Posted on 05/22/2023 3:10:02 PM PDT by fightin kentuckian
Thinking of buying precious metals for SHTF (economic collapse)scenario. In a SHTF scenario would one ounce of silver be worth more or less if it were an American Silver Eagle (coin), a one ounce silver round, or a one ounce silver bar? Same goes for gold.
Also, in an American SHTF scenario , would a silver coin minted in Canada or Australia be worth more or less provided their economies had not collapsed.
As far as I know the US mint only mints Silver Eagles and Gold Eagles. Why are some other rounds called coins. I understand that in order to be called a coin it must be minted by a government. Is that a fact?
I’ve talked to French people whose parents bartered gold during the WW2. “Acheter d’Or” was their advice. Buy gold for when the SHTF.
Good point. Some friends of mine just went to the Czec Republic, and they said Ukraine women are selling themselves and their daughters for food. The person who checked them into their hotel advised them they could get plenty of Ukraine women for them.
The market in Ukrainian brides has cratered.
US Silver eagles are the best choice, IMHO. When buying or selling silver, it’s easy to fall prey to counterfeiters, however, there is a substantial cost to counterfeiting eagles. Generally, bullion dealers have any sales, or purchases, assayed before doing so. With US Eagles, they are simply traded at about a 10% premium to the cost of silver. It’s like insurance.
a silver stacker just put out a video about why silver is NOT going to make you rich....so remember why you want to buy silver .....its value is only in wealth preservation..
any suggestions for buying any type of coin that would have numismatic value for grandchildren?...something I could get them now that would go up in value for them?
trouble with ebay, craigslist, etc is there are fake silver coins/bullion turning up....
and men buy them....
I have to agree with many others here. In a SHTF situation, ammunition will be the best currency.
Once you have a decent hoard of ammo, food. You need at least one growing season of food to give the situation time to even out and new food time to grow. You can carry enough ammo for bartering without others being able to detect it. .22lr, .223, 9x19mm, 38/357, and 45ACP will all be in demand. You can protect your food and buy more with the ammo.
I would feel kind of not-right doing so, because I am pretty anti-numismatic, myself. I started out collecting coins, but over the past 20+ years I have only bought junk silver and generic bullion, with maybe a grand total of 10 silver eagles. The eagles are in great but not inordinately great condition, only because I don’t take them out and jangle them. Brand new coins have to be in astonishingly great condition to be numismatic, and there you’re paying very high premiums for what I consider “air” = nothing. They’re really just silver, for me.
One potential issue with numismatics is, you’re by definition only going have a few, most probably. That makes them harder to sell. Whereas if you have dozens and dozens of generic rounds, you can sell ten or twenty and still be in the game. If that means anything. If in your plan for grandkids you buy them some “rotten” silver, eg; plain old worn US coins pre-1964, aka “junk” silver, this gives them something to sell they are not in love with.
That said, I would look to pre-1933 $10 or $20 US gold coins in the numis dep’t, PCGS slabbed, medium-rare dates. “Rare” means...obviously rare, but they are rare because the mintages were relatively low. I happen to really like the $10 gold Indians with the incuse design. They did not make $20 Indians. But any pre-1933 US gold coins are in this category. “Incuse” means the design is pressed >into< the surface of the coin rather than protruding UP from the surface. I mention these coins because premia have traditionally been lowish. To determine which dates/mints are rare, you will have to conduct some research: From 2 viewpoints: 1: mintage numbers, just search for “1904 gold coin mintages” or some such. 2: Go on the PCGS website and study the number of coins (rated on an MS (mint state) scale where MS70 is perfect and MS65 is really darn good....and get a feel for the population of existing coins that have so far been rated “MS67” or whatever. Not that difficult, but a $10 gold piece is still going be well over $1K each.
I’d have no issue buying new gold eagles for this same purpose but I am so anti-numismatic, I hesitate to bring it up. Cana maple leafs are just as good in this category. Gold OR silver.
You really have to get a good feel as what makes a coin MS68 vs MS63, where the usual wear occurs. That is going to take some time and study. Whereas with generic bullion, nobody cares about condition, you just have to shop for lowest premium-over-spot and you can wait for a sale and buy handful-handful-handful, achieving dollar-cost averaging math with no real extra effort.
I would agree with you on silver dollars and bullion, but the value of silver dimes is about $1.75 a piece. So I have never heard of them being faked- not enough juice in the squeeze.
thx for the reply....things to think about...
I also bought some Sunshine silver mine rounds for $9 each, no premium, many yrs ago,straight from the company as I recall....so the grandkids will get something...
for some reason, I wanted to "invest" in some coins that would be valuable in the future....the US had a 1/2oz gold set of Marian Anderson, which I probably paid about $600....she was the first black woman to sing at constitution hall IIRC.....as it turns out my two grandchildren are biracial, so things sometimes work out....
Where does one go to sell sivler coins, etc?
The last thought I have for you is, see if you can make friends with a local jeweler or local coin shop who has a Sigma precious metals verifier machine where you can give him maybe $5 a coin/bar/round to plop whatever you buy from whomever you buy it from onto the machine and have it verified.
The proliferation of fakes in the business has stopped me in my tracks from buying anything for the last 8 or so years. It started with Morgan silver dollars but is so pervasive these days it scares the hell out of me. I have heard of fake Franklin halves and Washington quarters for pity’s sake.
The Sigma is a machine that sends out a signal and checks for the resonance or reflection of the pulse through the coin/bar/round. They have become the standard if the industry. They can work through a plastic holder (eg; slab) or PVC flip. Used ones are about a grand for the old (perfectly good) model, $1300 vanilla/$1700 deluxe in new condition. The newer version of the product is maybe $300-$400 more. There is utterly nothing wrong with the older model.
Though that sounds pricey, buying (or I should say avoiding buying) just one fake ounce of gold pays for the machine. In 2023, I would not even consider acquiring gold with such a machine or access to same. No way, no how, not even close. There are numbers of YT videos on the use of a Sigma Metalytics machine.
You can go either to a local coin store (not so good) or Midwest Refiners (ehhh) or...excuse the name....ExpressGoldCash. ECG is excellent and will settle you out immediately at better than most buyers I have found. They will send you a “kit” which includes FedEx insured postage back to them for your goods, they make you an offer and you either accept or reject it. They are very easy to deal with and very straight ahead people. USGoldBuyers is another, I like them a bit less than EGC.
Maybe not dimes, but silver halves and quarters are being counterfeited. There are plenty of articles about fake junk silver. Just ordinary dates, nothing at all numismatic. If they haven’t gotten to dimes yet, rest assured, they will. Yes, it is a true truth that a dime seems too small to counterfeit, but 10,000 of them, that’s a different story and that’s how smaller denominations are packaged and sold.
Thanks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.