nice suit

gold doesent gain in "value"
the dollar loses "value"

 

[Burt Gummer]

Breathing life into old thread. If the silver manipulation of JP Morgan (who took over said manipulation from Bear Sterns) is every successfully exposed .....

The Crazy Things That One Whistleblower Says Are Happening At JP Morgan Will Blow Your Mind

 

[Mark W.]

if SHTF POT and Booze will be much more valuable then a chunk of worthless metal. What ya going to do do with that pretty? Sit and rub it? If I had a bucket of Pot and you had a pound of gold unless I saw organized government and a precious metals based economy coming back I wouldn't be \trading any of my Pot for your shiny metal.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Silver is used a lot more in industry and therefore is in demand for that as well as an investment.. more pressure equals better future value. Also the various denominations of US silver pre 1964 coins make barter with it easy

Having said that my main use for it would be to pay property taxes on our place during a super depression, so ammo, food, booze, medical supplies and many other items should be stocked for a "balanced portfolio"..

 

[Burt Gummer]

Never have said silver is an end-all - it is only terrific as a replacement for FIAT MONEY. Nothing more. Not as a replacement for booze or lead. As a store of excess savings it has had value for thousands of years and will continue to do so.

In other words, when (not if) the dollar collapses and you have your money in the bank, an IRA, mutuals, etc - you are screwed. People with silver, not screwed. Not a difficult thing to figure out.

The JP Morgan whistleblower explains how they are printing worthless silver and gold 'certificates and ETFs' in order to suppress the silver price. There is 100-300x LESS silver available than people think. When that fraud is exposed - eventually it will be - then silver will potentially rise literally to hundreds of dollars an ounce while .... dollars? ... well they will be inaccessible during the bank holidays as the financial institutions rob you of any digital savings and investments.

People - if there is anything less then an entire Planet of the Apes scenario - will be handing fistfuls of dollars to people for a speck of something real.

The MSM can only cover for the private Fed for so long and soon enough the Zombies will come to terms with the fact that rampant inflation is already here and very real (even Donald Trump said that this week that he fully expects $5-6 gas by summer; groceries doubling in price). http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk...lation/2012/03/13/id/432355?PROMO_CODE=E67B-1 Don't click the embedded video, it is just an ad.

Silver (ONLY as a sub for FIAT currency) is a great inflation hedge. The fact the silver is still $32/ounce while the fake 1.5%/zero interest is being maintained is a tell-all; all of that is there to prop up the banks and the casino (wall st). Talking REAL silver here not monopoly money silver that is no better than monopoly fiat dollars.

When the 600 trillion dollar debt tsunami hits, all paper will burn overnight. Hope that helps.

 

[Ought Six]

Silver and gold are useful as hedges against inflation and economic turmoil. They will hold their value in the long run. Paper currency will not, and paper instruments such as stocks, bonds and certificates of deposit can become worthless overnight in a really serious economic collapse. They are an important part of a balanced portfolio. Silver has become more popular lately because gold has gotten so expensive. One ounce silver rounds are much more affordable than even the smallest gold coins. And yes, many experts say that silver is currently grossly undervalued, and will go up quite a lot in price one day.

 

[Burt Gummer]

It is necessary to know when you buy even physical gold or silver that criminal banksters control the price for now. Supply and demand do not matter when you have money men running a ponzi scheme, ie, printed slips of paper that are supposed to represent real silver that does not exist.

So, if you buy silver it CAN drop 20% for apparently no reason in days. Well, there is a reason. Printing of ponzi certificates/Etfs + shorting. If Bear Stearns would have been audited, this scam would have been revealed, but that was the reason for JP Morgan stepping in (with YOUR tax dollars); the banksters work together to hid their digit ponzis. With government agency help, of course, since the banksters own and control all such agencies.

So when someone tells you the silver has industrial uses, is in more and more demand, in scarce supply - that does not mean the price has to go up. That is only in a real fair market; which we do not have here. Someday, yes. Not now.

 

[robby]

Noisycow, Wow i could not agree with you more. You are one of the first that i have read on a forum that get it,

 

[thescottsmith9]

Another thing to note is that,say silver is 24.00, if it goes to 30.00 in a couple days that's a 25% increase with not much trouble. If gold is at 1600.00 it would have to go up 400.00 to get the same return. I think the oober rich can make a killing on silver with 2 and 3 dollar changes just by selling at 33 and buying back at 30 (which is a 10% increase). How many of us can make 10% interest in 3 days. We could but the low amounts we have don't seem to be worth the hassle. But if I Played that game with a mil that would be 100 grand in 3 days.

 

[simpleguy]

A couple small points from my perspective, please note, it's ok if you don't agree with me, it's my philosphy.

1. I personally don't care what happens to the "value" of silver, it's "their" value, the value to me is priceless(more accurately it has both tangible & intangible worth), it's piece of mind, it's something I can pass on to my children.

2. It's not just the "worth" of the refined mineral, it's the process of getting it, the process of saving and investing. Not just for me, but the process my children see. This all imparts the importance of saving and investing, retaining wealth per se.

3. I like buying something that when I put up $100, I can actually SEE the amount of silver I just purchased. Almost a joke, almost not. For the quantities I can afford I like silver because I came to the game late, I want to accumulate larger quantities, I want to see the pile grow. I have friends that prefer their investment be more "compact", which I agree with. I have a goal, once I reach that goal, I will diversify in to gold.

 

[Burt Gummer]

Noisycow, Wow i could not agree with you more. You are one of the first that i have read on a forum that get it,

Please do not worship me for I am only a man.

 

[Wildcat]

There are some IRA's that deal in actual gold and silver--You purchase the metal from reputable dealer and it's transfered directly to a IRA. Gold Trust is the one that I use.