Anyone buying gold?

[enderwiggin]

Anyone else buying gold bullion or coins? If so, do you use the internet or do you have a local dealer? I'm looking for a new source, I think the guy I had been buying from sold me an underweight coin and I'm pissed...

[Don T. Lukbak]

I bought my bolt stash about 25 years ago through my bank. No idea whether banks do that now, or not. Wouldn't hurt to ask. It was a good deal...the spot market price for each coin on the day of purchase with a tiny handling charge...maybe 20 bucks for the order regardless of whether it was 1 coin or 1000.

You've probably heard Obamacare will add a new tax on any bullion purchase over $600. (Plus, if we do $600 or more in business with any escort we're supposed to send in a 1099...as frickin if)

You ever try to pay an escort with a Krugerrand? I like it when they bite into it, check for tooth marks.

[Prowordsmith]

I'm buying stock in a company that buys gold. Look at symbol GLD.

[enderwiggin]

Originally Posted by Don T. Lukbak

You ever try to pay an escort with a Krugerrand? I like it when they bite into it, check for tooth marks.

LOL, that would be something to see, but I'm with the crowd expecting the market price to sky-rocket in the next 5-10 years. (Especially if our dollar gets hyper-inflated... Thanks, BHO!) No way would I pay a lady with a coin worth 1200 today, but worth 5000+ tomorrow...

One of the problems I've been running into is these people who "collect" bullion, so they jack the price of a coin based on circulation, grading, blah, blah, blah. Seriously? It's not like these are 150 year old coins, that I can understand. Its a recent minting and its only value is its weight in gold, dammit! Like this auction for example. With gold trading at ~1200/oz, why would I pay 1600?

[Don T. Lukbak]

ja ja, gold fever's back. Which means, as you know, all manner of grifter will be presenting you with the opportunity of your lifetime..haw haw.

I had never even heard of a slabbed coin until just now...I'm real glad mine are just jingle jangle coin coins..I can see where some coin condom makes sense for a numismatic coin but don't see a lick of sense in it for bullion. I hope that guy didn't cheat you, Ender ... if you want a real grouchy old bastard to go see him with you I'll do it. Give him a chance to save face by claiming an honest mistake before you go after his pancreas.

Back then the Houston Post used to list daily spot buy/sell prices for Krand, Maple Leafs, Pandas, Mexican 50 pesos, etc. The Houston Barnacle is so worthless I wouldn't waste my time with it, but maybe Barron's or some other financial newspaper will publish that info. It's just nuts to pay 4 for 3 worth of anything.

When I bought my bullion coins from Med Center Bank, which I doubt even exists anymore, nobody down there even knew they did that, but somebody called somewhere and found out they could order the coins for physical delivery to me in a few days and debit my savings account. Very handy.

I didn't buy them as an investment or an inflation hedge; I bought them for in case I had to go on the lam for some reason or another. Renting girlfriends notwithstanding, I've always been law-abiding but I've also spent too much time planning escape drills. Same reason I never got a tattoo, which I caught hell for in the Corps.

Owning physical gold is a pain inna ass; you have to secure it, and transaction costs have become high. I have absolutely no doubt if I were interested in accumulating gold as an inflation hedge, not flight or the apocalypse, it would be the exchange traded fund, GLD, already suggested by Prowordsmith. It won't go POOF like Chrysler and GM senior debt did when Obama confiscated the bonds and gave them to his union thug buds.

Although the motherfucker might pull an FDR and confiscate gold.

You probably already know that inflation-adjusted prices for gold are nowhere near as high as they were under Jimmah Cahtahnomics. They finally came down after Ronaldus Magnus kicked inflation's ass.

[Jackie S]

If things get so bad that gold is the only thing that has monetary value, then you had better be invested in a good 12 gauge shotgun, lots of shells, and lots of canned goods.

There might come a time when a can of Pork and Beans is worth a lot more than a ounce of gold.

[Smoke2nd]

Silver my friends, silver is where it's at!

[Fred Dobbs]

Try these guys....tulving.com. Very reliable, very honest.

[enderwiggin]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

If things get so bad that gold is the only thing that has monetary value, then you had better be invested in a good 12 gauge shotgun, lots of shells, and lots of canned goods.

There might come a time when a can of Pork and Beans is worth a lot more than a ounce of gold.

Oh, I have those things too, don't worry about lil' ol' me. My brother, some of my closest friends and I have already discussed plans for the coming apocalypse. You may think I'm kidding and I am exaggerating a bit, but not really. You craft emergency plans for your family, don't you? How to get out of the house, where to meet, what things to grab if you only have a minute, etc., right? Why is it considered so insane to have a plan just in case shit hits the fan? We may never need to implement them and I genuinely hope that's the case. But if something does go wrong, I won't be one of the millions running around with my head up my ass wondering what to do.

Perhaps I'm being alarmist, but I don't think its outside the realm of possibility that our government could completely devalue our currency. As it is, the only reason the dollar has any value is that people continue to have faith in the government to back that money. Once that faith is gone... and it is dwindling as I type this... all bets are off and those bills in your wallet or purse become nothing more than fancy paper again. All it would take is for people to stop honoring that paper as having value, as being worth something. Its happened before and you're foolish if you think there's no way it can ever happen again. Talk to Germans who remember 1945, walking around with millions upon millions of deutschmarks that had no value. They couldn't even buy bread with wheelbarrows overflowing with bank notes. Hell, talk to a Greek right now.

I have plenty of friends who watched more than half of their retirement money disappear in a matter of weeks. My own godfather had to come out of retirement and go back to work because his retirement money became insufficient for him and my godmother overnight. I'm not some loon, putting all my money in gold and bathing in it like Scrooge McDuck. But I'm also not stupid enough to stick it all in the stock market and hope for the best. It's called diversification and any broker worth their salt would tell you its a smart way to hedge your bets.

I'm not suggesting that gold is the only thing with monetary value, now or in the future. Many skills, crafts and services, all sorts of goods and precious items, gems, metals, art and countless other things all have monetary value. But gold is universal and relatively portable. You can take an ounce of it literally anywhere and you'll have something with significant trade value.

Just food for thought.

[wyndam]

LOOK UP HOUSTON PRECIOUS METALS(HPM) TO BUY GOLD, SILVER COINS & SUCH LOCALLY, BEST DEALS. THEY ARE WHO ALL THE "SELL GOLD" STORES BRING THEIR STOCK TO..

INTERNET- I LIKE KITCO. THEY ARE IN CANADA, NO REPORTING TO IRS..

[JoeDelt]

I buy from these guys.

http://www.hnex.com/

You can purchase smaller quantities like 4 coins (over $1k, under $5k)
But sometimes their premium over spot can be high as $70 per coin for Eagles.

Gold is at all time highs but silver is 75%? below all time highs and their are arguments that it's being suppressed.
There are arguments that due to industrial uses for silver, there is less of it but it's hard to store a lot of it.

If you don't take delivery of the gold, you want to make sure they actually have the gold. Some of these places will sell you gold rights but expect you to sell it for fiat money so they don't actually have the gold they're selling.

1099 will probably be found to be un-doable due to amount of paperwork so congress will use that to pass a European style VAT tax.
So besides the income taxes going up higher, stealth tax (aka inflation), VAT tax, increase in social security minimum age, Health care tax, and other taxes we've never heard of, we're in for a long drawn out decline.

I don't think the dollar will collapse. We'll go to war before that happens. Then most of us will be dead so who cares.

http://www.shadowstats.com/
http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-2010

[Don T. Lukbak]

Originally Posted by JoeDelt

I don't think the dollar will collapse. We'll go to war before that happens. Then most of us will be dead so who cares.

I think you could be right. I believe Obama will order an attack on Iran...but not because of any Iranian nuke. He doesn't care about that. What he does care about is his chance for re-election in 2012 and when he realizes the "rally to the flag, don't change horses in midstream" effect will be his only chance to win he will do like any other threatened tyrant does; viz., Leopoldo Galtieri sacrificing Argentine lads in the Falklands, and enter us into all out armed conflict...probably not until AFTER Iran has nuclear armament.

[crimson]

Overpriced... although I said that back at $900.

[seanes]

Originally Posted by Prowordsmith

I'm buying stock in a company that buys gold. Look at symbol GLD.

I have stock in gold companies for investment and gold for ready convertibility. I buy gold baht in Thailand, from a dealer I've been doing business with since "Nam".

[gnadfly]

I check the spot price of gold out at www.kitco.com. Have you NOT gone into a jeweler and they act like they have to check the spot price by calling somebody on the phone and go thru this act like 1) The price could have fallen $100 in the last 5 minutes and 2) I'm supposed to trust what this 'person' on the other side of the line said when both you and I checked the spot price via the interweb 5 minutes ago.