Posted on 12/09/2011 4:32:06 AM PST by Kartographer
No, gold and silver was not like second money, or second value during SHTF, it was not even worth like in normal times, and in most of the cases it was dangerous to have it a lot (actually it was too dangerous to have anything in great amounts and let other people to know that) If you had for example 1000 gold coins, and let s say that one coin worth 150 USD in normal times, you could think that you are rich in shtf.
But in reality it was hard to find someone who give you some food or battery or whatever useful for one coin. Gold coin was not useful for 90 percent of people, what they could use it for? Eat it? Start fire with that?
(Excerpt) Read more at shtfschool.com ...
That isn't exactly small denominations.
The question is, would you accept gold payment from a complete stranger? I would not, without a third party verifier or a scientific method of verifying weight, purity, etc.
I would not accept a $1700 in $100 bills from a stranger without very close examination of the bills, and I feel a lot more comfortable with that.
Drilling in from the side of a 1oz coin, replacing with lead, and then resurfacing the edge could easily remove 20-30% of the gold without having to have top notch counterfeiting skills.
If you've been following this thread you'll know Travis and I did business with the same company. Here's how I tested their products.
While I haven't actually fired a .44 mag at the vests I purchased for my family, I DID purchase some of the panels they had on sale for a ridiculously cheap price at the time and then I took them to the range. I wrapped the panels around a 5 gallon bucket filled with water and let loose on them with some full power JSP .44 mag rounds.
The buckets took a beating, but not one round penetrated. Not one.
IIRC, and this was about 5 years ago, I got 2 Safariland Level III vests for less than $600 bucks or so. They were PD trade-ins according to the fine folks at BPM.com. I believe them and I'm willing to bet my life on their products.
Don't believe me, though. Do your own research.
Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken...
In the event of an imposition of "emergency" measures....I predict a veritable avalanche of permanently disabled LEOs suffering from "work related" hip injuries.
bttt
Food and energy shortages. Hunger. No imports of good or oil. Something like the 1930’s but MUCH worse. The economic system coming to a halt, shortages in the stores, and lots and lots of police and military and obtrusive government controls and regulations.
If all of the above come to pass as we both think they will, why won't many of the local police fail to report for duty in lieu of staying home and protecting their own family and stored assets, if any? Nothing. Remember, they are unionized. No money, no work.
You are going to be seeing more police and more military on the streets, more government controls, more gun control, curfews, police roadblocks and safety stops, bank account restrictions, than you ever imagined in your entire life.
Again, the only boots on the ground that will eventually increase in numbers will be Federal troops. Or those Federal troops who can be mustered from the remaining corp of individuals who have not bugged out and headed home to protect family and their home front. Think about human nature. Police and military personnel are not immune. Again, no money or items to 'pay ' the troops? They will be going AWOL in HUGE numbers.
THIS!! is what is really going to happen, and when this happens, paper money, US bank accounts, stock certificates, your home, are not going to be worth anything.
My home will be worth the world to me. It will be my fortress, my armory, my food store, my central location for security. I do not intend to bug out. I will make my stand where I am and have been preparing for that eventuality for some time.
Our future almost certainly is not a jungle, but rather, an economic collapse, a dollar collapse, hyperinflation, and excessive government controls. It is here in this most likely future that gold and silver will be the only assets to hold value.
The government can try and they probably will but without overwhelming force...which I think they will be hard pressed to put into play...they will be met by a citizenry that is very sick of being subjected to Gubmint rule by self serving miscreants and will also be met with deadly force. A gun behind every blade of grass, if you will.
The author is from Bosnia so English is his second language.
Agreed. Doesn't hurt to have a bit of gold/silver if you had everything else fleshed out and still had money to put toward prepping. Those talking about it buying their way away from the bad places may be whistling past the cemetery. In decades past, battles were fought in specific areas and you could move the family away from the war zone. With today's technologies, a real world wide war would mean there would be no safe havens. I suspect with the current crop of evil world leaders, they wouldn't consider "the only winning move is not to play" (War Games movie) and plunge headlong into total destruction mode.
Buy a bunch of regular steal wool - makes a great fire starter.......
Yup it is and so is dryer lint ~grin~
Oh another thing that some of the folks in my living history club does is really nifty ~
They take one of those paper mache egg cartons and put a little bit of spanish moss ( saw dust would work as well ) and pour a weensy bit of parafin into each section of the egg carton . Then when they need to use one to start one of their camp fires, they just break or rip or cut one of the sections off and there ya go.
I tried this once and put a single match in the moss and then poured a weensy bit of parafin in the individual egg hole. Now that was a much better option than what they did.
But we keep using the mache egg cartons to store our hens eggs in ......
I’ll have to check at egg carton . com to see if they have the paper mache cartons. I know they do have the foam ones and so does Rural King , which is like a TSC store.
Highly unlikely that an EMP will affect LED flashlights or headlamps. There is not enough wire attached to the LED for the EMP to have effect. If you wish to be sure, put the led in a metal box like an ammo can.
“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” Matt. 24:12
The simple answer to the lead filled coin problem is that you’ll make it underweight.
Or if you cast a fake of the right weight, it will be oversized.
That is only a simple answer if I carry a postal scales around with me.
Tungsten is almost identical to gold in weight per volume. Tungsten isn’t cheap, but its far less than gold.
Inserting a tungsten disc into a sliced 24oz gold coin, and then resurfacing the edge would make for a tough detection problem.
Per the lesser karat gold coins discussed here for use as smaller denominations, a whole host of metals and alloys become usable.
When things get really bad such as the communist created Volga famine and Ukrainian famine, the fewer people who suspect you may have something, the safer you will all be.
In these type situations, anti-hoarding laws will be in effect. If discovered by authorities, all in the household are classified as hoarders and are subject to summary execution. Don't think you can store provisions in the attic or in wall voids, all those food hiding tricks will be known and searched for.
When cannibalism sets in, desperate people do desperate things. If you don't want to have to use deadly force against your neighbor or best friend, don't give them any reason to suspect you have provisions.
For certain, if you are sent to the Gulag far from anywhere and at some point two inmates approach you about joining them in an escape, don't do it. After about two days outside of camp, their plan is to use you as food for the remainder of their journey.
Don't believe me? Read accounts of the Russian famines and the Gulags.
Oh bad things happened in Russia. There is a huge gap in between where having family and friends will increase your odds.
Further, how are you going to keep your wife unaware when you arent starving and have stuff to eat? If you are the kind of person who can let their family starve while you don’t then you indeed have learned from Stalin.
For us, it's simpler. We went through an unpleasant experience with being snowed in, and after that my wife agreed that it made sense to prepare for extended emergencies. She just said she didn't want to even be aware of how I was preparing, so I take care of everything quietly.
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