GOLD!

[ARKANSAWYER]

  I have a question about Gold and Silver for the most part.  I know some people are buying it as an investment.  They are toting it as inflation proof and that when the stuff hits the fan it will be the new money.
  But when they buy this gold do they get to hold it in their had?  Where do you keep your gold?  And after the stuff hits the fan how do you take that gold and buy any thing?  I mean do you just come to buy some lumber and shave off some of the coin in my hand?  Then what do I do with the gold.  I can not eat it, shoot it, and really do not know what it is worth.  Who's scale do we use and who is going to be in charge of keeping the scales honest.  I know that several hundard thousand dollars of gold is not very large so the safe will not have to be very large to hold the gold bars.  But how does the masses trade with gold and is there enough to go around so we can all trade with it?
  So is it really better then a pile of $20 dollars bills?  At least I can wipe my butt cutt with a $20 or start a fire with it.  I just do not see gold being all that important if it all comes crashing down.  It just seems to me that if I can not eat it or shoot it that it will be of little use to me.  Iron, lead and brass will become the new gold standard.
 

[Mooseherder]

I've never quite understood why Gold either.
You have all these important celebrities talking it up but if it gets to that point where things fall apart your better off with food and shelter with plenty of lead and mechanisms.
I heard that all the Gold of the World would only fill a High School Basketball gymnasium.
Don't know if that is true or not but I won't be following that crowd.

[Autocar]

I don't no anything about it eather,but for what there getting a ounce right now I can't see where theres much money to make. If things pick back up in five years and you gave $1600.00 a ounce today what will it back off to be in a number of years ?

[tyb525]

the price of gold is just like everything else, it changes with the value of the dollar. It's just another investment, and it's one of the less useful ones at that. No one will be buying jewelry or other gold items if everyone's broke. It will become like the paper dollar, useless, only a representative of "money".

[fuzzybear]

the price of gold is just like everything else, it changes with the value of the dollar. It's just another investment, and it's one of the less useful ones at that. No one will be buying jewelry or other gold items if everyone's broke. It will become like the paper dollar, useless, only a representative of "money".

Actually gold was/is supposed to be the standard on witch the dollar was/ is supposed to be based on.
  Paper money was used to replace gold coins that were in circulation. A $20 bill was worth $20 of gold. somewhere along the line it changed to the banking/financial section determining what it's worth.
  I agree it is and will always be a "worthless" hedge. If there is no money left I sure as heck don't want your gold....now if you have a fat steer or lamb....then I'll trade....not with gold however.
FB

[tyb525]

Yes it was the standard, until around 1960 when we ran out of gold and switched to the system we have now.

Used to be you could use gold/silver certificates (which look like dollar bills) and exchange them for gold/silver at any time. No longer, because gold does not back the dollar anymore. Nothing substantial backs the dollar, it is essentially play money now, it has no value except what people say it's worth.

[red oaks lumber]

buying gold now makes as much sense as selling stocks now

[SwampDonkey]

They should have been buying gold back in the 1980's when it was under $300 not when it's going sky high.

Money of today is called "fiat money", not backed by gold or silver.

[shelbycharger400]

some of the gold trade is just metal in your hand,  some of it is something like interest in stock,  you pysically dont have anything in your hand except for a piece of paper.  Worse to the whole deal is the Big Gov tracks all gold transactions, i think silver too.

Personally when i can,  i have been buyin old hand tools, wood twist bits ect, all powered by armstrong. they are anywhere from brand new to over 60 years old.  I use them time to time, and when stuff really hits the fan,  i still can do some tinkerin when wood is available.

[SwampDonkey]

You can certainly buy gold coins here from the Royal Canadian mint. My brother bought a gold coin in Maine a couple years ago.

One of the most expensive ones I see there is "The Maple Leaf Forever" coin for $60,000. The "Caribou" coin, a replica of the quarter is $75.00, "New Brunswick Coat of Arms" coin is $2400, "Banff National Park 125th Anniversary" coin is $57,000. The big dollar coins are 1 kg weight.

[shelbycharger400]

id question buyin anything from a government that refers to their dollar as a "loony"    if i spelled that right

[SwampDonkey]

  But do you understand why?

[isawlogs]

 Probably has never seen one.

 

[Brucer]

It wasn't the government that called it the "Loonie" -- it was we, the people.

[shelbycharger400]

*loonie*

yea i seen one, has a loon on it..  

i find this funny   The design for the coin was meant to be a voyageur theme, similar to the country's previous one dollar/silver dollar coin, but the master dies were lost by the courier service while in transit to the Royal Canadian Mint in Winnipeg. In order to avoid possible counterfeiting, a different design was used

[SwampDonkey]

In 2007 with the Guinness World Records certification of the largest coin in the world: the masterpiece 100 kg, 99.999% pure $1 million gold bullion coin. Canada was also the first country to produce 99.999% pure gold at it's refinery in 1999 and previous the first to produce 99.99% pure gold in 1982. Gold produced in Canada was used to pay off Britain's debt to other countries after WWI.

[Royal Canadian Mint]

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Canadian icemaker Trent Evans buried a loonie at centre ice. Both the Canadian men's and women's hockey teams went on to win gold.

The United States minted its own dollar coin, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, from 1979-1981 and again in 1999. The public roundly rejected the coin because it looked too much like a quarter. A new coin, the gold-coloured Sacagawea dollar, was introduced in 2000. Both coins remained in circulation. In 2005 the treasury was asked to investigate taking the 888,842,452 Susan B. Anthony dollars out of circulation.

[CBC News Archives]

[logman]

Gold and silver have never been "worthless" but paper fiat money has and will be again worthless.  There will always be someone with the means to take your gold or silver in exchange for something you need.  Stocking up on food and tools would be the first thing to do but if you have extra cash where do you put it?  Inflation is going to eat up everything soon in my opinion. 

[Ianab]

Back to Arky's original question...

I'm not sure why, but gold has always seems to have an intrinsic value to humans, since pre-historical times. It was one of the first metals discovered, because it naturally exits as a metal, that you can just pick up off the ground of you look in the right place. It wont corrode, the ladies like it (possibly an important issue   ) , and you can trade it for whatever you do need. In modern society its still in demand for decorative and technological reason, and the supply is limited, so it retains it's value.

Look all through recorded history, and gold has been valuable. A $20 note is just an IOU. Depends who issues it. If they are broke, it's worth nothing. Look at Zimbabwe, last I heard they had $100 Billion bank notes, that might buy a pumpkin....

Offer them an ounce of gold, you get a whole truck load of pumpkins....

Ian

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Well I am glad that I am not the only one who does not get this buying gold deal.  Those who buy gold and get a piece of paper saying they own gold are some real fools.  Back when the banks failed in the Great Depression my Great GrandPa went to bed one night a wealthy man and woke to be broke.  The Banker left town with all the cash in the bank and was never heard from again.  While he owned land and live stock he was in his 60's (old back then) and died before the depression was over.  Great GrandMa remarried because women could not manage such important affairs such as money and business and soon lost all that he had recovered or had left.
  I have some gold I panned in AK back in the 80's and a few silver coins.  I have never put much stock in them as being worth much.  Ianab hit the nail on the head.  Women like shinny things that other women do not have and men like women.  That is why bald, pot bellied 60 year old men in red Corvettes can pick up very hot 20 year old women that would never give my poor self a second look.  Back in the day I was a lean mean handsome machine but did not have any bling.  Logman is right,  I might trade a fat chicken for a brace and bit.

[logman]

Silver, in my opinion is probably better to buy than gold.  I think it is used more in industry and it would be easier to trade for items of lower value (like bread).  About a year ago silver was about $18 an ounce, now it's almost $40 and was for a while over 40.  You can't really look at gold and silver as an investment it is more like insurance.
Twenty years from now if you had put 1000.00 in a bank or bought 1000.00 worth of gold or silver I'll bet you'll be able to buy more with what the metal is worth than what you have earned with the cash.  SwampDonkey put that gold was 300 back in the 80's,
it's 5 times that now.  If your great grandpa had buried gold in his backyard he would have lived with his wealth at least until FDR confiscated it.