Some neat stuff at the Coin Shop this afternoon and some strange rumors at a Club Meeting this eveni
keets
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I went into the local shop this morning to do some planning for a show three of us will be presenting in November. Along with the discussion was the flow of traffic in/out of the shop, and Lincoln Cents commanded the spotlight along with the crazy price of silver.
One older gentleman came in to sell a few items and he had a nice-evenly-toned-raw-brown 1955 DDO in a solid XF. These coins always amaze me, especially when they're red and no glass is needed to see the doubling. This one was a solid collector coin that my buddy snatched up and probably sold before the day was over. He also had three early ANACS photo-certificates of tough Lincoln Cents----a cleaned 1983 DDR and VF 1914-D and 1909-S/horizontal S, the first I've seen.
While we were having coffee someone called to ask if he had any 10 oz. silver bars and they showed up about an hour later to gladly pay the almost $8/oz. price for two of them!!!! Evidentally they haven't heard of the logic that says to buy low and sell high. I'm a bit stunned that silver is up to $7.698 at close, which brings us to the Club Meeting and the rumor mill..........
The guys seemed to be buzzing a bit this evening about that high close. The old boy I drive to this meeting is gonna ride in with me on Thursday to unload a few hundred more face. He does it every time silver closes high. I wonder where in the heck he has it all stashed at!!! While we were talking about where the price might go, somebody remarked that this is all happening without the help of the Hunt Brothers...............and that's when someone else said that they heard Bill Gates was buying silver at a breakneck pace. I gravely doubt that, he's too smart for that trap, but hey, stranger things have happened.
Another interesting piece of "fact or fiction" entails the tampering of slabbed coins. Evidentally one of the local dealers at the meeting said he'd had some other dealers tell him that the "Coin Doctors" are now injecting iodine through the sealed slab wall to cause toning. Now, that certainly sounds like high fiction to me, but again......................has anyone else heard any of these kinds of "Numismatic Urban Legends" before?? You know what an Urban Legend is, right?
WOWZER!!!!!! After all that, I needed the sanity of the U.S. Forum to chill me out!!
Al H.
One older gentleman came in to sell a few items and he had a nice-evenly-toned-raw-brown 1955 DDO in a solid XF. These coins always amaze me, especially when they're red and no glass is needed to see the doubling. This one was a solid collector coin that my buddy snatched up and probably sold before the day was over. He also had three early ANACS photo-certificates of tough Lincoln Cents----a cleaned 1983 DDR and VF 1914-D and 1909-S/horizontal S, the first I've seen.
While we were having coffee someone called to ask if he had any 10 oz. silver bars and they showed up about an hour later to gladly pay the almost $8/oz. price for two of them!!!! Evidentally they haven't heard of the logic that says to buy low and sell high. I'm a bit stunned that silver is up to $7.698 at close, which brings us to the Club Meeting and the rumor mill..........
The guys seemed to be buzzing a bit this evening about that high close. The old boy I drive to this meeting is gonna ride in with me on Thursday to unload a few hundred more face. He does it every time silver closes high. I wonder where in the heck he has it all stashed at!!! While we were talking about where the price might go, somebody remarked that this is all happening without the help of the Hunt Brothers...............and that's when someone else said that they heard Bill Gates was buying silver at a breakneck pace. I gravely doubt that, he's too smart for that trap, but hey, stranger things have happened.
Another interesting piece of "fact or fiction" entails the tampering of slabbed coins. Evidentally one of the local dealers at the meeting said he'd had some other dealers tell him that the "Coin Doctors" are now injecting iodine through the sealed slab wall to cause toning. Now, that certainly sounds like high fiction to me, but again......................has anyone else heard any of these kinds of "Numismatic Urban Legends" before?? You know what an Urban Legend is, right?
WOWZER!!!!!! After all that, I needed the sanity of the U.S. Forum to chill me out!!
Al H.
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Comments
Putting liquid iodine into a coin slab would be one messy situation. Hard to believe this would work.
NOTE: No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Type collector since 1981
Current focus 1855 date type set
BTW, I wouldn't make TOO big of a deal about Bill Gates buying silver. Many financial advisors recommend 5-10% of your assets go to silver/gold. What is (percentage-wise) a small hedge to Bill Gates is to us a serious position. When you hear of someone buying millions of ounces of silver, ask yourself first what percentage of their total wealth that is, then you can determine just how interested they really are in the market.
I've always suspected this number is significantly too high because it is so close to
total world mine production throughout history and doesn't seem to take into account
large amounts lost to photography and scrapped electrical equipment. Silver foil was
available at the supermarket when I was a child and it seems improbable that much of
this survived. Many of the old silver coin series lost up to 3% of their weight through
circulation, and attrition due to loss or destruction averages nearly 1% annually over
the very long term.
Much of this silver is locked up in products, tools and collectibles so is not available ex-
cept at far higher prices. Most silver comes as a by product of copper mining now days.
Lesser amounts are a by product of gold mining and direct silver mining.
On Coin Doctors: Last week it was reported to me that PhD chemist coin doctors, with deep pockets, are buying heavily. The source of this info was a collector friend who heard it from a well known and well respected specialist dealer.
Mike
Lincoln Wheats (1909 - 1958) Basic Set - Always Interested in Upgrading!
<< <i>291fifth - your first paragraph sounds the the Hunt brothers' strategy! Danger Will Robinson!!!.... when trying to "corner" any market. Demanding delivery on a commodities contract is fine, but to affect the market in a big way, you have to be long these contracts until they expire. This is tough to do when the market isn't rising. Sure, a short squeeze can happen, but the longs must have huge b*lls to ride it out to expiration. The leverage is great when it's in your favor, and it'll kill when when the market starts to move agin you!
Mike >>
Mike,
I'm not a metals speculator so I don't claim any special knowledge. In today's business world short term profits seem to be the only thing anyone cares about and I suspect that most of the buying of precious metals is aiming for that goal. Short term thinking usually leads to violent swings in value. It won't surprise me at all to see silver hit $11 or so and then drop like a rock shortly thereafter.
Personally, I'll just watch the Lincoln wheat price explosion we're seeing. Since I don't view my coins as an investment and I don't chase ridiculous prices, I can sit back and watch the craziness, and the inevitable "crash and burn."
Mike
Lincoln Wheats (1909 - 1958) Basic Set - Always Interested in Upgrading!
The problem with trying to corner the silver market is two-fold: when you own half of the world's available silver, you cannot sell (that is, cash out and take your profits) without forcing the silver market into a total collapse. Imagine what would happen if Bill Gates one day decided to sell every share of his Microsoft stock. It's easy to gain a significant position in the market, but you have to hold the position for a long time, slowly divesting of your silver. Meanwhile it costs you $150 million a year (and that was 25 years ago) to store it all.
The second part of the problem is the powers-that-be can essentially do whatever they want. They can increase your margin call, as they did with the Hunt brothers, suspend buying contracts, or suspend selling contracts. Or both. Someone else is in TOTAL control of the market.
Cladking - what percentage silver was in the foil? I do remember my Mom telling me that they saved/collected aluminum foil during the war.
I don't mean to sound political here so I'll put this as an open question instead of a comment.
Do any of you think that confidence [or rather the lack of confidence] in the U.S. economy and U.S. fiscal policy might have something to do with why metals prices are on the rise ?
Les
<< <i>Silver foil was available at the supermarket . . .
Cladking - what percentage silver was in the foil? I do remember my Mom telling me that they saved/collected aluminum foil during the war. >>
The package said it was sterling. (.925). It did look right for silver. It was fairly expensive (~$4.50)
(~$25 in todays money), but was fairly heavy. At least a few ounces. They probably didn't sell much
of it but when you add up all the silver that has been lost over the last few thousand years, you'd
think it would be substantial.