Is anyone hoarding/buying silver or gold? If so, what are your reasons, solid investments, fear of monetary collapse, terrorists striking crippling the economy?

Silver is high but I can't bring myself to sell the common stuff that I have accumulated over the years. Reason, Im not totally destitute....yet.

Gold > Silver > Government Paper

When all hell breaks loose, it will be Government seize<Gold<Silver and then give paper

Last time they grabbed the gold, what they came up with was what was in the banks. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together handed over any gold coin, and lots of it was (and still is) in European banks, which is why we still have some old US gold for collecting.

This time, there's none on deposit in banks, though there's probably a lot in safe deposit boxes. If the politicians order a roundup of gold and silver held by citizens, they'll find out just how badly outnumbered they are.

What's wrong with copper ?

It's too heavy

I'm slowly acquiring gold coins.

1. To complete my U.S. Type set.

2. Despite everything I've said in another thread, gold is a great hedge against inflation and currency failure.
I even have a chunk of money in a gold ETF "just in case".

3. They're great coins. Early U.S. gold, Roosters, Napoleons, Sovereigns, Ancients. All wonderful coins.

Roosters...
Gotta get me one of them one of these days!!

Most people however were not Rockefellers or Vanderbilts with the ability to ship their gold over to Switzerland. In fact they were living quite a bit closer to the edge, and they usually turned their gold in for cash so they could eat.

Except one of my Grandfathers, he buried his approximately $250.00 in a tobacco tin in the yard, and forgot about it until years later ~ it has never been found.

I'm hoarding copper and nickels. They're cheaper than silver or gold and much easier to come-by.

I've been a big fan of metals for decades. ...especially white metals. Tin, silver, nickel
iron, aluminum, chrome, platinum, zinc and to a lesser extent lead are my favorites.
In many ways silver leads the list because of its great scarcity relative its price and the
other metals. Despite being little more common than gold it sells for peanuts. It has a
very unique elemental arrangement which makes it relatively stable but able to react
with many compounds. It has a very rapidly growing use in high tech because of this.
Every year there is more gold in the world which sits in massive stockpiles and every year
there is less silver in the world which exists in no large stockpiles. Mines tend to be short
so have less incentive to produce and despite years of looking, new silver mines just don't
seem to be cropping up everywhere.

Gold is probably the best way to protect oneself from inflation since this is where people
tend to run but silver will partially serve this purpose as well while providing the opportunity
for large profits in the event of a strong economy. People often lose sight of the fact that
inflation often occurs with a strong economy so silver can quite possibly outperform gold
even in the one scenario where gold is important. Neither metal can do a good job of pro-
tecting you from the effects of economic collapse. For this you'll be much more in need of
food and ammo.

If you expect inflation then when it starts you should have mostly gold with a little silver and
as it progresses then gradually swap out gold for silver.

All the metals are interesting because of exploding populations but look at useful metals that
are scarce or require large amounts of energy to produce for the most appreciation. Paladium
and platinum are excellent means to store wealth. Copper will increase in volitility and if you
can outguess the markets will provide large profits.

Some of the more "exotic" metals will provide huge increases as well. A great deal of knowledge
and guessing will be required to pick the winners from the losers. Demand increases for some of
these will be easily met by production increases. Moly would be the best of all but this exists in
very large quantities. Titanium usage should soar but this one too, is not uncommon in the ground.
Aluminum is great but is exceedingly common. Nickel is one of my favorites but has already run
up a lot (it's not at all time highs yet!!!). Tin is the ideal metal except there is still not much demand.
If it ever moves the increase will be explosive.

One of the up and coming uses for silver is in antibiotics, where it is showing promise in fighting infections.

My son put his hand on a red hot oven burner when he was about 2-3 yrs old. Presented a ringed blistered burn that covered about 50-60% of his hand. They gave us some pasty white cream to put on it and it went away in a week or so with no scarring,,,,, some time after that I layed my arm on my wifes curling iron (which she had left on !! dammit) and burned the he11 out of myself, blood red and I was sure it was going to blister up around the size of silver dollar... put the leftover cream on it,,,,, no blister ever developed, pain went away, and it was totally gone in around 4 days...... frickin amazing stuff.
SILVER SULFADIAZINE CREAM

Aside - I like copper and nickel too,,, especially when I can easily get it at 50+% below melt value (try getting silver or gold at that discount).

I'm buying as much silver as I can, especially in .900 or better.

Ron

OK,

Gold > Silver > Copper > Government Paper

Where's platinum and nickel?

I'm hoarding any pre-1982 cents and silver I find. The silver can be a slug for all I care, as long as it's silver!

I feel the same but add nickels into the mix. They're over their face value right now and will continue in that direction unless the metal content is changed.

Good thing I save all my change then! May be worth it.

Too bad you guys aren't in Canada - the percentages over face for the 1c and 5c are even larger (esp. since pre-82 Cdn. 5c are 100% nickel)

It is funny to think when I have been there we bought rolls of coins in the banks to spend back here for 63¢ on our dollar, to spend back here for 1/1. I have usually done this with 10 and 25¢ coins. I haven't been to Canada in a couple of years though, and since the Canadian dollar has appreciated to the point where there really is no reason to do this anymore.

Have you sold any to a refinery yet?

I did just buy a few ounces of gold. Mainly because I'm not buying any major coins until the Spring shows and I need to make a lot of payments in Euros where the dollar isn't doing so well right now.

Are you planning on selling any to a refinary ?

Yeah, let us know how it works when the MIB come a knocking on the front door, as they promise to do lately.

Greetings to all and Happy holidays,

My father was a merchant seaman and started buying gold coins from places he visited. He never told anyone but my mother. She never never told us until after he died and she was on her deathbed. Its not like a fortune or anything, but it was over 1500 gold coins of all different values.

This was in 1994 and then I started to buy gold coins to add to this amount and have about 1700 so far.
of coarse, I could only afford to buy 1/10 and 1/5 oz coins myself. This got me interested in collecting Lincoln cents and filled up my set and working on another for granddaughter now.

Well thank you for reading my post and Merry X-mas,
Bruce

Merry Christmas to you Bruce.

That has to be a nice collection of gold. Did your father by older coins or the modern issues at the time?

Greetings and thank you,

It appears to be bullion coins going back to 1865(maybe restrikes) and 1890's to late 1960 and 70's.I Think its just common bullion coins from all over the world. After, I found them I became interested.
I started buying what I could afford and that was 1/5 ounce coins down to 1/10. I'd buy everyweek if I could.I probably haven't bought any gold for around a year or a little longer.I started buying high grade lincolns until I was able to fill my first album 1909-1976.

My Granddaughter was interested in cents ,so she is trying to fill her own now. It gets kind of expensive once you get to 1935 if you want them in higher rd grades. She is doing pretty good for herself with help from Poppy.
Bruce

i've been collecting silver bullion.. don't have very much but I had to cash in my 10shares of stock my grandma gave me and get into silver...

reasons? definitely inflation and a weakening dollar.

Depending on what the shares were of, they may actually be a better hedge if you are concerned about inflation.

they were of edison power... I think edison went back up and is doin pretty well but I'm happy that I got into silver... I got some pretty good deals on ebay.

Saving most metals may be a waste if no one wants to buy it someday. Many metals are expensive due to thier usage such as Silver being such a versatile element. However, as moderazation moves forward most of such metals will be replaced with something else and thier value may just plummit downward.
Now for me I'm stockpiling Platinum. As long as Gillett keeps using it for their razor blades I can't go wrong.

Any precious metal serves as a good hedge against inflation. No precious metal has ever become worthless, though every single fiat currency in history has done so. Ours will prove, soon enough, to be no exception.

As do other investments. Big deal.



Niether has sugar in 500 years of trade. I try to trade packets of it but it never seems to work.
I did see someone trade a watch for a cab ride in Thailand once. Hmmm



Every single one? Really well as America's hasn't this is a false statement and others BTW are still readily traded.

The sky is falling economic chickenhawks have been debating how US currency will faily for years. It started in the 1780s then after the civil war, then after 1913 then after 1964 and then 2000 yet it is still going strong...amazing fact seeing as how the sky is falling

Aside from the rise in value of the Euro lately and god forbid Oil gets priced in Euros, the dollar is still the number hold currency for central banks and legal tender in over 20 countries. It is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Actions speak louder than bumperstickers

You probably made a bad move, but if it was fun and you can affort it, then enjoy the silver.
Silver doesn't pay quarterly dividends by the way, and it's consumer base is no where near the volume as those seeking to heat thier homes.

Well my grandfather lived through two World Wars
He had bags of salt
He had bags of rice
He had bags of Double Eagles who rented him a car and driver to the South of France

And I had a grandfather that did the same and a Father who fought in WWII.
During WWII bartering and the trade of commodities was actually very common.
Sugar rations were huge as was rubber. Worth more than gold to some folks.


Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Dutch RVs and German Autobahns don't mix