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Sunday, May 11, 2014

Five Reasons for Gold & Silver after SHTF




Acceptability: Of all the commodities you can think of, no other commodity comes even close to the acceptance and liquidity of precious metals (PM). Worldwide, you can walk around any city, anywhere in the world, and you’ll find a store where you can sell gold and silver. You lose some money on premiums and commissions (shop around) but you can convert your precious metals to whatever currency is in use.

Stability: No other commodity even comes close. Throughout history men have considered gold and silver valuable and always will. The market can be tampered some as seen recently, but there will always be a limit. Unlike fiat currencies, you cant “make” real gold and silver just by punching 0000s into a computer. In spite of recent ups and downs, gold and silver have always retained a somewhat similar purchasing power. A denarius silver coin was the daily minimum wage, considered by historians as “20 USD in bread”, brought to today’s prices. This was the minimum wage and a skilled worked could easily earn five times as much.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I4BV37Q?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B00I4BV37Q&linkCode=xm2&tag=surviinargen-20


American Eagle .999 1 Oz Price: $1,679.00

Portability: Cans of food, jerry cans of gas, tools, ammo, medicines, matches, booze and cigs. All sounds good for a post-end of the world Barter Town.  As explained above, you don’t need to wait for the end of the world for gold to be accepted, it is as of right now just like it was 1000 years ago and will be for the next 1000 years to come. But precious metals, particularly gold, has another advantage: portability and compactness. If the worst happens, you can drop a few coins in your pocket, and that’s enough wealth to start over elsewhere. Try doing that with 10000 cans of soup or 50.000 rounds of 22LR. Keep in mind here, silver may be “cheap” and its good for saving little by little, but weight adds up fast with silver!
Uniformity: Being pure metals, there’s no different components involved and with simple tests (acid, electric) the purity can be confirmed even in junk precious metals.
Durability: Unlike tools, food and other supplies, gold and silver doesn’t rust, age or otherwise go bad. You can still dig up a 5000 year old coin and its still as valuable as it was when first minted (ok, its even more valuable in that case!) The point is, PMs don’t go to waste and it doesn’t get replaced by some other fiat currency bill. What you put aside today for a rainy day can be used tomorrow or by your grandchildren in 50 years. Of course, should there’s be an economic collapse it would be just a as valuable and then some.

9 comments:

Don Williams said...

Some fakes are not that simple to detect:

1) http://www.dailypaul.com/256078/more-fake-gold-bars-found-in-nyc

2) http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-24/get-your-fake-tungsten-filled-gold-coins-here

3) Even if you managed through expensive measures to verify that your gold is all genuine (e.g, ultrasound) , that will not help its sales value in a disaster situation if a lot of fake gold has become commonplace --bad money drives out good.

Potential buyers will assume your coins are fake.

PompompomPooom said...

... and one drawback : easily detected at airport doors.

If a government prohibits possession of gold, it will quickly place metal detectors at various checkpoints and confiscate it.

Still, gold is a very good hedge.

TampaMark said...

As for fakes there are simple tests and proofs to handle most situations. A rare earth magnet for one, as gold and silver are diamagnetic (repels) while substitutes such as magnesium are para magnetic (attracts weakly) and will attract a rare earth magnet. Coins can be weighed and measured for correctness with a Fisch or Gold Coin Ballance products. Or get a small weight scale and calipers. Also educating oneself on coins with the classic 'Red Book' by Whitman Publishing and others will go a long way to prove and determine fake coins and bars.

As for airports, one never has to carry it with you. Go through reputed international bullion vaults like Brinks and just exchange it for some outside your country. There are several companies besides Brinks which provide such storage. Also keeps it out of local government hands but allows for conversion into currency of choice.

Jose Garcia said...

Fer,

What do you recommend as far as exiting the country with wealth. The Cubans that fled the Castro regime were forced to leave with just a small suit case and no material possessions. Is it better to cache some gold in a foreign, stable country?

Anonymous said...

Buying NGC or PCGS certified coins is the best way to guarantee
real gold. Costs a little more, but worth the cost. If you do not do that, at least buy gold coins still sealed in the mint packaging.

Don Williams said...

I think a gold plated tungsten coin could fool a Fisch tester -- the problem is that tungsten is very close to the same specific gravity as gold --i.e, a gold plated tungsten coin of the same size as a gold coin also is very close to the same weight.

https://www.silverbullion.com.sg/BullionTesting.aspx

China, of course, has most of the world's reserves of tungsten ore, although the US keeps a stockpile and recycles it.

PompompomPooom said...

Gold transfer with Brinks&co is a good idea, but will they consider a "small" amount?

Any transfer greater than approx 10,000 €$£ will require/trigger a tax declaration.

PompompomPooom said...

Gold transfer with Brinks&co is a good idea, but will they consider a "small" amount?

Any transfer greater than approx 10,000 €$£ will require/trigger a tax declaration.

TampaMark said...

Tungsten coins are few and far between, not enough value in them for the effort but they can be found. It would never pass the rare earth magnet test, though might pass the Fisch. I would need a few fakes to test it out, easy to get at any jewelers or coin dealers.

NCG 1/10 oz. Krugerrands have been counterfeited with containers and document cards. Though obvious errors to the naked eye made them easy to spot. See:http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2013/12/public-service-announcement.html#comment-form