WTH is up with the precious metal markets today? Don't own any but I follow them fairly closely:

 

(note, image above updates constantly. At the time of this post gold was at $1,502.90, down ~$58 on the day)

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US economic data released today showed retail lower than expected. Crude dropped too on slowed economic activity. Looks like a sh$tty spring for sales.

precious metal trading is not an easy thing to do. market takes crazy turns randomly sometimes.

Precious metal made up paper numbers are getting hammered today. I'm pretty sure if you weigh an ounce of gold is still weighs pretty much the same it did this morning. When daily trade volume exceeds the yearly mining output of the planet, expect the prices of "paper" metals to be volatile.

Means time to buy

If you had a crystal ball, ammo would have been the best investment you could have made last fall. Gold and silver are great and all but if something very bad happened a can of beans could be worth more than an ounce of gold.

Im not so sure about the ammo correlation. a 200-300% increase is good and all, but ammo is heavy, hard to store, and would only yield so much profit to the seller. If I had to guess in the arms world.. stripped alum lowers woulda been the best bet.. Lightweight, cheap, easy to store boxes of them and quadrupled in price at the height of the scare in the private market. There are plenty of things that WELL outperformed both gold and ammo over the past year that would have yielded higher results with little or no need for storage.

Means time to buy

 

+1 if you have the money to stock pile, nows the time to buy. if you want to just make a quick profit dont even try it.

essentially, gold wasn't actually going up. the value of the dollar was going down. at least that's what a few people had told me. now, with the current administration printing what? 85billion a day? or some absurd amount like that........it's bound to screw with things eventually.

Im not so sure about the ammo correlation. a 200-300% increase is good and all, but ammo is heavy, hard to store, and would only yield so much profit to the seller. If I had to guess in the arms world.. stripped alum lowers woulda been the best bet.. Lightweight, cheap, easy to store boxes of them and quadrupled in price at the height of the scare in the private market. There are plenty of things that WELL outperformed both gold and ammo over the past year that would have yielded higher results with little or no need for storage.

Lowers would have also been a very good investment. But look how hard it is to get all the other parts to do a build. While ammo is heavy and takes up considerably more space I think the demand for it will always be higher than lowers. It took a very short amount of time for the price to triple or go even higher. There are websites that have been linked here selling PMC 9mm for like $70/box of 50 and it sells out within hours if not minutes. Another site had a case of .45ACP for $2k.

I only invest in lead

But who needs other parts if your investment is just stripped lowers? People were willing to pay $400 for a once $80 alum lower. In past threats of gun control, lowers have always dried up first.. The ammo prices/scarcity this time around have been unprecedented. When investing in physical commodities, lightweight, small space, large rate of return trumps throwing out your back shipping out cases of ammo

People invested in gold watch people invested in stock market, market goes up, people in gold sell and chase market, and life goes on. Ammo is the place to stick your extra dollar in for 2013/2014 in my opinion, just make sure to report any profit to the irs.

Funny, for the first time, I've been actively thinking about getting into gold. Things are just getting too weird around here, and what I would have considered paranoid a couple of years ago is starting to seem prudent. My faith in the USD is plummeting in inverse correlation to our debt level.

 

I've been thinking American Eagles. Seems the best way to get physical gold. Downside is you lose several percent between buying and selling. The other downside I see is, if the S really does HTF, it's going to be hard to barter a single coin for anything in normal quantity. Unless someone has $1500 of MREs or ammo they want to sell.

Trading silver has let me build a pretty nice gun collection..............

Could be Cyprus. Maybe.

 

http://www.zerohedge...ilout-shortfall

 

How many other Cypruses are out there?

Gold prices lowered? Bad frickin news.

 

Small denomination silver coins........... Dimes, Halves but especially quarters............... NOT silver eagles.........

I just did some quick searching on junk silver coins. Looks like you pay a pretty hefty premium over spot price. Is this normal?

Silver 10oz ingots seem the best bet. Still higher premium than gold, but greater barterability.

 

I just did some quick searching on junk silver coins. Looks like you pay a pretty hefty premium over spot price. Is this normal?

Silver 10oz ingots seem the best bet. Still higher premium than gold, but greater barterability.

 

French roosters are my favourite because of the same concerns that you have.

0.18 of an ounce

 

http://www.apmex.com/Product/18/default.aspx

buy 1st spouse 1/2 gold coins and thank me later!

buy 1st spouse 1/2 gold coins and thank me later!

?

How many gold coins does a spouse cost?

Small denomination silver coins........... Dimes, Halves but especially quarters............... NOT silver eagles.........

thats the ticket....coins that are generaly recognizable by everybody and known to contain 90% silver....

buy 1st spouse 1/2 gold coins and thank me later!

 

Id go all in on 1st spouse coins, but they have yet to mint the michelle obama series yet.

 

 

 

 

Which leads me to my second question.. whos the hottest ex 1st spouse?.. Id like a fine piece of presidential wife tail on my bling.

I just did some quick searching on junk silver coins. Looks like you pay a pretty hefty premium over spot price. Is this normal?

Silver 10oz ingots seem the best bet. Still higher premium than gold, but greater barterability.

 

 

every place you buy, will have a cost over spot. thats normal, and thats how precious metal companies make their money. apmex is a very good online company. ive bought several thousand worth of gold/silver over the past year or so through them. their shipping is higher then others, but they have more options as to round/bar sizes. jm bullion is also good, with cheaper shipping, but less options.

 

also keep in mind when buying US minted coins, youre paying a premium for them being minted by the treasury and having face value. if you get a private minting, all youre paying for is the silver/gold itself. likewise, bear in mind that buying things like silver quarters, dimes, dollars, etc, are only part silver. not 100% silver, or at least 99.9999% pure. so not only are you paying for the 'coin' as a coin, but youre not getting the full weight in silver.

 

case in point: apmex mints their own rounds and bars, which are typically cheaper then anything else. they make their own version of the mercury dime, the same size, shape, and nearly same design. yet theirs is 99.999% pure silver, as opposed to 40-70%, which most US coins were.

 

also, apmex sells grab bags of generic silver rounds/bars, as well as industrial silver shot. its a very cheap way to get pure silver, and easy to pick out the exact weight when buy/trading/bartering.

 

apmex shot: http://www.apmex.com/Product/44273/10_oz_Bag_Silver_Grain_Silver_Shot_999_Fine.aspx

 

http://www.jmbullion.com/silver/silver-bars/

Junk silver aka constitutional coinage aka 90% can still be had at spot. 999 fine is about a buck over at my LCS (local coin shop). Silver is cheap and easy to store.

The way I understand it(could be wrong)

 

The treasury announced they would not buy as many fed notes in the future. Hence less dollars getting printed.that news caused a sell off of gold.(considered deflationary)

They did this because the world is becoming a little nervous with all the money the treasury is creating.

The dollar is right now the reserve(world) cucurrency But other countries are now starting to abandon the dollar and agree with each other (mainly china and whoever) to except each others paper instead. China wants the yuan(there money) as a new reserve currency. If that should happen our dollar would go to S*&T and a loaf of bread would cost $62 almost over night as there are so many dollars floating around the planet and the Feds don't have nearly enough precious metal reserves to back it up..

That would cause a panic sell off of the dollar. Which in turn would make everyone from farmers to CEO"s demand higher pay as the inflationary pessure would decrease the dollars buying power hourly! This happens now in many third world countries.

Example the billion dollar Zimbabwe notes that were selling on ebay for like $5 a year or so ago.

 

Also of note (tin foil hat?) Germany has pulled all of it gold reserves out of France and the USA this year. They have been kept here since the end of WWII. Why the change ? I think because of a lack of trust in our leftist Govt. If you read history .The first rule of Govt in a crisis is to save Govt! If that means locking down another Govts or persons gold they will do it in a heart beat.

It was done before in the 30's when the Govt outlawed owning gold(outside of jjewelry

every place you buy, will have a cost over spot. thats normal, and thats how precious metal companies make their money. apmex is a very good online company. ive bought several thousand worth of gold/silver over the past year or so through them. their shipping is higher then others, but they have more options as to round/bar sizes. jm bullion is also good, with cheaper shipping, but less options.

 

also keep in mind when buying US minted coins, youre paying a premium for them being minted by the treasury and having face value. if you get a private minting, all youre paying for is the silver/gold itself. likewise, bear in mind that buying things like silver quarters, dimes, dollars, etc, are only part silver. not 100% silver, or at least 99.9999% pure. so not only are you paying for the 'coin' as a coin, but youre not getting the full weight in silver.

 

case in point: apmex mints their own rounds and bars, which are typically cheaper then anything else. they make their own version of the mercury dime, the same size, shape, and nearly same design. yet theirs is 99.999% pure silver, as opposed to 40-70%, which most US coins were.

 

also, apmex sells grab bags of generic silver rounds/bars, as well as industrial silver shot. its a very cheap way to get pure silver, and easy to pick out the exact weight when buy/trading/bartering.

 

apmex shot: http://www.apmex.com...t_999_Fine.aspx

 

http://www.jmbullion...er/silver-bars/

 

 

i have a jar full of silver solder.... where can i cash that puppy in?!?!????

If you did the eeBay search...careful the ads ...many of them are bogus....

 

Expletive one has a 3oz coin weight at x dollars...but if you look at the coin compliment ypi are getting the actual silver content is much less than the oz listing...

 

The idea of silver coins is to.make bartering easier ina true shtf scenario...how do you play to.pay for a fifty pound bag of.rice that is worth say 3$ in silver coins with a 10oz bar?

 

Now if you looking for.precious metal in a non shtf scenario silver eagles or Canadian dollars are a good bet....

In a true SHTF situation what value would a piece of metal like silver or gold actually have? For me, food, water and ammo would be more valuable than a safe full of gold or silver. I can't eat it, drink it or defend myself with it. But that would be a serious shtf situation and we have been told that will never happen so we are good.