Gold & Silver

[cmg]

I just got the lastest issue and someone had a question about how much cash is advisable to keep on hand and the response was to keep a little cash but to keep more in gold and silver. My question is...in what form would it be best to keep gold and silver. In coins? jewelry? or other forms? I would like to start accumulating some and don't know in what form would be best and why.
Thanks

[kawalekm]

Hi CMG
What I've been accumulating for years now are silver coins. I could have gotten gold but I chose silver for several reasons.

1) US Silver dollors are instantly recognizible by a majority of people. Since it's legal tender, it's illegal to conterfit it. If someone hands you something that looks like a silver dollor, you can be confident that it is indeed a REAL silver dollor. With jewelry, you have to take the word of the sellor that it is indeed what they say it is. Is it gold, or gold plate? How would you know?

2) Coins have collector's value because they are date stamped. That means the 1 oz silver coin I bought in 1998 is worth more than the 1oz silver coin I bought in 2008. So, even if the price of the metal goes down, it will retain some of it's collector's value.

3) I prefer silver over gold because the coinage is in more reasonable dollor amounts for most real world purchases. Say for example there was a market crash and banks close. Your local grocer is willing to sell food to you, but payment must be in hard currency. Do you want to lay down a single gold coin (say 950$/oz) to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk? Silver is more divisable than gold and more easy to conduct transactions in.

How much? Good question. I've never just gone out and bought an horde of silver. All my metal purchases have been in relatively small, yearly purchases, slowly increasing over the years. I now have coins for all years going back to the 90's. I think it's a good rule of thumb to have at least enough metals on hand to pay for a year's taxes on the land. Now matter how bad it gets, I know that the government won't be able to use back taxes as a way to take my land away from me!
Michael

[cmg]

Thank you!
So, would I go to the bank to buy silver coins?

[WileyCoyote]

I have a very good friend who buys silver... in bars. Small bars, worth about $55 apiece. Every paycheck he goes to a pawnshop and orders two or three. He has quite a large storage bin of them; he's been doing it awhile. The reason he buys the smaller silver bars is that they are lighter than gold, they are not as expensive as gold, and there is not a lot of comment on his minor little purchases. The other reason is that, bluntly, he wants the seller to be able to make change.. or it won't hurt him too badly fiscally if the seller can't, unlike a $350 gold bar or more. Not to mention that if anyone DID see him utilizing the small bars, they would not assume that he has a lot of large, unwieldy bars to guard.

He uses a pawnshop, but told me that most jewelers as well as pawnshops have access to the bars and coins of silver and gold.

[edward_4576]

This an interesting thread, and (as usual) I have some input. First a little history; remember pieces of eight? That's when gold coins were minted in such a way so the coin could be easily devided into 8 pieces.

As stated above you walk up to someone with a gold coin some people may get a bit greedy. Silver on the other hand doesn't spark gold fever (remember the movie)
Treasure of the Sierra Madra
Truely silver coins will be of a greater use then gold and probably a bit easier to obtain as well. Of the options for getting coins would be to look for pre 1965 US mint coins:

http://www.coinflation.com/

Another source would be Liberty dollars:

http://www.libertydollar.org/

One important thing to keep in mind abut the pre65 silver is that they are considered collector coins and numismatic collectables can not be confiscated by the US government.

[cmg]

THANK YOU ALL so much for the great info.

cmg

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

One important thing to keep in mind abut the pre65 silver is that they are considered collector coins and numismatic collectables can not be confiscated by the US government.

I'm with you, Ed, but I guess we'll have to wait and see where this train stops next.

[Delmar_Morgan]

I have been buying my silver from a jewlery/coin shop also have bought some from the American Precious Metals Exchange at www.apmex.com never know when you might need it.