Gold. how does it work?
 

I saw a small bullion at Costco of all places. lady said they sell out so quickly.

oookaaay. "can you point me to the pillow case sized bag of oatmeal please?"

seriously. gold prices go up and down. I get that. I also get that people are buying gold incase the dollar turns to fire-starter in value.

how exactly do you sell the gold? you go into a gold store and it just feels shady. they are not buying at market value no? they skim the Vig?

in an apocalypse..it even makes less sense to me. do I bite off a link of 24k for a loaf of bread? that same bullion mentioned above. you hacksaw it? or ask for an even smaller bullion in change?

I'll be the first to become a zombie for sure. I have no clue.

I just buy GLD, but obviously that doesn't work if you want to physically hold it. Easy though...I've had some for years.

EDIT: to clarify, stock symbol GLD

I don't see the point. I understand what the normal reasoning is, but the reality doesn't seem to be what/how they think it works. It's got to be a money making setup on the part of the folks that buy and sell.

I remember seeing Buffet talking about how he doesn't invest in gold. But then, his investing isn't the same as the rest of us mortal folks' investing.

Right, if you want to invest in gold or silver, then one of the ETFs or something like that seems like the way to go, but then if the theory is that you're investing in gold for the apocalypse, then you probably need it physically on hand so you can barter for bullets and eggs with the neighbors.

It's like crypto coins, only real.

I think in that scenario there will be a lot of things more valuable than gold. Also, I’d rather just die if we get to the bartering stage….
Also, maybe I’m just naive, but I’ve always been an eternal optimist, I don’t plan for end of world scenarios because I like to think they aren’t going to happen.

Gold has intrinsic value. Meaning from time immemorial, humans beings have always valued gold.

Gold is permanent. It doesn’t tarnish, rot, dissolve or evaporate. You can bury gold and a thousand years from now it will be exactly the same as it was when it was buried. It is indestructible.

Gold is malleable. It can easily be made into any shape or form. You can cut it with a knife

As such, gold has been a constant throughout history and before. Currencies come and go. Governments come and go. Empires come and go.

You can’t eat gold. Well, you could but why? You can’t eat a dollar bill or a paper check, either. It requires absolutely no special care to keep. The most important thing about keeping gold is to not tell anybody if you have it or where it is. It will always be there. The local bank won’t be.

So…as long as humans have existed they have coveted gold. No matter what. Gold is bitcoin without the hassle of computers.

Here’s an anecdote. If you handed somebody a one ounce gold coin, as I have, every single time, that person will bounce that coin in his palm feeling the weight, the density, the color and the iridescence of solid gold. It’s mesmerizing. To everybody. Always has been. I’m guessing it always will be. Gold, for some reason, perhaps for some of those same reasons noted above, humans and gold go together.

That’s all I got.

A gold bar might be difficult to barter with for most ordinary day to day things.

Might help to also have coins.

Gold isn't like iron in that it rusts to nothing when left alone.

It is also difficult to obtain which creates a strong barrier to inflationary pressures.

It has industrial uses.

Local coin shop should give you spot or better but gold is so high now may be like 98%

Buy physical gold as insurance, emergency plan, off the books inheritance for your grand kids etc. Not really an investment short or medium term

My favorite was the crowie (shell money).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money

I buy silver, and every now and then gold, off one of the better known websites. https://www.apmex.com/

Basically, if you are buying, you pay X number of dollars per ounce over the spot price. If you decide to sell, you sell for X number of dollars per ounce under the spot price. Of course, this means you are going to lose money unless the spot price increases enough over what you paid to show a profit.

I don't worry at all about the apocalypse. And if the US dollar ever collapses, the entire world will be in chaos.

That said, if things get real bad, gold will have little value as it is not food, and it offers no direct protection. Bullets will be the real commodity that can easily be traded back and forth. In all the apocalypse movies the humans seem to have unlimited ammo and fire off a lot of bullets. And they always have gasoline, and tires with vehicles that drive.

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

Exactly.

If you can't eat it, shoot with it, fish with it, wear it, drink it, heat with it, power with it just buy a gold cup for your jock strap...much cheaper and the beating will hurt less.

Imagine bartering with gold...

Gold as an investment is a completely different scenario.

I was once in a grocery store in Chicken, Alaska and an old placer miner in front of me whipped out a small sack of gold dust to pay for his groceries. I though that was pretty cool. I felt transported back to 1899. Here in the lower 48, I suppose you sell your gold to a dealer, but he/she needs to make money, so you won't get full value. How do you sell it at full value?

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

Face to face

eBay sells at spot

Comical

If ya wanna attract a gold-digger ... it's essential :D

A little physical gold is purdy .... expensive to buy and sell tho' via a site or brick & mortar ... was spot +/- $50 ... then 100 per oz .... WAY back.

I ditched a few 100oz bars of silver years ago for some land... glad they be gone.

At least gold is portable ... if the SHTF ... all that hoarded silver and most guns & ammo, etc. gets left behind.

Land gets left behind too...

If real bigly SHTF :D

Exactly.

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 ____ .


.

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

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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Interesting, thanks.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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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.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1743918001.jpg

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