Silver: No

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I know this might not be a popular statement, but I'm going to make it, because I think it needs to be made.

Silver is (generally) not a smart place to put resources.

When I was a kid, I bought a 1oz bar of silver. That was in the mid 80's. I cashed it in long ago. However, when the silver craziness started, I started doing roll-hunting. Some years back, I think I found maybe a hundred in junk silver doing that. Buying coins (mostly half-dollars) at their face value and turning right around and selling them feels REALLY nice, but Silver was already on the downhill side of its peak. I was NOT going to just sit on silver as some kind of magic SHTF currency. Here's why.

NOBODY, except for numismatists and preppers have ANY idea what silver is worth. NO BODY. Show them a Mercury dime, and they think it's worth ten cents. That's because, as recognized by EVERYONE, that IS what it's worth. It's a dime. Okay, so maybe some folks know it's made of silver. What percentage of silver? And what is silver worth... TODAY? The general populace has no idea.

Okay, so let's say they DO know the value of silver. How do they know that thing you have is actually SILVER? If it's an old coin, it's pretty safe. But silver bars? Nope. That could just be silver electroplated lead.

At each step, and each way, precious metals, at least those not in jewelry form, are really pretty terrible for barter.

I have a sterling silver ring I carry in my Get-home bag. It's solid silver, but it's value is as an ART object. I paid maybe $5, but it's more likely worth $10 today. It's a nice looking ring. I think I could convince someone to barter something for it. NOT because it's silver, though, although that might help.

I made a prediction (on the American Preppers Network boards) in Jan 2012 that Silver would be $20 an oz by the end of 2012, and $15 an oz by the end of 2013. I think that prediction might have been 6 months off at both values, but will, I still feel, hold true.

For the record, here's my post, then.
http://americanpreppersnetwork.net/view ... nn#p158643

I have since wandered away from those boards because they are... emm... not to my liking. Read that as racist homophobic a-holes.

So, where will Silver bottom out? I'm guessing $12 short-term (3 years), and maybe under $10 in a longer number of years. If it drops to those kinds of values, I'll probably never see another spike like we just saw in my entire life time. I understand 'long term investment', but I also understand 'dead before it pays off'.

if you're getting your junk silver from bank rolling or maybe paying twice face value at yard sales, excellent. If you're buying silver at its current value, well... sorry, but you'd likely be better off with your resources put into regular cash, even with deflation. If you hold on to that found silver, just know, it's most likely never again going to be worth as much as it is right now, at least if you're in your 40s.

I'm not even going to bother talking about Gold, because i'm poor, and gold doesn't really exist if you're poor. :D

I know i'm new here, and this is likely to ruffle some feathers, but I just keep wondering why preppers seem to have a fascination with silver. And why so many people fell for the BS about Silver going to X (absurd) amount per oz.

There. I'm done. I feel better now. (/rant)

For the curious, here's Silver's price history
http://silverprice.org/silver-price-history.html

Re: Silver: No

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The Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market in the late 1970s. I think spot value was at around $6/troy ounce when they started out, peaked at $48.70, then crashed and burned. When I started building silver jewelry in the mid to late 1980s there were times I could get it for less that $4 spot. So many people who got their asses burned off couldn't stand the sight of the stuff, it pushed the spot artificially low. It took years for it to get popular as jewelry again.
"There never was a union of church and state which did not bring serious evils to religion."
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.

Re: Silver: No

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Silver always has been relatively cheap. I started saving silver coins about 40 years ago on the advice of a very wise man. He told me there would be times that silver coins would be worth more than face value. When I first started saving silver it was not uncommon to go get supplies and come back with several silver coins in the change I had got that day. Plus small businesses that I traded with would save rolls of silver coins for me.

I have never sold any of the silver I have by the ounce but I have sold coins for their value to coin collectors. Some coins I have my brother has been trying to buy for years. He wants to pay a "brother price" for the coins and he is still making a nice offer. Silver is a good hedge against inflation. But in a SHTF situation silver will have value but not as currency. You will have to find someone who wants to melt the silver down and make something to get anything for it. People will still want durable goods and silver is desirable as a working metal.

Re: Silver: No

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There's a booth at the Dallas/ Ft Worth gun shows pushing copper. Two stooges dressed up and freely sharing end of the world insights. They have these copper coins, real official size and weight, for when it hits the fan and all transactions will center around copper. :yes:
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Puffing up is no substitute for smarts but it's a common home remedy

Re: Silver: No

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Agreed on silver. They other thing about silver, is that it's a lot like oil in that when prices get to a certain level, it becomes affordable to go more after more expensive sources.

Plus, for the weight/cost, you'd be better off carrying cigs or 22lr or something to barter. Li batteries would be good too.
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"Person, woman, man, camera, TV."

Re: Silver: No

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Silver and gold as an investment, specially if you are getting in now, are a no-go.
But having something that has a material value that can be unlinked to the dollar is important in comprehensive prepping.

If you think back to 5 years ago, during the great financial crash of 2008, the dollar almost became worthless overnight. No warning signs, no impending doom... over a period of a week the US economy almost became nonexistent. If no dramatic action had been taken, the dollar would have become basically worthless paper.

"But silver and gold may go down in price from here", you say. Well, if you think about how much money you spend on items that have zero appreciation and huge depreciation, it puts things in a different perspective. Suppose you spend $800 on a new TV. In 5 years it will be worth $25 if you can get anything for it. Yes you get to enjoy the TV, but the depreciation is still there. Buy a new computer today for $800 and in 3 years is is basically worthless. Buy $800 worth of silver, and if in 5 years it drops by half, you lost 50%; if it stays the same after 5 years, you are even, and if it keeps up with inflation you are ahead. Regardless you are still ahead from having spent it on ice cream and fancy coffee over the same period of time.

So this "may" be the wrong time for prepping with valuable metals, but that does not make them a wrong choice or decision in the long term. $23 buys you a 1 oz silver eagle today, do that every week from now on and before you know it you have 100 oz of silver hidden away, price averaged and unlinked from the dollar.

Re: Silver: No

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" People will still want durable goods and silver is desirable as a working metal. "

I don't agree. When its use for photographic film tanked, it really ended up with no important industrial use. The Hunt brothers were idiots, because back then Kodak who had deeper pockets and future contracts were always going to win that fight. You are probably too young to remember that in the 1960s you could buy good silver jewelry in Mexico for peanuts. Here in the U.S., it is rarely used for fine jewelry, because it tarnishes. It is used for silverware, but that use does not come into play during tough economic times.

Re: Silver: No

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I agree with JoelB. If and when the SHTF silver in and of itself probably won't have much intrinsic value. Honestly I think the barter system would come back into vogue. Fresh food, clean water, and ammo won't ever lose value. Ice boxes to store the food as well.

Re: Silver: No

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There was a ton of money to be made on silver as well as gold in the last fifteen years, but that bull market was not based so much on intrinsic value as it was speculation. Hedge fund money ended up driving that market in recent years, as well as other commodities, in large part because interest rates were so low for so long. And now the price is dropping as the threat of rising rates looms and big money shifts to better rates of return.

As for a shit-hits-the-fan investment, we are so far removed now, almost fifty years, from the use of hard money (silver coins), that many people would not value it. Those that do are often right-wing, so in any given silver-based transaction, that's who you would be often dealing with. Silver is really a niche market where you will be dealing with a handful of stores that trade in it. Having said that, I'll be looking to buy when it drops back below $10. Until then, no thanks.
"Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism. Our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction." ~ Alexander Solzhenitzyn

Re: Silver: No

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OldScratch wrote: the use of hard money (silver coins), that many people would not value it. Those that do are often right-wing, so in any given silver-based transaction, that's who you would be often dealing with.
This puts me in mind of the ostrich and emu craze down here several years ago. A tiny market developed with the ostrich and emu herders/keepers/collectors. They were trading both the birds and the eggs back and forth, paying insanely higher and higher prices, all the while calling attention to the prices they were getting (fertilized eggs selling for $1500, birds going for $12-15K).

But these things only had value to someone in the same mindset.

The craze continued until the day nobody was willing to pay the inflated prices and the market collapsed.
Then the small time farmers couldn't give the birds / eggs / ostrich specific equipment away because it had value only with the true believers.

Cash or silver or ostrich eggs are worth only what the market believes they are worth.
The value of cash is not in its 'worth' but in its portability.
Food, water, ammo and, I would argue, services, will be valued more in a SHTF economy for their utility and usefulness.
A money based system (cash, folding money) is still a barter system, just with less weight to carry around.
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Re: Silver: No

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I worked in a bank about 6 years ago and I came across 11 pounds of silver halves that I bought for 50cents a piece. When silver hit 50 again a few years ago, I held on to them because all indications were that silver was currently trading under it's normal ratio to gold. I thought silver was going to double to 100.

as Jim Cramer says, "bulls make money, bears make money, and hogs get slaughtered". Well that turned out to be the high :thumbsdown: I sold about 90% of it last month when spot was 18. It just about paid for the engagment ring I bought. I guess it was still free money but it makes me sick I lost out on about $5000. I didn't want to hold onto it for another 30 years though. It served it's purpose for me.

I think you can make a serouis return on PM's but not when you dollar cost average or buy and hold. There is a recession like every 10 years. I think you have to sell your stocks at the height of the market, buy into PM's, sell the PM's at lowest part of the recession, and use that money to buy back into the stock market at it's low.

Re: Silver: No

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bigmike0301 wrote:This puts me in mind of the ostrich and emu craze down here several years ago.
[[[snippage]]]
Which brings to mind the Dutch Tulip Craze in 1637 or so.
"There never was a union of church and state which did not bring serious evils to religion."
The Right Reverend John England, first Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston SC, 1825.

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