Gold. how does it work?

[dlockhart]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

There are building and home improvement contractors around here who will accept gold as payment.

There exists a economy outside the purview of government.
Black and grey markets are free markets.

Buy your eggs from the neighbor with silver or ____ .


.

[otto_kretschmer]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

It doesn’t tarnish, rot, dissolve or evaporate.

well, if you drop it in nitric acid it will dissolve



I started watching this guy a couple weeks ago

This guy appears to know what he's doing. I wouldn't try this at home because chemistry kills.

[otto_kretschmer]

I've watched a dozen of Sreetips videos and I'm still not sure of his process.

He buys scrap jewelry at swap meets and melts the jewelry down with silver to get an alloy of 1/4 gold and 3/4 silver. Then he dissolves that in nitric acid to get the silver out and he recovers the silver in another process. Then he refines the gold at least one more time to get only the gold and melts that into small bars.

[Arizona_928]

Little more to it. Need Aqua Regia (Royal solution) to dissolve gold.

Quartation is the process of diluting the gold alloy (like 14k in the video) by adding silver to bring the gold content below 25%, or one-quarter… hence the name

[Baz]

[aschen]

Collecting gold coins, many of which have prices dominated by metal not numismatic value is a fun hobby. For example common date pre 1933 us gold or British sovereign.

Enjoyable hobby with a lot to learn and as a side benefit after a few years you might find your collection is bigger and more valuable than you thought.

[craigster59]

I'm thinking it's a great opportunity to tell the Wife that you need a specialty knife, one that is capable of cutting gold bars into exact increments for trading.

BAM! You get an opportunity to buy your Dream Knife, no questions asked.

Hey, I'm here for ya Man.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by aschen

Collecting gold coins, many of which have prices dominated by metal not numismatic value is a fun hobby. For example common date pre 1933 us gold or British sovereign.

Enjoyable hobby with a lot to learn and as a side benefit after a few years you might find your collection is bigger and more valuable than you thought.

If I thought that I could buy old gold coins at the price of just gold, I might do that for one or two or a couple. Are you saying that most don't have some sort of premium added on top of the gold value?

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by masraum

If I thought that I could buy old gold coins at the price of just gold, I might do that for one or two or a couple. Are you saying that most don't have some sort of premium added on top of the gold value?

I just bought a 20$ double eagle at melt price on ePay.

I’m on the email lists for all of the bullion sellers and usually will pick up a coin when they are sold at melt.

[aschen]

Originally Posted by masraum

If I thought that I could buy old gold coins at the price of just gold, I might do that for one or two or a couple. Are you saying that most don't have some sort of premium added on top of the gold value?

Absolutely. Historic us gold coins routinely sell for barely over spot these days. Look at sd buillion, buillion exchanges, really any coin store. Apmex is always a bit pricy. Liberty coins on ebay is a huge and reputable vendor.

Search pre 33 on YouTube for some primers but basically 2.50 quarter eagles, 5$ liberty head half eagles, 10$ eagles liberty or my favorite Indian head eagle which is a bit more expensive. Anyways it's a bit of a steep learning curve.

I'd start with common date graded by ngc or pcgs coins that are not cleared. 0 to 15% above melt is easy to find these days.

[aschen]

For example

https://sdbullion.com/gold/pre-1933-gold-coins

20$ double eagle is a bit less than 1 troy oz, 10$ eagle is half that, etc


Old European coins like sovereigns and French roosters are the cheapest gold shops are lucky to get melt, not quite as liquid as us or canfian coins

[masraum]

Interesting, thanks.

[berettafan]

an antique dealer client was in last week and showed me a full pound of gold coins he had just purchased. Remarkable how much value can be held in such a tiny container.

I asked him if shtf how would one convert that gold coin into electricity, food and gas. He says 'you don't'.

I am certain the federal gov't wants it out of circulation as it allows portability of wealth.

[aschen]

Kg of gold is the size of a small iPhone liquid everywhere in the world and valued over 100k usd.

I'm not about to buy kgs of gold but I can see the charm

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by The Synergizer

Everyone that watches apocalypse movies knows that bullets will be worth far more when the SHTF.

All the dystopian future movies have batteries and flashlights that seem to be much better than what I can buy. And candles out the wazoo. A room will have 50 candles all burning. Gas, tires, parts and the cars themselves seem plentiful.

It is one reason I love Star Trek so much. The future is bright, and technology has solved most problems.

[gregpark]

Buy coins not bars, bars are suspect and may be tougher to sell. Any coin shop will buy your metal. Some at spot, some a percent or two behind spot. You can get cash as fast as at an ATM. Buy physical metal and not etf,slv etc. Both matels are rediculously shorted and a lot of holders could eventually get screwed. Silver could be the most under valued commodity on the planet and worth considering. Watch some you tube podcasts by some very knowledgable people on precious metals. The US dollar gets devalued daily and metals will always have value anywhere in the world

[Pazuzu]

I once evaporated gold to coat a telescope mirror, and we ended up with several droplets of solidified evaporated gold. Perhaps 1/10th of a gram each. But...these were atomically pure gold, created from evaporation deposition in a deep vacuum. 24 carat didn't have nothin' on these droplets!

[dlockhart]

I enjoy sightseeing old mines when I'm riding around AZ NV UT .
This fella is a pretty enjoyable watch if you are into mining.

[jyl]

I use GLD when things look dicey. Started buying about six months ago, most portfolios have 5-8% weight in GLD. It’s not normally a long term holding, lack of dividend hampers it’s long term return. But with foreign governments reducing their holdings of US Treasuries (formerly just some, potentially going to most) and the risk of lower global trade reducing the need for USD, and the increasing risk of some dumb-ass actions that will shake USD’s status as the global reserve currency, GLD might end up being a longer-term holding than my usual 1 year trade.

No interest in physical gold. Can’t buy or sell without significant transaction costs, secure storage issues, and as said if SHTF, other things will be as or more valuable. Ammunition, insulin, baby formula.

[pmax]