The ongoing Libertarian speedrun of “why banking regulations exist” has caught up to Gresham’s Law, I see.
Does anyone know where I can buy a printing press that will print on plastic? Besides Amazon of course. I have an idea …
I used to have an online friend who was a serious numismatist, and he taught me to look at the symbolism in currency artwork. I’m not seeing a whole lot of coherent symbolism in what I’ve seen from the link and quite frankly the artwork isn’t to my taste either.
If my friend wasn’t dead, I’d ask his opinion, but even in death I think he would probably not like them.
I think he’d be pretty cold about them.
Too soon?
/snert/ Nah, it’s been a few years.
We met online and I really enjoyed our money chats because he really knew his stuff. He once paid more in postage to mail a 50 peso bill to me because he wanted me to have one of the Monarch ones.
I do miss him.
But you have to buy one in the first place. People aren’t buying raw gold, they are buying goldbacks which have greater value, even if it is just collector value. It looks like the currency has weathered the first scheme. When they were introduced the larger bills offered a discount in the rate, especially the 50 dollar goldback.
A one dollar goldback was $3.80 but a fifty dollar goldback was only about $155. 50 one dollar goldbacks would have cost $190. But Alpine Gold will hold your physical goldbacks in their vault for free and exchange them for other denominations.
One online guru wrote about how he was buying 50 dollar goldbacks, shipping them to Alpine and withdrawing them in one dollar goldbacks. Buying them in quantity and even allowing for shipping and insurance each way he was getting one dollar goldbacks for $3.17 and could market them for $3.80 and make a 20% profit. Of course since he wrote the damn article the mint promptly raised the price of all the larger bills so there is no discount. I’m surprised the mint did not see this anyway. I mean, you can’t go to a Federal Reserve bank and get a discount on 50 dollar bills.
According to the FAQ at Alpine gold, they trade at the (current) issue price - $3.86.
Yeah, if gold is so valuable and will increase in value, why would anyone sell it?
If gold is such a benchmark of value, why would a currency based on gold ever not track the value of the gold it contains? But here we have a note that contains $1.80 worth of gold selling for $3.86. Why bother putting any gold in at all?
You said it better, but yeah. Gold sellers are a scam
Because then the maker of the currency wouldn’t turn a profit.
But seriously, these things are nonsensical. If it’s worth $3.86, and contains $1.80 worth of gold, why is it labeled “$1”? I get why they have less gold than they’re supposedly worth, but why not put fifty cents worth of gold in the note labeled $1, and sell it for $1?
Though, I suspect that that has something to do with the “50% of small businesses accept them” bit. If I ran a small business, sure, I’d accept these things… at face value.
Why the quotes around dollar? It’s not like the US government has a monopoly on the use of the word.
What do businesses do with the GBs that they accept? If they can’t deposit them in their bank, pay their employees with it, pay their suppliers, etc., what good are they for the business? If a business is spending regular dollars to run their business and accepting GBs, it seems like it will eventually lead to a cash flow shortage.
There’s always melt value. Though that may be a bit of a losing value unless you have quite a few bills to burn or strip.
The owner spends them at other local businesses that accept them, just like with any localized scrip/barter system.
I understand that’s how barter works in theory, but is it actually happening with the GBs? Like, are there actual liquor suppliers which allow bars to pay their bills in GBs or dollars? Are there produce suppliers who deliver produce to restaurants who pay in GBs? I can see how individuals may accept GBs for stuff since individuals may be collectors and can work with the inefficiencies of the barter system, but it seems like a huge expense and hassle for an actual business to try to operate using a barter currency. Since profit margins are always a concern for businesses, I’m not seeing how accepting GBs would actually help a business.
I’ve seen some local places have a local currency that is easy to understand. They may have “City Dollars” or something which are good at local businesses. You can buy them for some % less than the face value from the city. You spend them at local businesses and the businesses can redeem them for face value. This is to encourage people to spend money in the city. The city is giving people a discount to shop there. But with GBs, I’m not seeing how they get converted back to dollars or something of value that the business can use.
Oh, they don’t. But that’s how they’re promoted. There’s a racket around here called “Trade First”. Whatever sucker accepts credit under that system has to look far and wide for people that actually accept it. I think the fee that Trade First takes might have something to do with it, as it’s a business itself that needs to make money, just like the mint in this case.
There’s gold, and there’s gold with a lot less gold in it.
Well, I got my first goldbacks in the mail, one dollar bills from all 4 states. They sure look nice. I also ordered fives from each of the 4 states plus a ten to make the $100 minimum on an order right from Alpine Gold. I also bought their special wallet to protect and display them.
We’re both gold lovers. My wife, being Thai, wears her wealth on her hands and neck. I’m hoping these relatively inexpensive trinkets keep her interest up. I do a bit of gold panning but since I live in Ohio I now have more gold in the bills then from my panning 
They are pretty tough. I didn’t deliberately try to crease one but if you bend them in a small radius they snap right back. I talked about them with my wife’s jeweler and they had not heard of them. They said they wouldn’t buy or loan on them because it would be hard to get melt values if they needed to. They did think the coin shops would be a good place to buy if someone wants to get them locally.
Today I got my new Garrett Super Sluice gold pan delivered. Hot damn! That’ll do the trick…pretty sure…
So you’re saying thar’s gold in them thar bills?