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leahcim

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2 hours ago, Old Glock guy said:

Curious how other NJ residents are dealing with the sales tax issue in acquiring PM's?

Wait, what????

Comrade Murphy wants 7% up front, then he will want a CG cut when I sell?  I guess I should have expected it in NJ.

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4 minutes ago, leahcim said:

Wait, what????

Comrade Murphy wants 7% up front, then he will want a CG cut when I sell?  I guess I should have expected it in NJ.

Yeah, sad but true.  It adds over $100 to the cost of an ounce of gold, over and above the premium. Then CG on the way out.

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3 hours ago, Old Glock guy said:

Curious how other NJ residents are dealing with the sales tax issue in acquiring PM's?

Get them from sources like Craigslist and other selling sites... no record of purchase... problem solved....

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For the benefit of those thinking of getting into PMs, thought I would share my experience as a novice so far.

·         All my purchases so far were through JM Bullion.  Am pleased so far with all aspects of their selection and service.   The other reputable online dealers mentioned above are likely fine as well.  Just have not dealt with them yet.

·         I was very apprehensive at the outset making such potentially expensive purchases online. So my first order was relatively small so I could get comfortable and develop trust of JM Bullion and their ordering and shipping processes.

·         I had in mind what I wanted to purchase in total.  I then spread that out over a number of additional orders as opposed to one large order. 

·         The price, which includes NJ Sales Tax, is locked in at the time of the order.  Same for the quantity you ordered, even if it subsequently goes out of stock.  I.e. no surprises.

·         In all cases, I paid using Echeck/ACH, utilizing funds in my checking account.  Purchasing is as easy as a few clicks of the mouse after you initially set things up.  (They use a financial intermediary known as PLAID.  Google it.).  Items ship in 3-5 days after your order date in order for them to confirm that your funds have cleared.

·         In all cases I opted to pay extra for the UPS 3-Day Select service ($4.99 - $14.99 depending on the weight, e.g. for a gold and silver order respectively).   A signature is required so someone must be home waiting for UPS to arrive.  All items were very securely packaged.

·         In most cases, the item arrived the day after I first saw that the UPS label was created. Very fast delivery from Nevada!  As fast as six business days from date of order to receipt of the items. However, in one case it was much slower and I feared the item was lost/stolen in transit.  Nevertheless, it did arrive on the third business day after UPS picked it up.

·         Their Wishlist and “Notify me when back in stock” notifications work well.

·         Their mobile app works well. Let’s you shop, place and track the status of orders, etc.  (Hint: Click on Store, then click on either the Gold or Silver coin, then use the menu pulldown on the upper left to login. From there you can see the status of all your orders, place new orders, etc.

·         And yes, having to pay NJ sales tax is a bummer as compared to other states like Delaware. However, given I am acquiring PMs as a hedge against a future systemic financial SHTF situation, I deemed that added cost to not be prohibitive. If I instead were investing for the shorter term, then it likely would have been.

So I have officially caught the PM bug and have joined the ranks of “stackers”.   Am very much enjoying watching PM related YouTube videos, Podcasts, and learning as I go along.  So I have a suspicion that these won’t be my last purchases.  The 2021 American Silver Eagles sure do look tempting. 

As was said above in this thread:  “Come on in, the water is fine!”.

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On 4/2/2021 at 10:58 PM, Sniper said:

Yeah, a monetary crisis is coming, but you're preaching a narrative held by a few PM holders, buy won't turn into reality when it comes. Reason, like I mentioned above, very few have any idea what PMs are worth. Where will you be trading your gold/silver to in your neighborhood for gas, food, supplies, medicine, etc?

We'll see about the monetary crisis, but the point of silver or gold is as an inflation hedge. You don't trade it to your neighbor. You buy things with cash. You just use the PMs to get more cash than that crap you have in the bank that trades 1:1 with the current garbage value of cash (at the time of said hypothetical crisis). 

Push the crisis a bit farther, and it is something to flee with to someplace else where you can turn it into the local coin without people laughing in your face. 

Beyond that for the mad max situation (well mad max would probably be the above, it's more like road warrior and on level here), it's going to be fairly useless for trade. In that case silver is probably the more useful metal to have in possession practically speaking. 

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Has anyone else joined and following the threads on the Reddit /r/wallstreetsilver sub-reddit?  I have been reading it almost constantly for the last three weeks. Learned a heck of a lot regarding the silver market, manipulation of same by the banks and some mints(e.g Perth Mint), allocated vs unallocated, SLV ETF vs the PSLV, and the growing silver squeeze movement.  Exiting and fun stuff to follow and be part of.  (I can now consider myself an ape with diamond hands. If you don’t understand the reference, check out the sub-reddit.)

 Since my earlier post, I have acquired a number of 2021 American Silver Eagle coins. My first purchase of silver coins ever. They are beautiful and nice to hold in one’s hand.   I purchased them from my local coin store. Their prices were very competitive with the online bullion dealers.  Paid cash and no shipping needed.  Instant gratification, lol.

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On 4/2/2021 at 9:43 PM, Sniper said:

Cash will be king for a long time.

What do you do if there is hyperinflation during the crisis, making the dollar almost worthless (or at least your stash almost worthess)?  Think of Venezuela.  Even if cash is still King, you could sell the PM that you bought for $5,000 in order to get $50,000 in cash when the currency tanks (random numbers as an example).  That would at least allow you to buy something. 

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39 minutes ago, ESB said:

What do you do if there is hyperinflation during the crisis, making the dollar almost worthless (or at least your stash almost worthess)?  Think of Venezuela.  Even if cash is still King, you could sell the PM that you bought for $5,000 in order to get $50,000 in cash when the currency tanks (random numbers as an example).  That would at least allow you to buy something. 

If cash becomes worthless in that situation, who's going to have that $50,000 laying around to give you for your PMs. Don't get sucked into the narrative by the PM hawkers about "hyperinflation" and a "store of wealth" in a SHTF. Just look around in your area, which gas station, grocery store, pizza place will take your PMs for payment of their products?

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1 hour ago, oldguysrule649 said:

City Prepping is one of the best of the prepping channels I subscribe to. Here is an excellent perspective on the role PMs will play after a SHTF situation.

What's his Cliff Notes version of the video? What does he recommend?

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4 hours ago, ESB said:

What do you do if there is hyperinflation during the crisis, making the dollar almost worthless (or at least your stash almost worthess)?  Think of Venezuela.  

The U.S. is not Venezuela. The United States of America is not going to become a third-world country. The U.S. has a massive industrial base, low tariffs, and an $19 trillion economy. 

10%+ per year price inflation, yes,  hyperinflation no. Central banks will not allow it, they will crash the markets before they trash the currency.

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3 hours ago, Sniper said:

What's his Cliff Notes version of the video? What does he recommend?

There are 4 stages to SHT scenario. 

1) Early Warning

2) Collapse

3) Endurance

4) Recovery

 

Basically use PM to buy stuff in stage 4, when the old currency is worthless and you have access to a more stable currency.  Basically buy in 1 (or earlier) and sell in 4.   

I haven't seen this before, but this is what I was getting at.  

 

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1 hour ago, ESB said:

Basically use PM to buy stuff in stage 4, when the old currency is worthless and you have access to a more stable currency. 

Problem is, you need to survive between 1 and 3, or 4 will be worthless.

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21 minutes ago, Sniper said:

Problem is, you need to survive between 1 and 3, or 4 will be worthless.

I don't disagree. Like I said, I have not put a lot into PMs. (oops hadn't hit post, so I say that below). 

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5 hours ago, Sniper said:

What's his Cliff Notes version of the video? What does he recommend?

I wasted my time so you don't have to. It was stupid. Basically it is Phase 1 - collapse.. PM worthless. Phase 2 - endurance... PM worthless. Phase 3- mumble mumble ... PM worthless Phase 4- recovery. PM can be sold again! Your corpse can now use PMs to resume your previous lifestyle!

Which is kind of stupid IMO. I mean he's right in the mechanism, which is that PMs decouple your money from fiat currency, and that is their value. But he never gets very far into when and why that is of value.  Here's some of mine, non exhaustive: 

-flight. There are cleaner shirts in the closet, and you want to put one of them on. If the smugglers aren't taking your local fiat currency, you need something to sell to get out. If they will, you may not be able to spend the local currency on the other end (embargo, no trust in it, etc). In that case PMs are man portable, fairly dense stores of wealth. 

-black markets. Historically things seldom break down totally and forever. The emphasis is on the KI in TEOTWAYKI in the real world. But historically, the consumer never loses. They get what they want, it just may have a cost. If people want something that the official sanctioned order of things can't get them, you get black markets. When dealing with black markets, you may need to conduct business in something other than the local currency. You can use PMs to buy things or more likely secure whatever the black market's trusted currency is. 

-banking without banks.  Look at less developed nations, or nations with much more dynamic range with regards to wealth and poverty. PMs in the form of jewelry and luxury items are often a very common store of wealth when you don't want to trust the banks, or simply don't have banks. Anything we do today that uses loans may need something like PMs to be done in a less organized and automated society. 

-insurance. Mostly of the variety of I didn't see that coming. PMs can be a hedge against having prepared for the wrong systemic failure because it is a universal fiscal translator. That does come at a premium. 

-flexibility and freedom during the make pretend period. We are in the US. Lets face it, we are at the top of the pyramid, and if/when that ceases to be the case, we will pretend like nobody's business that everything is fine and normal. PMs, since they have use outside of being money, will likely have loopholes that will allow you to conduct some forms of business in an advantageous manner even within the system that is still hobbling around. 

What all the preppers and goldbugs seem to never want to say is that it's pretty much guaranteed you will lose money on precious metals. You are paying now to have them on hand later. But someone without TEOTWAYKI pressure there will be someone taking 10-20% up front to get you metal, and 10-20% at the back end to get rid of your metal. You will likely lose 25% on average doing anything but barter unless you are a fine gold/silver smith and can add value to it via your craft. That premium may buy you access to something in the future if things go badly. But realistically, if I have enough money to buy me a barrel of oil, if I turn it into PMs, I probably have enough to buy 80-90% of a barrel of oil. If I turn it back into cash at market rates, I probably have enough to buy 60-75% of a barrel of oil. From a financial standpoint, it is a significant upfront investment that can't easily be abandoned. 

Myself, I like to compare PMs to copper, oil, and chicken, and do my financial game planning on that historically to determine if I have "enough". (and I don't own a lot. maybe enough for a good bribe from some low level bureaucrat) 

But when I bought mine, a pound of boneless skinless chicken breast at costco was $1.99. Now it is $2.99. Based on metals prices, $1.99 of metals then should buy $2.98 of chicken now.  A barrel of oil should be around $125, and a pound of copper should be about $5.40. It's at $4.40 (also to illustrate how you get screwed over by transitioning metals to cash, buying a pound of copper ingot runs $25-35 despite the market value. You can get industrial quantities at about $3 a pound). 

 

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, raz-0 said:

I don't disagree. Like I said, I have not put a lot into PMs. (oops hadn't hit post, so I say that below). 

I have PMs too, as part of my overall plan, but I even doubt in Phase 4, if anything can be done with them. We have to survive Phases 1 - 3, and we have no idea what the landscape will look like when we get to Phase 4.

Will there be some special deals or big purchases you could make with them at that time? Maybe? Will you be breaking off pieces of your gold coins to buy chickens and vegetables from the local farmer or to put gas in your car? Doubtful.

The odds are, my PM's will pass to the kids when I exit the planet, and they'll be stuck with them. I hear they make nice paperweights....

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50 minutes ago, raz-0 said:

I wasted my time so you don't have to. It was stupid. Basically it is Phase 1 - collapse.. PM worthless. Phase 2 - endurance... PM worthless. Phase 3- mumble mumble ... PM worthless Phase 4- recovery. PM can be sold again! Your corpse can now use PMs to resume your previous lifestyle!

Another point, I don't think we make it to Phase 4 to see the corpses... That happens after Phase 1. When the machines accepting plastic get turned off, Mad Max shows his head quickly. Very few people have cash laying around, so it won't matter of a loaf of bread costs $5, or $50, or $500... call that hyperinflation any way you want, the Zombie will be out in full force. They'll have no way to obtain their necessary supplies.

Very few will be lucky to survive to Phase 4, where they will be able to scoop up deals with all the PMs in their safe. Wifey was in the safe the other day, and pulled out some coins and said, "what are you going to do with this stuff"?  My answer .." well, they're nice and shiny.." :mutley:

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You're thinking of a global SHTF event.  If it's limited to America, you could go to another country where they still value and can buy your PMs.  With our current debt and inflation it's not impossible the dollar goes to crap in our lifetime.  If left unchecked, China will take over as the world powerhouse.  

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2 hours ago, ESB said:

You're thinking of a global SHTF event.   If it's limited to America, you could go to another country where they still value and can buy your PMs.  With our current debt and inflation it's not impossible the dollar goes to crap in our lifetime.

So, you think if the US melts down, that won't have an effect on a bunch of other countries. You do know that the dollar is the world's reserve currency, right?

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1 hour ago, Sniper said:

So, you think if the US melts down, that won't have an effect on a bunch of other countries. You do know that the dollar is the world's reserve currency, right?

For now...

https://munknee.com/shift-from-u-s-dollar-as-world-reserve-currency-underway-what-will-this-mean-for-america/

Again, look who is spearheading the push to get rid of that.  China.  They seriously are the threat we need to be worried about on so many levels.  

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16 minutes ago, father-of-three said:

Does 90% junk silver reach (or even come close to) precious metal status?

For some, it does. But I've always wondered how many people would accept it at it's silver value, or would only accept it at face value? Not a whole lot of people even understand PMs. I even wonder if I had to break out a 1 oz silver round for payment, how many people even know what a ounce of silver is worth, and think I was carrying a quarter?

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11 minutes ago, ESB said:

Again, look who is spearheading the push to get rid of that.  China.  They seriously are the threat we need to be worried about on so many levels. 

No doubt China is pushing to be on top of the mountain. But at the end of the day, what I think is most important is, how will I find locally what I need, and how will I obtain it. I can't control what happens across the Pacific in China.

It's all about how will I provide for my family here, and protect them, and putting plans in place to achieve those goals.

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On 1/10/2022 at 11:43 PM, Sniper said:

For some, it does. But I've always wondered how many people would accept it at it's silver value, or would only accept it at face value? Not a whole lot of people even understand PMs. I even wonder if I had to break out a 1 oz silver round for payment, how many people even know what a ounce of silver is worth, and think I was carrying a quarter?

I’m well versed in this area.  Back in the early 80’s when silver spiked to nearly $50 an ounce, every coin dealer and jewelry shop had big posters in the windows with the current silver spot price and the value of junk silver coins.  At that time, people became very aware of the value of silver, and especially junk coins.  People came from everywhere to sell 90% silver coins, grandma’s silver tea set, etc, to cash in on the run up.  Foreigners are very aware of precious metals.  I’ve seen many over the years at coin shops converting cash to gold and silver coins.  Krugerrands are the most widely known gold coins which they buy the most.  They know the intrinsic value of gold and silver, and put more faith in it compared to the dollar.  

Diversify your holdings, keep metals to no more than 10% of your portfolio, buy low premium well known products, and avoid all numismatic/graded coins.  
 

I’ll contribute more info as I have time, and as questions come up.  

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