Isn’t that what all the bullets are for?
I just moved it to IMHO. Sorry, I worked all day. I didn’t think it rose to the status of a Great Debate.
You can walk into any coin shop in the US today and buy gold and silver coins without an ID. Why do you think you need one?
Lyndon Johnson - Remarks at the Signing of the Coinage Act
July 23, 1965
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"Some have asked whether our silver coins will disappear. The answer is very definitely-no.
Our present silver coins won’t disappear and they won’t even become rarities. We estimate that there are now 12 billion–I repeat, more than 12 billion silver dimes and quarters and half dollars that are now outstanding. We will make another billion before we halt production. And they will be used side-by-side with our new coins.
…we expect our traditional silver coins to be with us in large numbers for a long, long time.
If anybody has any idea of hoarding our silver coins, let me say this. Treasury has a lot of silver on hand, and it can be, and it will be used to keep the price of silver in line with its value in our present silver coin.
There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation for the value of their silver content."
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Lyndon Johnson July 23, 1965
Well, yes and no. Depends on when you bought in 1980.
Let’s say you bought on Jan. 18th. MISTAKE You paid $835/ounce. You bought at a historic high. And held it for 30 years with no interest.
To be more charitible, you might have bought at the low for the year, March 18th, when gold was $481./US. But, you’d still be a loser, holding onto a non-interest bearing investment for 30 years.
The time to have bought gold most effieciently was, as Susanann said, around the year 2000. You bought it, held it for only 11 years and could bank a profit of 400-500%. Genius.
I spent over twenty years in the military and I still never found a good way to effectively use lots of small arms simultaneously.
If I’m awake, or alerted before someone is really close to forcing their way in, I’m fairly confident I can kill a would be intruder. Assuming we’re in crazy post-apocalypse land where I’m concerned about defending my gold, I’m still going to have to sleep. I’m still not going to be able to fire 10 guns at once, unless I join a gang of cannibals or marauders I’m still going to be outnumbered many to one.
I could have 10,000 guns but when the worst comes you’re not going to be able to use them all at once effectively assuming you had access to larger automatic weapons you could create a few defensive positions you would be able to run back and forth to, but again, eventually one versus many loses, period.
So there is no amount of guns that will protect your gold if a dozen or so armed men want it. Additionally in such situations men will be fighting and dying over scraps of food, and gold being inedible will be of limited value.
Which is what the people currently screaming, “Invest in gold!” from the rooftops are doing.
OP, I bought a little gold in the '90s when everyone was saying gold was dead as an investment. When it had doubled, I sold half, and would be kicking myself if I were a typical greedy investor.
So, I do not sneer at gold. But I do not think it will be a good long term investment right now; I think it will bubble and crash in less time than that.
What state are you in?
A California coin shop always asks for ID when purchasing precious metals.
Just a guess, but perhaps it’s a state law related to tracking stolen goods?
Nevada is right next door.
Hmmmmm…then maybe you should not tell anyone that you have a million dollars in gold in your house?
I am not a genius.
It does not take a genius to see that bush(and obama) continually adding tens of trillions of dollars in additional debt will lead to economic disaster and a need to seek the security of gold.
It also does not take a genius to see what the future price of gold is going to do if obama, Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the USA continues QE2, QE3, QE4, etc and continues to add more and more tens of trillions to our federal debt.
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If you believe that economic disaster is coming (and I’ll take that as an axiom, for purposes of this thread), then you shouldn’t be investing in something as volatile as precious metals: You should be seeking the security of real estate, home improvements, or a diversified stock portfolio. If you believe that the economic disaster is so bad that the US dollar will become toilet paper, then those home improvements should consist of things like meter-thick concrete walls and heavy steel doors. Hoarding gold wouldn’t do you a lick of good, come the Apocalypse. Whom do you think you’ll be buying anything from, and what makes you think he won’t just kill you and take your gold?
So when I buy silver coins and don’t get asked for ID, I am not in California, but a state of confusion? I buy gold rarely and silver frequently from my local coin dealer and I’ve never been asked for ID, nor are any other customers. Now I’ve seen them ask when the coin shop is buying it from strangers, but never the other way around. The coin shop I go to is 50 yards from City Hall.
Coop’s?
Sounds like my town.
Otherwise, what Chronos said. People who think gold will get them through the End Times are deluded, to say the least. Now, buying as an investment short-term can work, if you get lucky. But the bubble always bursts. If the country suddenly “comes to its senses” and slashes the debt, restoring confidence and faith in the American Way, then gold craters and you just lost everything. If the country goes Communist, or even worse further Democrat, then the zombies come for us all and the gold is worthless because you can’t eat it and people will kill you the second they suspect you have it, so you can’t spend it. The only way gold works is if the world shifts into a Randian wet-dream, where the Strong and True persevere and the weak, lame, lazy and Democrats all succumb to the call of Rationality and The Cult of Individuality, where all are honest and above-average.
I’d rather own Google stock.
Right, but if people see a house that is inhabited, or even a house at all, they’re going to go inside of it. Even if they think the owner is long dead, in a post apocalypse scenario it’s still worth the time to scavenge. You could find canned goods, something that is edible, you could find a tool or other item that would be useful.
There wouldn’t be such a thing as a million dollars in gold, either. There might be an equivalency of gold to food. It really depends on how much of an apocalypse we’re talking about.
I mean Germany actually lost a huge portion of wealth and suffered hyperinflation, but that wasn’t an “apocalypse” and actually lots of people who were super wealthy Germans pre-Hitler and WWII actually went on to be wealthy in the post-war years. Mainly because they were smart and found ways to keep their wealth. That didn’t necessarily mean they put all their money in gold.
As a hedge against hyperinflation some gold is smart, but don’t forget land and other real assets. Evidence suggests fights between early hunter-gatherer groups definitely happened; I posit they were probably over land (or at least the right to use a certain part of land…pre agriculture ownership of a strict area was less important and not meaningful in an individual sense), and in a post apocalypse land is probably more useful than gold. They both have the problem of being easily taken by force, though.
Basically it’s one thing to invest in gold as an inflation or hyperinflation hedge. It’s another thing to talk about it like it’ll get you through WWIII and the following apocalypse. Gold and real estate can insulate you from inflation, but it isn’t very useful in a genuine apocalypse. I think it’s silly people think one person can defend themselves against roving bands of cannibalistic murderers just because they own a lot of guns. That’s not how things work.
Maybe you are right, give me all your gold, I will take it off your hands, no charge.
Why kill over gold if it’s worthless?
I don’t think it’d be truly worthless, but it would be worthless without lots and lots of other things in place. For example if I was the leader of a Road Warrior esque band of murderers, as the leader I may enjoy things that your average post-apocalyptic human does not. Since I get first pick of everything my band steals I don’t have to worry about food and clothing or shelter, so I might prize gold and reward underlings who get it for me to make trinkets and emblems of authority with.
In that scenario it has value to my underlings, because by acquiring it and giving it to me, they benefit. However, it would have little value to loners and people who aren’t prone to being in a murderous band of thugs. My murderous band wouldn’t trade with individuals in order to acquire gold, if they knew someone had it they would kill them and take it, that’s what people in murderous bands do.
This statement doesn’t prove anything.
That’s like saying “give me all your land.” Most people don’t think an apocalypse will happen, and it almost certainly won’t. So no one is saying gold is likely to become worthless, meaning no one is going to give you a bunch of stuff for free. Your saying this doesn’t prove a point at all.
Even if I knew an apocalypse was coming and I knew gold would be worthless and I happened to have a big sack of gold coins I wouldn’t give them to you, what is in it for me?