I held over $300.00 face 90% silver coins for 10+ years upto 1978, which at that time decided it was long enough and sold it for a bit above $3.00/ounce. Had I waited another year or so, the buy price was around $32.-$35./ounce. Talk about pissed, but you never know. I did do very well in August of 2011, when silver peaked at just shy of $50.00. I believe this time it has more room to run. I’ll be waiting for the peak next year! Zack.
So where are you guys selling to maximize your profits. One coin dealer in town and last I checked he was paying about 60% back of spot. I'm not going to leave that much on the table.
@Jeffnlu said:
So where are you guys selling to maximize your profits. One coin dealer in town and last I checked he was paying about 60% back of spot. I'm not going to leave that much on the table.
eBay sales remains VERY strong for 90%
Dave
Always looking for original, better date VF20-VF35 Barber quarters and halves, and a quality beer.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
I've had monster boxes, rolls of fractional platinum and gold, around 500 oz.. I just didn't have the personality to be sitting on a lot of metals plus its against my religion to be a hoarder.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
Has money ever been based on silver since the time of the pyramid when value was compared through barter to silver? Money was based on gold but this too is exceedingly dangerous to a modern economy for the exact same reasons but less dramatically. Gold has the tendency to cause panics, deflation, or inflation when used as money. Silver has been set to gold and maintained artificially at some given "price" but I'm aware of no money ever tied directly to silver. If it were Spain would have been destroyed by the new world instead of made powerful. The US would have collapsed when the magnitude of the discoveries in Nevada silver were recognized.
Silver is as important to the survival of the species as oxygen and sugar are to each of us making it a poor choice for use as money. Gold might make an excellent choice to use as money temporarily in the event of some collapse but a replacement need be found immediately. Even as a stopgap silver is no good as money.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
I'm expecting silver to sail well beyond $100 in the near term. Of course I've been wrong for many years and I'll continue to be wrong. But This thread is more about what if I'm right and I'm right now. I'm suggesting that collectors are well advised to continually trade up for better material and to trade between silver and gold to capture the extremes. Also we should be dumping high premium silver in favor of silver with huge discounts. The price relative value is not set in stone and fluctuates wildly. Capitalize on it. Buy nice attractive better date Morgans or Gem 40% and pay for it with whatever silver you have selling at the highest premium or lowest discount.
Even the little guy can come out ahead in these markets. Have fun. Godspeed
I'm suggesting that collectors are well advised to continually trade up for better material and to trade between silver and gold to capture the extremes. Also we should be dumping high premium silver in favor of silver with huge discounts.
This protects the coins we love that are important artefacts of human history from destruction.
IF WE MUST MELT MOST OF OUR COINS, AND I BELIEVE WE MUST, THEN LET"S MELT THE WORST OF THEM ONLY!
Right now silver and gold coins are a win win. Many collect ASE, Mexico Libertads, Canada, GB. Bullion material. My philosophy - keep on running that playbook until the defense stops it.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
I'm expecting silver to sail well beyond $100 in the near term. Of course I've been wrong for many years and I'll continue to be wrong. But This thread is more about what if I'm right and I'm right now. I'm suggesting that collectors are well advised to continually trade up for better material and to trade between silver and gold to capture the extremes. Also we should be dumping high premium silver in favor of silver with huge discounts. The price relative value is not set in stone and fluctuates wildly. Capitalize on it. Buy nice attractive better date Morgans or Gem 40% and pay for it with whatever silver you have selling at the highest premium or lowest discount.
Even the little guy can come out ahead in these markets. Have fun. Godspeed
I agree with most of that.
Happy holidays.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Has money ever been based on silver since the time of the pyramid when value was compared through barter to silver?...I'm aware of no money ever tied directly to silver. If it were Spain would have been destroyed by the new world instead of made powerful. The US would have collapsed when the magnitude of the discoveries in Nevada silver were recognized.
>
Not sure what you mean by this.
At numerous points in history, all around the world, silver coins were used as circulating money. The Roman denarius ranged from 98% silver to 5% silver, depending on the timeframe. Spanish 'piece of eight' milled dollars were assayed at about 89.24% silver. Common US coinage was 90% silver for about 150 years. For centuries, Chinese demand for silver coinage was insatiable; they imported silver coins from all over (mainly from Spain and Mexico by the 19th century).
How much more "tied directly to silver" could money be?
As you may know, the United States itself, in the Coinage Act of 1792, used a bimetallic standard for quite a while. The dollar coin - the basic monetary unit of the U.S. - was defined as a specific weight, not of gold, but of silver:
SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That there shall be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint, coins of gold, silver, and copper, of the following denominations, values and descriptions...Dollars or the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver...
I'll have to assume you're referring to a silver standard established through legislation. I don't know of any, but I'm far from an expert on world monetary systems through history. The United States, IIRC, was not alone in using a bimetallic standard that eventually caused problems. But to say that money was never tied to silver when money was made out of silver is prima facie absurd.
Regarding the statement "when value was compared through barter:" I believe it was Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years that argued the whole "humans used to barter everything" is a myth that flies in the face of archaeological evidence. Early humans basically traded things based on trust/a promise to pay later. In essence - debt. Not barter.
Regarding the statements "The US would have collapsed" or "Spain would have been destroyed" - that's not necessarily true, and needs a lot more nuance.
All depends where the silver ended up. If it were all exported, or used up in some productive new technology, the discoveries would have been very economically helpful. I agree that it probably would have, in reality, been destructive to a silver-only standard, but a glib statement about destroying powerful economies is, IMO, not helpful. Total economic collapse is not necessarily a certainty any more than saying "The California gold rush would have made a gold standard-based economy collapse."
Wikipedia cites an estimate of 12 million ounces of gold recovered in the first five years of the California gold rush. Clearly inflationary, and theoretically economically destructive to a gold standard. But neither the California nor the Nevada discoveries caused an epic collapse in the US or anywhere else.
Its funny because I thought I should have converted my nice coins into cash to aquire gold /silver while it was low, then sell into the current market to repurchase the nice coins later. Several reasons I didnt first of all, never thought price would get this high and sustain, second, I hate gold and silver bullion, with a passion, even though very easy to liquidate. Also, I have picked up some really nice coins over the past few years that I may not have had opportunity to re-aquire at a later time even with the extra cash. Ive done okay over the years flipping bullion that's come into shop during the run up, so its not a total miss out. My biggest problem now is the amount of money it takes to operate even a small time shop with bullion prices. anything substantial that comes available for myself in the coin arena, I have to be careful not to dig into funds it takes to buy/sell on daily basis.
Has money ever been based on silver since the time of the pyramid when value was compared through barter to silver?...I'm aware of no money ever tied directly to silver. If it were Spain would have been destroyed by the new world instead of made powerful. The US would have collapsed when the magnitude of the discoveries in Nevada silver were recognized.
>
Not sure what you mean by this.
At numerous points in history, all around the world, silver coins were used as circulating money. The Roman denarius ranged from 98% silver to 5% silver, depending on the timeframe. Spanish 'piece of eight' milled dollars were assayed at about 89.24% silver. Common US coinage was 90% silver for about 150 years. For centuries, Chinese demand for silver coinage was insatiable; they imported silver coins from all over (mainly from Spain and Mexico by the 19th century).
How much more "tied directly to silver" could money be?
As you may know, the United States itself, in the Coinage Act of 1792, used a bimetallic standard for quite a while. The dollar coin - the basic monetary unit of the U.S. - was defined as a specific weight, not of gold, but of silver:
SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That there shall be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint, coins of gold, silver, and copper, of the following denominations, values and descriptions...Dollars or the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver...
I'll have to assume you're referring to a silver standard established through legislation. I don't know of any, but I'm far from an expert on world monetary systems through history. The United States, IIRC, was not alone in using a bimetallic standard that eventually caused problems. But to say that money was never tied to silver when money was made out of silver is prima facie absurd.
Regarding the statement "when value was compared through barter:" I believe it was Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years that argued the whole "humans used to barter everything" is a myth that flies in the face of archaeological evidence. Early humans basically traded things based on trust/a promise to pay later. In essence - debt. Not barter.
Regarding the statements "The US would have collapsed" or "Spain would have been destroyed" - that's not necessarily true, and needs a lot more nuance.
All depends where the silver ended up. If it were all exported, or used up in some productive new technology, the discoveries would have been very economically helpful. I agree that it probably would have, in reality, been destructive to a silver-only standard, but a glib statement about destroying powerful economies is, IMO, not helpful. Total economic collapse is not necessarily a certainty any more than saying "The California gold rush would have made a gold standard-based economy collapse."
Wikipedia cites an estimate of 12 million ounces of gold recovered in the first five years of the California gold rush. Clearly inflationary, and theoretically economically destructive to a gold standard. But neither the California nor the Nevada discoveries caused an epic collapse in the US or anywhere else.
Perhaps I should just rephrase it to say the the perception of the value of silver varies more widely and over a shorter period than gold.
Changes in the perception of the value of gold have caused catastrophic failures in the past because gold is not always stable over short terms. A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic.
I believe there are possibilities for a more stable currency but we will be busy trying to save ours for a while.
@cladking said:
Perhaps I should just rephrase it to say the the perception of the value of silver varies more widely and over a shorter period than gold.
Changes in the perception of the value of gold have caused catastrophic failures in the past because gold is not always stable over short terms. A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic.
I believe there are possibilities for a more stable currency but we will be busy trying to save ours for a while.
Okay, you're talking volatility. Agreed; silver is historically more volatile than gold. There's an easy, twofold explanation for that: 1) it's cheaper, so a move of say $1 is a much larger percentage for silver than for gold; and 2) the dual industrial/monetary uses for silver create more fluctuations in demand.
"A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic." You mean like the entire world's monetary system since 1971?...
I like your optimism about saving our currency, but my read of history - as well as factors like the $38 trillion national debt at, what, 130% of GDP? - leads me to believe it's likely doomed. Unless there's a historic innovation that rescues us, the only question is when, not if.
Changes in the perception of the value of gold have caused catastrophic failures in the past because gold is not always stable over short terms. A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic.
I suppose this is really what's at issue here. Gold is more stable because every year the amount of gold goes up in a very predictable pattern but the supply of silver erodes away erratically such as from pieces of eight and since it's been found in a 16: 1 ratio can come in huge spikes. The above ground supply is erratic as wear is tallied and vast new supplies are found.
Now we tally the wear in a different way; we have to pick and choose which coins to melt and that is best done by collectors pruning the more worn and less desirable coins through trade. Let's see how much flows back to the refiners yet again and how much we can save.
@cladking said:
Perhaps I should just rephrase it to say the the perception of the value of silver varies more widely and over a shorter period than gold.
Changes in the perception of the value of gold have caused catastrophic failures in the past because gold is not always stable over short terms. A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic.
I believe there are possibilities for a more stable currency but we will be busy trying to save ours for a while.
Okay, you're talking volatility. Agreed; silver is historically more volatile than gold. There's an easy, twofold explanation for that: 1) it's cheaper, so a move of say $1 is a much larger percentage for silver than for gold; and 2) the dual industrial/monetary uses for silver create more fluctuations in demand.
"A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic." You mean like the entire world's monetary system since 1971?...
I like your optimism about saving our currency, but my read of history - as well as factors like the $38 trillion national debt at, what, 130% of GDP? - leads me to believe it's likely doomed. Unless there's a historic innovation that rescues us, the only question is when, not if.
You might be surprised by how quickly AI can introduce efficiencies into our remarkably inefficient economy. We might increase our overall efficiency an order of magnitude in ten years meaning nearly so much increase in total wealth that will accrue principally to who and what works. Just having wealth flow into what works instead of to waste or to accumulators will be transformative.
This may be a little hyperbolic but such conditions would allow us to save the currency and begin paying down the debt. Even if I'[m wrong about this fusion power will still create vast wealth in a few years. No matter which way or means we survive the future there will be a huge increase in silver consumption. There are many ways we might fail or collapse and only one way we will succeed and that way will require us to prune our collections.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
Eventually we'll move beyond golds and uncontrolled fiat and incorporate the taxing bodies themselves. Of course we'll still have to contend with stock splits and dividend cuts. It would probably be logical to issue some money as precious metal and especially copper or nickel.
Coins have always been lost and degraded, sometimes slow and sometimes fast but it's continual and it even varies as it applies to each series. Right now memorial cents are moving from very high attrition to far higher just as war nickel destruction is about to kick into overdrive.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
@Morgan13 said:
I sold 150 ounces at $25.
DUH!
I had no idea it would go so high.
Im wondering if I should buy a few thousand dollars worth now.
What do you think?
Risky. Buying high and hoping for it going higher is chancy.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
The grain in a silo adds zero to GDP.
A silver cryptocurrency without fixing the price of silver would create chaos in the marketplace. You would be unable to price anything until the moment of sale. You would also have wild swings in your net worth.
The currency exchange problem is not limited to convertibility. Currency exchange rates arise due to multiple factors not simply the price of a single commodity. Look at the multiple crises in the Eurozone in the poorer countries due to the elimination of currency exchanges.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
I don't see any means to prevent the value of silver from evolving and changing. Some day they'll drag a silver asteroid into earth orbit. What effect would that have on your currency?
Trimmed my (paper) silver position by ~40% this morning. It’s been a highly profitable trade, with my only regret being not buying more of it. However, it’s starting to feel manic, so right-sizing my position felt prudent.
I may deploy some of the profits into numismatic (pre-33) gold given the premium compression on nice examples. Even with gold at ATH, it is much less volatile than silver, and IMO, is unlikely to correct as hard as silver might from these levels.
@Morgan13 said:
I sold 150 ounces at $25.
DUH!
I had no idea it would go so high.
Im wondering if I should buy a few thousand dollars worth now.
What do you think?
Risky. Buying high and hoping for it going higher is chancy.
How do you know it’s high?
If, for whatever reason, it trades at $500 this time next year, would you still call today’s price high?
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
The grain in a silo adds zero to GDP.
I'm not sure how you arrive at that. The definition is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders. I fail to see how that would not increase that number. Please explain.
A silver cryptocurrency without fixing the price of silver would create chaos in the marketplace. You would be unable to price anything until the moment of sale. You would also have wild swings in your net worth.
I'm not sure why this would be the case and again, I'd prefer to use gold rather than silver, but it requires a different paradigm of thinking of value in terms of real things rather than made up fiat. As they say an ounce of gold through history has always been able to buy a very fine suit or a cow. While I'm sure there have been brief periods of time where this wasn't true, it doesn't sound very volatile to me.
The currency exchange problem is not limited to convertibility. Currency exchange rates arise due to multiple factors not simply the price of a single commodity. Look at what the multiple crises in the Eurozone in the poorer countries die to the elimination of currency exchanges.
That's because fiat currencies are based on nothing. If we fix values to commodities there is a stable basis for establishing value.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
The grain in a silo adds zero to GDP.
I'm not sure how you arrive at that. The definition is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders. I fail to see how that would not increase that number. Please explain.
A silver cryptocurrency without fixing the price of silver would create chaos in the marketplace. You would be unable to price anything until the moment of sale. You would also have wild swings in your net worth.
I'm not sure why this would be the case and again, I'd prefer to use gold rather than silver, but it requires a different paradigm of thinking of value in terms of real things rather than made up fiat. As they say an ounce of gold through history has always been able to buy a very fine suit or a cow. While I'm sure there have been brief periods of time where this wasn't true, it doesn't sound very volatile to me.
The currency exchange problem is not limited to convertibility. Currency exchange rates arise due to multiple factors not simply the price of a single commodity. Look at what the multiple crises in the Eurozone in the poorer countries die to the elimination of currency exchanges.
That's because fiat currencies are based on nothing. If we fix values to commodities there is a stable basis for establishing value.
Your grain only adds to GDP when or leaves the silo.
Look at the price of silver and gold lately. Again, gold stability through history was achieved by fixing the price.
It had nothing to do with fiat currency. Currency exchange fluctuations represent changes in RELATIVE productivity between countries and internal economic conditions. If you fix exchange rates, like the Eurozone did, inefficient countries with debt issues like Greece and Spain had skyrocketing unemployment and near defaults because they couldn't export. In a normal, freely fluctuating exchange system, the Greece Drachma would have dropped relative to the German Mark to drive exports.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
.
Prior to mid-1966, the US Treasury "pegged" the price of silver at $1.29 per troy oz. At that level, a silver dollar had $1 worth of silver in it. The US Treasury sold silver into the market to cap the price. But they started running low on silver due to the sales and had to abandon the practice in July 1966 once the copper-nickel clad coins were established in commerce, What silver the US Treasury had left was largely taken up by silver certificate redemption until June 1968.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
I don't see any means to prevent the value of silver from evolving and changing. Some day they'll drag a silver asteroid into earth orbit. What effect would that have on your currency?
Silver is up 10% today, now just short of $80 an ounce.
I lost my easy ability to post phone images here, but I have been capturing the rocket move today.
I can easily post on my facebook page but no longer here.
At the moment Morgan & Peace junk have $61.28 silver in them. Junk 90% is $ 57.34 a dollar.
1. Silver is uniquely dual-purpose: monetary and industrial
Silver is far too valuable for money. But even if it were as plentiful as gold in Ft Knox it is too unstable for use as money. Sure you could set its value far above what supply and demand could cause and use it as money but then it would become too plentiful causing economic mayhem.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
Jmlanzaf continues to console himself for selling at $50 😂😂
Nope.
No one is smart enough to know when the peak is. I sold at $40-something in 2011, near the peak. Just lucky. Didn't know it was peaking. Didn't care.
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the e
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
@cladking said: Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
The grain in a silo adds zero to GDP.
I'm not sure how you arrive at that. The definition is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders. I fail to see how that would not increase that number. Please explain.
A silver cryptocurrency without fixing the price of silver would create chaos in the marketplace. You would be unable to price anything until the moment of sale. You would also have wild swings in your net worth.
I'm not sure why this would be the case and again, I'd prefer to use gold rather than silver, but it requires a different paradigm of thinking of value in terms of real things rather than made up fiat. As they say an ounce of gold through history has always been able to buy a very fine suit or a cow. While I'm sure there have been brief periods of time where this wasn't true, it doesn't sound very volatile to me.
The currency exchange problem is not limited to convertibility. Currency exchange rates arise due to multiple factors not simply the price of a single commodity. Look at what the multiple crises in the Eurozone in the poorer countries die to the elimination of currency exchanges.
That's because fiat currencies are based on nothing. If we fix values to commodities there is a stable basis for establishing value.
Your grain only adds to GDP when or leaves the silo.
That's probably a technicality as that isn't required in the definition I saw, and I don't want to argue about the official definition. I guess the assumption is that the grain will be sold and consumed vs left to rot which of course would not add to GDP and is an unlikely scenario. Either way, back to the original point, my production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true that the economy couldn't grow faster than the silver supply.
Look at the price of silver and gold lately. Again, gold stability through history was achieved by fixing the price.
Was that the goal or just a convenient way to facilitate commerce in the days when markets were very inefficient?
It had nothing to do with fiat currency. Currency exchange fluctuations represent changes in RELATIVE productivity between countries and internal economic conditions. If you fix exchange rates, like the Eurozone did, inefficient countries with debt issues like Greece and Spain had skyrocketing unemployment and near defaults because they couldn't export. In a normal, freely fluctuating exchange system, the Greece Drachma would have dropped relative to the German Mark to drive exports.
OK sure, but I'm not sure why fixing the dollar to gold at a certain price would cause exports to dry up. As an ounce of gold will buy you a cow in the US, I presume that's the same in other countries as well. The price of a cow for export would still be an ounce of gold.
@Morgan13 said:
I sold 150 ounces at $25.
DUH!
I had no idea it would go so high.
Im wondering if I should buy a few thousand dollars worth now.
What do you think?
At these prices, consider SLV EFT for short term trading.
@Morgan13 said:
I sold 150 ounces at $25.
DUH!
I had no idea it would go so high.
Im wondering if I should buy a few thousand dollars worth now.
What do you think?
Since we're waxing nostalgic... In 2003/4, I sold two volumes of JFK memorial silver... 200 half dollar size 90% coins, along with 2 or 3 rolls of circulated Washies and a half dozen Morgan Dollars when silver was around $5 oz. I had lugged this stuff around for years and it never really budged... until I sold it!! I still have fond memories of bulk bins with circulated Morgan and Peace Dollars for around $8 each... grist for the tooth fairy! ah, the good 'ole days...
Collecting: Dansco 7070; Middle Date Large Cents (VF-AU); Box of 20;
Comments
Whenever you need it, or have a better use for it.
Trying to time the market - in anything - is likely to result in frustration and regret. It may work out for you, but the odds aren't in your favor.
The most I try to do is buy when prices have fallen and people are panicking/giving up. That usually works out okay for me, but YMMV
Serving the greater Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill, PA area
https://zenithbullionconsulting.wordpress.com/
I held over $300.00 face 90% silver coins for 10+ years upto 1978, which at that time decided it was long enough and sold it for a bit above $3.00/ounce. Had I waited another year or so, the buy price was around $32.-$35./ounce. Talk about pissed, but you never know. I did do very well in August of 2011, when silver peaked at just shy of $50.00. I believe this time it has more room to run. I’ll be waiting for the peak next year! Zack.
So where are you guys selling to maximize your profits. One coin dealer in town and last I checked he was paying about 60% back of spot. I'm not going to leave that much on the table.
eBay sales remains VERY strong for 90%
Dave
I just called a LCS today and they are buying at 92% back of spot. That's way better than I expected.
Do Mercury dimes, any 90% proofs, any 90% UNC coins that are common dates have any numismatic value at today's silver prices?
USAF (Ret.) 1985 - 2005. E-4B Aircraft Maint. Crew Chief and Contracting Officer.
✓ Everyman Mint State Carson City Morgan Dollars (1878 – 1893)
✓ Morgan Dollar GSA Hoard (1878 – 1891)
✓ Everyman Mint State Lincoln Cents (1909 – 1958)
✓ Matte Proof Toned Lincoln Cents (1909 – 1916)
I got about 75% of spot at a LCS for my sterling flatware….
Other passions include golf, Moto Guzzi motorcycles, and Euro motorcycles in general.
Chris
Not many
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Silver may be valuable but it is also highly divisible and dilutable (ie, 35%, 40%, 90%).
True that it's impossible to time the peak, but it's very possible to know that this move is just getting going and no where near the end.
Why do you say it's unstable? Because of it's ratio to fiat at any given moment? If so is it the value of the silver that's changing or the value of the fiat?
Money is what people think it is so you need something stable to not shake that confidence. But the supply, demand, and perception of silver are always changing so the amount of money based on silver would bounce up and down. It would be like using corn as money. The first bad growing year in Iowa and the world economy would collapse.
Silver wouldn't last a whole year.
So based on what you're saying, it was crazy buying things before 1965 with prices constantly changing, and then once they stopped using PMs in money prices stabilized? Got it.
I've had monster boxes, rolls of fractional platinum and gold, around 500 oz.. I just didn't have the personality to be sitting on a lot of metals plus its against my religion to be a hoarder.
I have been hearing about $100 silver for 25 years. So, while it is possible to THINK that the move is just getting going, the track record of prognosticators is HORRIBLE. And every time silver pulls back, the silver bulls just scream "market manipulation", they are oddly never wrong even though they've been wrong for decades.
And, whether the move is beginning or not, if you can't call the peak, you simply can't time the sale. To wit, if you hold at $70 because you 'KNOW" (think) that it's going to $100, if it peaks at $90 and drops back, you could well end up selling at $70 a year from now. That's a loss of 10% in opportunity costs.
I know plenty of people, including the man I mentioned earlier, who missed selling opportunities and ended up holding losing positions for years. So, I'll repeat it: you pick your price, you make your sale and you move on. There is NO GUARANTEE of future price increases. Not now. Not ever.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
This argument is backwards. The only reason money was stable (inflation still existed) for most of the pre-1965 period is because the price of gold and silver were FIXED. If we were still using silver money now, it would be chaotic and there would be NO COINS available for commerce as they would all have been melted.
You also have the problem of economic growth. You can't grow the economy faster than the silver supply.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Has money ever been based on silver since the time of the pyramid when value was compared through barter to silver? Money was based on gold but this too is exceedingly dangerous to a modern economy for the exact same reasons but less dramatically. Gold has the tendency to cause panics, deflation, or inflation when used as money. Silver has been set to gold and maintained artificially at some given "price" but I'm aware of no money ever tied directly to silver. If it were Spain would have been destroyed by the new world instead of made powerful. The US would have collapsed when the magnitude of the discoveries in Nevada silver were recognized.
Silver is as important to the survival of the species as oxygen and sugar are to each of us making it a poor choice for use as money. Gold might make an excellent choice to use as money temporarily in the event of some collapse but a replacement need be found immediately. Even as a stopgap silver is no good as money.
I'm expecting silver to sail well beyond $100 in the near term. Of course I've been wrong for many years and I'll continue to be wrong. But This thread is more about what if I'm right and I'm right now. I'm suggesting that collectors are well advised to continually trade up for better material and to trade between silver and gold to capture the extremes. Also we should be dumping high premium silver in favor of silver with huge discounts. The price relative value is not set in stone and fluctuates wildly. Capitalize on it. Buy nice attractive better date Morgans or Gem 40% and pay for it with whatever silver you have selling at the highest premium or lowest discount.
Even the little guy can come out ahead in these markets. Have fun. Godspeed
This protects the coins we love that are important artefacts of human history from destruction.
IF WE MUST MELT MOST OF OUR COINS, AND I BELIEVE WE MUST, THEN LET"S MELT THE WORST OF THEM ONLY!
Right now silver and gold coins are a win win. Many collect ASE, Mexico Libertads, Canada, GB. Bullion material. My philosophy - keep on running that playbook until the defense stops it.
I agree with most of that.
Happy holidays.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
>
Not sure what you mean by this.
At numerous points in history, all around the world, silver coins were used as circulating money. The Roman denarius ranged from 98% silver to 5% silver, depending on the timeframe. Spanish 'piece of eight' milled dollars were assayed at about 89.24% silver. Common US coinage was 90% silver for about 150 years. For centuries, Chinese demand for silver coinage was insatiable; they imported silver coins from all over (mainly from Spain and Mexico by the 19th century).
How much more "tied directly to silver" could money be?
As you may know, the United States itself, in the Coinage Act of 1792, used a bimetallic standard for quite a while. The dollar coin - the basic monetary unit of the U.S. - was defined as a specific weight, not of gold, but of silver:
I'll have to assume you're referring to a silver standard established through legislation. I don't know of any, but I'm far from an expert on world monetary systems through history. The United States, IIRC, was not alone in using a bimetallic standard that eventually caused problems. But to say that money was never tied to silver when money was made out of silver is prima facie absurd.
Regarding the statement "when value was compared through barter:" I believe it was Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years that argued the whole "humans used to barter everything" is a myth that flies in the face of archaeological evidence. Early humans basically traded things based on trust/a promise to pay later. In essence - debt. Not barter.
Regarding the statements "The US would have collapsed" or "Spain would have been destroyed" - that's not necessarily true, and needs a lot more nuance.
All depends where the silver ended up. If it were all exported, or used up in some productive new technology, the discoveries would have been very economically helpful. I agree that it probably would have, in reality, been destructive to a silver-only standard, but a glib statement about destroying powerful economies is, IMO, not helpful. Total economic collapse is not necessarily a certainty any more than saying "The California gold rush would have made a gold standard-based economy collapse."
Wikipedia cites an estimate of 12 million ounces of gold recovered in the first five years of the California gold rush. Clearly inflationary, and theoretically economically destructive to a gold standard. But neither the California nor the Nevada discoveries caused an epic collapse in the US or anywhere else.
Serving the greater Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill, PA area
https://zenithbullionconsulting.wordpress.com/
Its funny because I thought I should have converted my nice coins into cash to aquire gold /silver while it was low, then sell into the current market to repurchase the nice coins later. Several reasons I didnt first of all, never thought price would get this high and sustain, second, I hate gold and silver bullion, with a passion, even though very easy to liquidate. Also, I have picked up some really nice coins over the past few years that I may not have had opportunity to re-aquire at a later time even with the extra cash. Ive done okay over the years flipping bullion that's come into shop during the run up, so its not a total miss out. My biggest problem now is the amount of money it takes to operate even a small time shop with bullion prices. anything substantial that comes available for myself in the coin arena, I have to be careful not to dig into funds it takes to buy/sell on daily basis.
Perhaps I should just rephrase it to say the the perception of the value of silver varies more widely and over a shorter period than gold.
Changes in the perception of the value of gold have caused catastrophic failures in the past because gold is not always stable over short terms. A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic.
I believe there are possibilities for a more stable currency but we will be busy trying to save ours for a while.
Okay, you're talking volatility. Agreed; silver is historically more volatile than gold. There's an easy, twofold explanation for that: 1) it's cheaper, so a move of say $1 is a much larger percentage for silver than for gold; and 2) the dual industrial/monetary uses for silver create more fluctuations in demand.
"A system that excluded the relative stability of gold would be quite erratic." You mean like the entire world's monetary system since 1971?...
I like your optimism about saving our currency, but my read of history - as well as factors like the $38 trillion national debt at, what, 130% of GDP? - leads me to believe it's likely doomed. Unless there's a historic innovation that rescues us, the only question is when, not if.
Serving the greater Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill, PA area
https://zenithbullionconsulting.wordpress.com/
I suppose this is really what's at issue here. Gold is more stable because every year the amount of gold goes up in a very predictable pattern but the supply of silver erodes away erratically such as from pieces of eight and since it's been found in a 16: 1 ratio can come in huge spikes. The above ground supply is erratic as wear is tallied and vast new supplies are found.
Now we tally the wear in a different way; we have to pick and choose which coins to melt and that is best done by collectors pruning the more worn and less desirable coins through trade. Let's see how much flows back to the refiners yet again and how much we can save.
You might be surprised by how quickly AI can introduce efficiencies into our remarkably inefficient economy. We might increase our overall efficiency an order of magnitude in ten years meaning nearly so much increase in total wealth that will accrue principally to who and what works. Just having wealth flow into what works instead of to waste or to accumulators will be transformative.
This may be a little hyperbolic but such conditions would allow us to save the currency and begin paying down the debt. Even if I'[m wrong about this fusion power will still create vast wealth in a few years. No matter which way or means we survive the future there will be a huge increase in silver consumption. There are many ways we might fail or collapse and only one way we will succeed and that way will require us to prune our collections.
The thing about price predictions it that people are rarely wrong, they're just early. This time is different though. As you note nothing is certain but there are a confluence of factors that make near term ~$100 silver prices to be a very high probability. Among the factors are decades long technical analysis patterns, technical innovations driving increased industrial demand, classification of silver as a strategic mineral by the US, a new era of QE, and a shift in view of PMs by investment banks/firms, tightening of physical supplies, and a restructuring of overall global trade. You're right though, catching the top is a fool's errand but it's also wise to look at the probability of higher prices before selling. Of course this is easier said than done, especially if you don't follow the market factors closely.
Why would they all be melted? They can always mint more. But assuming you can have a reliably backed digital proxy for silver to accommodate the modern speed of commerce and electronic transactions, there's no need for physical coins to have a silver (or gold) based currency in the form of a cryptocurrency. Take 1B ounces of silver, lock them in a vault, create 1B silver crypto coins divisible to 10 places, and then shift the economy to price things in silver crypto coin. You could even make the crypto redeemable in certain quantities. The numbers are just examples and can be adjusted but you get the point. It can be done. The problem with a non-fiat solution is that governments are seemingly unable to stay within established budgets and want the ability to control money supply but I digress. Silver is probably not the metal of choice due to industrial and transient industrial demand, gold would be better. I surmise that a gold backed currency would provide the ultimate in stability provided that there is no explosion in demand for gold for industrial or other uses which is the problem with using silver.
"Stable money" is an academic theory and we can argue about how you determine what that means. As we know the USD is worth something like 1-2% of what it was in 1913, so I'm not sure you can call it stable. And we're pretty lucky in the US - other currencies have had it worse. Gold and silver have had their ups and downs as have all currencies and commodities. For measuring wealth, Federal Reserve Notes are one way, Oz of Au and Ag are another, cars, shares of stock, cattle, oil wells etc are others, but all of them have volatility. I guess what I'm saying is that there really is no "stable money" but measuring wealth and prices in gold is probably the one of the most fair an objective ways to compare value.
I don't think that's correct. Money is only a medium of exchange and a store of value. I can expand the economy by harvesting a field full of grain, making furniture, or raising cattle. Conversely I can sit on the couch and not expand the economy. The quantity of silver in the world does not affect the value of the grain I harvested, although the exchange rate may fluctuate.
All productive activities get converted to dollars, including your field of grain. There's a reason there used to be "panics" every 10 years or so on the gold standard.
They can't mint $1 silver coins when silver doubles in value unless you use half as much silver. In that case, you aren't actually using hard money. This isn't even arguable, it happened in the past when silver prices spiked due to wars and the like. If you push the dollar to silver or gold, you either fix the price of silver/ gold or the money all gets melted when the price spikes.
Even during the gold standard, they actually changed the fix from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. How's that for massive inflation?
I think it's also fair to consider the currency exchange problem. If the US fixes the dollar to gold at, say, $4000 per ounce and no one else does. What happens to currency exchanges? Exports would likely dry up.
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Eventually we'll move beyond golds and uncontrolled fiat and incorporate the taxing bodies themselves. Of course we'll still have to contend with stock splits and dividend cuts. It would probably be logical to issue some money as precious metal and especially copper or nickel.
Coins have always been lost and degraded, sometimes slow and sometimes fast but it's continual and it even varies as it applies to each series. Right now memorial cents are moving from very high attrition to far higher just as war nickel destruction is about to kick into overdrive.
There are enough war nickels left to feed industry for several weeks dependent whether we hold any back or not.
While I don't disagree that most productive activities get converted to local fiat, my point still stands that if the world were to stand still while I produced a field full of grain, I just grew the economy while the silver supply stayed the same. My production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true.
That's because you're stuck in a mindset of traditional coinage which is assigned a fiat value. In my example of a silver cryptocurrency the crypto would represent a quantity of silver, not a fiat value of silver. Then you would just change prices and exchange rates but the silver crypto would remain stable.
I suppose that would depend heavily on whether or not the "gold window" is open. For those who don't understand the reference, stated differently, that would depend on whether foreign holders of dollars would be allowed to exchange USD for US gold. Even then there are enough alternatives now that I suspect international trade would just switch to cryptocurrencies even more than they already have.
Appreciate your honesty.
The IRS is too.
I sold 150 ounces at $25.
DUH!
I had no idea it would go so high.
Im wondering if I should buy a few thousand dollars worth now.
What do you think?
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
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JWP
Risky. Buying high and hoping for it going higher is chancy.
The grain in a silo adds zero to GDP.
A silver cryptocurrency without fixing the price of silver would create chaos in the marketplace. You would be unable to price anything until the moment of sale. You would also have wild swings in your net worth.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I don't see any means to prevent the value of silver from evolving and changing. Some day they'll drag a silver asteroid into earth orbit. What effect would that have on your currency?
Trimmed my (paper) silver position by ~40% this morning. It’s been a highly profitable trade, with my only regret being not buying more of it. However, it’s starting to feel manic, so right-sizing my position felt prudent.
I may deploy some of the profits into numismatic (pre-33) gold given the premium compression on nice examples. Even with gold at ATH, it is much less volatile than silver, and IMO, is unlikely to correct as hard as silver might from these levels.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
How do you know it’s high?
If, for whatever reason, it trades at $500 this time next year, would you still call today’s price high?
I'm not sure how you arrive at that. The definition is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders. I fail to see how that would not increase that number. Please explain.
I'm not sure why this would be the case and again, I'd prefer to use gold rather than silver, but it requires a different paradigm of thinking of value in terms of real things rather than made up fiat. As they say an ounce of gold through history has always been able to buy a very fine suit or a cow. While I'm sure there have been brief periods of time where this wasn't true, it doesn't sound very volatile to me.
That's because fiat currencies are based on nothing. If we fix values to commodities there is a stable basis for establishing value.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
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Prior to mid-1966, the US Treasury "pegged" the price of silver at $1.29 per troy oz. At that level, a silver dollar had $1 worth of silver in it. The US Treasury sold silver into the market to cap the price. But they started running low on silver due to the sales and had to abandon the practice in July 1966 once the copper-nickel clad coins were established in commerce, What silver the US Treasury had left was largely taken up by silver certificate redemption until June 1968.
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Silver prez dollars in circulation??
Out of curiosity, what percent of Morgan and Peace dollars are worth less than $100? It has to be a large percentage.
Silver is up 10% today, now just short of $80 an ounce.
I lost my easy ability to post phone images here, but I have been capturing the rocket move today.
I can easily post on my facebook page but no longer here.
At the moment Morgan & Peace junk have $61.28 silver in them. Junk 90% is $ 57.34 a dollar.
Big move today @Mr Lindy loving every minute of it……
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That's probably a technicality as that isn't required in the definition I saw, and I don't want to argue about the official definition. I guess the assumption is that the grain will be sold and consumed vs left to rot which of course would not add to GDP and is an unlikely scenario. Either way, back to the original point, my production of grain is not a zero sum event causing the equivalent loss of value elsewhere in the economy in order to make your statement true that the economy couldn't grow faster than the silver supply.
Was that the goal or just a convenient way to facilitate commerce in the days when markets were very inefficient?
OK sure, but I'm not sure why fixing the dollar to gold at a certain price would cause exports to dry up. As an ounce of gold will buy you a cow in the US, I presume that's the same in other countries as well. The price of a cow for export would still be an ounce of gold.
At these prices, consider SLV EFT for short term trading.
90% or more
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Since we're waxing nostalgic... In 2003/4, I sold two volumes of JFK memorial silver... 200 half dollar size 90% coins, along with 2 or 3 rolls of circulated Washies and a half dozen Morgan Dollars when silver was around $5 oz. I had lugged this stuff around for years and it never really budged... until I sold it!! I still have fond memories of bulk bins with circulated Morgan and Peace Dollars for around $8 each... grist for the tooth fairy! ah, the good 'ole days...
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100
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