One and a half years ago (May, 2009) I ended four and five-year subscription offers due to the threat of future inflation and the threat that posed to Backwoods Home Magazine. Now I’m going to end three-year subscription offers, probably beginning with the next issue. The reason is the same — the threat of future inflation. I figure the government can only print so much money (or the Fed can buy only so many hundreds of billions of dollars in government debt) before inflation takes off.
But then I got a really cool idea!
Why not let people buy a one or two-year subscription with regular paper money, but have them buy three, four, and five-year subscriptions with silver coins. Junk silver — old silver dimes, quarters, and “Franklin” halves — is worth about $22 for every one dollar in face value of the coins, and silver dollars (which I prefer) are worth about $27 each. Paying in silver will protect the magazine against inflation because those coins will track inflation.
I’ll start it right away on the website, or as soon as Oliver can get a notice up. Anyone interested in doing this can go to several sites to buy silver coins. I’ve used APMEX and Monex. There is also Lynn Coins and others. I’m not that familiar with any of them, and the magazine is not affiliated in any way with any of them. If you live in the city, there’s also probably a coin dealer somewhere.
So beginning now, and for print issue readers beginning with next issue, you can buy multiple year issues, all the way up to five years — hell let’s go up to 10 years, if you buy with silver coin.
Following is the price schedule. I’ll discount years 3 to 10 pretty good.
1 year subscription — $1 in junk silver or 1 silver dollar
2 year subscription — $2 in junk silver
3 year subscription — $3 in junk silver coins or 2 silver dollars
4 year subscription — $4 in junk silver coins or 3 silver dollars
5 year subscription — $5 in junk silver coins or 4 silver dollars
6 year subscription — $6 in junk silver coins or 5 silver dollars
7 year subscription — $7 in junk silver coins or 5 silver dollars
8 year subscription — $8 in junk silver coins or 6 silver dollars
9 year subscription — $9 in junk silver coins or 7 silver dollars
10 year subscription – $10 in junk silver coins or 8 silver dollars
(Note that six and seven-year subscriptions are the same amount for silver dollars because $159 (the approximate price of a 7-year subscription) divided by $27 (the current price of a silver dollar) equals 5.88, so I rounded it down).
If you want to take advantage of this offer right now, go right ahead. Send your silver coins to Backwoods Home Magazine, P.O. Box 712, Gold Beach, OR 97444. Just attach a note that says it’s for “Dave’s silver coin offer.” (If you are afraid the silver coins may get lost in the mail, either send them FedEx or take out insurance on them.)
In fact, if you want to buy any of the anthologies and books we offer, you can buy them in silver coins and take 10% off the purchase price.
This will be interesting to see if this works. Maybe I’ll start a trend.
WARNING: Keep in mind that it must be silver coins you send us. If you send non-silver coins, such as the coins you may have in your pocket right now, we’ll send you merchandise worth the face value of those coins. We won’t spend money on postage to return non-silver coins. If you don’t know what a silver coin is, click on one of the links above.
If you have any questions (especially regarding the value of Kennedy half dollars), email me at editor@backwoodshome.com. Put in the subject line: “silver coin offer” or something that will tip me off it’s not spam.
P.S.: As you can see, I’ve already edited this post (Nov 20) because I had screwed up the numbers when initially posted Nov. 19. Also, silver prices fluctuate every day, so if they fluctuate too much I’ll have to make appropriate changes to this offer.
