Posted on 03/07/2009 12:07:33 PM PST by dennisw
$100,000 of gold in $20 double eagles each weighing aprox 1 oz. At today’s gold price of $940 per oz those $20 double eagles at their gold value alone without additional numismatic value would amount to $4,700,000. Not a bad investment. And much more sure investment than trying to pick the relatively few stocks that have survived from that period to this. With my luck I would have probably invested in whale oil production or maybe horse shoe manufacturing.
My grandfather? Let's see... World War 1, depression, Spanish Civil War, World War 2, Communist Cuba. Physical possession of gold would have not only performed better than book-keeping claims against some stock market index, it may have actually saved lives.
Of course, if we want to continue to live under the delusion that the accident of being born in the late-20th Century USA somehow makes us smarter than all previous generations, we can stake our families' futures on those book-keeping entries.
On the other hand Dow went from 100 to 14000 just a few years ago and 6400 now. http://www.analyzeindices.com/dowhistory/dow100.gif In a few years it will crawl back to 9000. Add dividends and I would take stocks anytime, especially since gold was just $300 a decade ago.
Granted one would need to be disciplined with stocks (even GM and Citi for example might be bust) but then gold can be lost or stolen as well. If we have a great depression for 50 years, you might do better assuming you weren’t beaten and robbed.
If I had $10 million, only about $200,000 would go into gold and silver coins for survival and that’s all.
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