Trading Silver/Gold In A Broken Economy

[Ed K]

So yes, it seems to be catching on that gold and silver coins are a store of value. That is not to say that they are your first line of defense.

Go back three years when everything shut down. Is it so the dollar was your first line of defense? Maybe so but we weren’t far from seeing that you needed to rely on the gas in your tank or the food in your basement because stores were closed. When stores were open you couldn’t necessarily get what you needed. Toilet paper anyone? Maybe you had to use what you had on hand. Eat some food from your freezer or pantry. That was far from a total collapse, but it gives you a glimpse of the every day needs that need to be satisfied and how it can be worrisome to not be able to get them. In the real deal circumstances would be far worse than “worrisome”. So no, coins will not help you at that moment.

Note that when we came out of that aforementioned “mini collapse” scenario we went back to using dollars (to find they are no longer worth a dollar). In the more extreme case that’s the point when silver and gold would come into play.

[KenH]

Gold and silver have always had value, even in primitive societies, and will have value if SHTF type of thing. The problem with your 1 oz bars is folks knowing they are actually silver and not alloyed with a base metal. what folks tend to do is by "junk silver" - that's pre-64 silver coins. Usually they're about the value of the silver they're made some. This gives small amounts of silver for trade in something that's pretty sure it's real since it's hard to make fake silver coins.

[Lloyd Smale]

Gold and silver have always had value, even in primitive societies, and will have value if SHTF type of thing. The problem with your 1 oz bars is folks knowing they are actually silver and not alloyed with a base metal. what folks tend to do is by "junk silver" - that's pre-64 silver coins. Usually they're about the value of the silver they're made some. This gives small amounts of silver for trade in something that's pretty sure it's real since it's hard to make fake silver coins.

they sell fake silver and gold plated coins every day right on tv. primitive society's? they swapped it for glass beads. PM's are an excellent long term investment to hedge inflation in an economy that is at least working. shtf? your going to starve to death looking at a pretty rock. that is if someone that has guns and ammo doest shoot you take what food you have and if they have room after they take your food take your pretty rocks too.

[JSnover]

Your gold might be worth a lot less, if you can find anyone willing to take it but lead, now that might be a different story. During the American Revolution the market price of lead within the colonies far exceeded the market price of gold.
People will always make jewelry from gold but only after their other needs have been met.

[MUSTANG]

Keep in mind that Money (Gold, Silver, Copper, etc..) is facilitate exchange - not a means unto itself. It is an exchange mechanism when one for one barter does not work.

1. Gardener has a surplus of Beans, Corn, Potatoes. Furniture maker wants Gardeners stuff and has wooden chairs - but Gardner does not need or want to speculate on trade for chairs.

2. Brewer has Beer; more than can his family can use - but does not not need or want Chairs. Does not need vegetables Gardner has for trade. Does need Barley and Wheat that Farmer 15 miles away has.

3. Farmer has to go to town once each month and wants to stay at Inn Keeper's Lodging and Eating place. The Lodging and eating place guy does not want Farmers bags of Barley and Wheat to take up his scarce losing and eating space.

Enter the Silver Round.
A. Furniture maker buys 2 weeks work of vegetables from Gardner with 1oz Silver round.
B. Gardner wants to have some beer. Takes Silver round to Brewer in exchange for Jug of beer.
C. Brewer needs more Wheat and Barley. Takes Silver to Farmer and exchanges for Wheat & Barley.
D. Farmer goes to town and has a meal and stays over night at Inn Keepers. Gives Silver coins to Inn Keeper.
E. Inn Keeper has 3 chairs broken. Needs new Chairs; takes coin to Furniture maker and exchanges for chairs.

AND THE TRAVEL OF THE SILVER COIN CONTINUES ON, and ON, and ON.

Money is simply a form of exchange where Direct Barter does not work.

[Lloyd Smale]

Lloyd and 5 others with him want beans corn beef and beer. offers to trade 22 shells for it. you say no i dont need them. Lloyd shoots you and takes what he needs. leaves the pretty rocks for someone stupid enough to be willing to burn the calories needed to haul it. Lloyd now has enough food to feed 4more people so on his next trading expidition has 7 people with him and two more to hunt or grow food back home. Good thing is Lloyd has enough guns and ammo to arm three times that many "traders" But Lloyd is a fair man and will always offer his 22 shells first

[tinsnips]

My father always said gold and silver doesn't taste that good i would rather have a pantry full of canned food . By the way my father lived through the depression with 15 bothers and sisters . So i am going to go with his advise.

[country gent]

To a man the old timers Dad and I worked with told us the same thing, ( these men came over during or just after WW2 from Poland Hungary and other European countries). When it fails you need three things food, shelter and a means to protect it. Gardens and fields will be raided by anyone passing by. homes will be taken and or invaded. These men who had lived thru this all told the same thing. Precious metals, jewels, art were basically worthless. foods and the basics of survival were what was valuable. Even here during the war the ones a head were the ones with big gardens or the truck farmers, They had food and animals could trade for the niceties they needed. Rationing and shortages affected those in the cities and towns much more than the people in the country. Butter cheese and most foods can be made on the farm.

Look at thse men and to a man the first thing they purchased were firearms and ammunition, then a home with enough room for a big garden and possibly room for some animals. Look back to history and it will tell/show what was is needed.

[waksupi]

I traded silver for a new set of tires a few years ago. It will depend on how much the other party values silver.

[WILCO]

Never bothered with precious metals, because the one's selling it were accepting fiat currency as payment.
Then there's the fact that the government can outlaw them like years past.
Finally, even though plenty of people on the titanic could swim, it didn't matter.
My best advice to anyone is to live your life.
Prepare for the minor bumps and inconveniences.
Big picture stuff you most likely won't survive anyways..................

[Ed K]

To a man the old timers Dad and I worked with told us the same thing, ( these men came over during or just after WW2 from Poland Hungary and other European countries).

With their gold!

[Lloyd Smale]

Big picture stuff you most likely won't survive anyways..................

thats a fact

[.429&H110]

Went back and fixed Willie Lincoln, died 12 yo of typhoid.
We have forgotten raw water is nasty.

As my dad explained it, your schtick is a rare skill you learn for a part-time job.
My uncle played trumpet nights, made good money.
I can reach 8 feet, so I learned to paint kitchens, but I'm no house painter.

Maybe you can tutor algebra2 or mow with your snath.
A scythe starts first pull, every time, quiet without batteries.
"Showing up and working" might be a common schtick for this forum,
a rare skill these days, priceless.

[kerplode]

IMO, precious metals are an inflation hedge and a store of wealth. They are not a SHFT currency. Hoarding silver rounds to barter for bread in some Mad-Max situation is just prepper mental masturbation. If you're really worried about it, spend that money buying things that'll be directly useful instead of rounds. Oh, and start exercising, and get your cholesterol, blood pressure and diabeetus under control. Hard to hear, I know, but it's true...

If SHTF manages to actually happen, and I actually manage to survive the first two days, I'm not giving you anything for your coins. In fact, you'll probably get my lead and then I'll take your coins...

[kerplode]

Lloyd and 5 others with him want beans corn beef and beer. offers to trade 22 shells for it. you say no i dont need them. Lloyd shoots you and takes what he needs. leaves the pretty rocks for someone stupid enough to be willing to burn the calories needed to haul it. Lloyd now has enough food to feed 4more people so on his next trading expidition has 7 people with him and two more to hunt or grow food back home. Good thing is Lloyd has enough guns and ammo to arm three times that many "traders" But Lloyd is a fair man and will always offer his 22 shells first

Listen to Lloyd...Lloyd understands how SHTF is really going to work.

[super6]

I'd wager that most of us who have any degree of wealth saved up (no matter how much that is) currently have it invested in various stocks, bonds, mutual funds -- some sitting in banks in low interest accounts, or higher interest CDs -- and on that day when the economy goes bust, we won't be very happy.

Call up your broker, and tell him you want your money... oh yeah, he's not gonna answer. Remember when covid happened and you couldn't get in the bank?? How did that feel?

We might soon hear on the news, that for our own good, the guvmint has discontinued the nearly worthless dollar and replaced it with brand new units of wealth that will be assigned a yet to be determined trade value. And HALLELUJAH!!! -- half the people in the country will now have more money than they had before. Oh, and by the way gold and silver, will now be illegal to own or trade, and we will have a period of time to exchange it for more units of the new sanctioned wealth.

jd

It happened in the late 1920S- early 1930S, Gold was Illegal to own or sell. I think we all have forgotten.

[MaryB]

Let me try to retell 1792...

1792 we didn't have much, but by God, we could grow corn.
We could eat it, barnyard pets could eat it, but the wife wanted more stuff. Wives being what they were, America went out back, made whisky. I blame women for indoor plumbing, too. Anyway, whiskey was portable, the henpecked husband could swap whiskey for anything on earth that she wanted. Whiskey is better than money, you can't drink gold, but you can sell whiskey for gold. Our brand new Federal gov't wanted to have banks currency oligarchs tolls and taxes, so George Washington taxed whiskey, then settled the Whiskey Rebellion more or less.

Nowadays, most places, you can own a still. You just can't sell untaxed whiskey.
Beer is good stinky fun to make, my mother made 20 proof ginger beer.
You need some clean blue barrels, fire, water, real glass deposit bottles, a recipe
and the hoarders will bring you their gold.

Come the revolution it won't be safe to drink the unchlorinated city water.
We have forgotten about typhoid, Abe Lincoln's son Willy died of that.
Maybe don't bother with whiskey, if you have a spring, sell water.
There will be no gasoline, diesel, propane, electricity, it's not something I want to live to see.

My dad taught me "Everybody needs a schtick". What can you do that is useful.

Brew beer? Got it! Have 10,000 bottle caps, and a couple cases of growlers with the rubber gasket/wire bail to hold the cap on. Sell a growler then they bring it back for refills! Currently do that with friends and family LOL except they never pay me grrrr

3 level all grain beer brewing rig, I can bottle or keg!

[MaryB]

PMs are a store of value, they enable a reasonably lossless transition from one currency to another, be that US dollars to Mexican pesos or US dollars to US dollars 2.0.

Some hoarders expect to be buying bread with silver, but I think that’s the least likely scenario. In such a collapse you’ll find that having a marketable skill or a critical commodity will be at least as important as what you have stored.

I wouldn’t buy PMs unless you have spare cash, and even then it wouldn’t be my first investment. Most of the time I’d rather have equities or bonds paying me a return than a stack of silver that does nothing.

Silver I bought in 2001 for $8/oz is now worth $23.45. I call that a good rate of return. My dollar cost average(add up all your paid prices and divide by total ounces) is currently running $12/oz... still a really good rate of return! And long term it is running about 50% higher than the inflation rate so again a good investment.

To many think of silver like day trading, go in for a quick buck. Nope, that is a recipe to lose money! Silver is a long term investment!

[farmbif]

if your really worried the world will end trade the silver and gold for some rural land a good dog and a couple mules, a few cases of been weenies will be a good start and you will be much better off than those in the city and suburbs sitting atop their piles of silver and gold.

[MaryB]

So yes, it seems to be catching on that gold and silver coins are a store of value. That is not to say that they are your first line of defense.

Go back three years when everything shut down. Is it so the dollar was your first line of defense? Maybe so but we weren’t far from seeing that you needed to rely on the gas in your tank or the food in your basement because stores were closed. When stores were open you couldn’t necessarily get what you needed. Toilet paper anyone? Maybe you had to use what you had on hand. Eat some food from your freezer or pantry. That was far from a total collapse, but it gives you a glimpse of the every day needs that need to be satisfied and how it can be worrisome to not be able to get them. In the real deal circumstances would be far worse than “worrisome”. So no, coins will not help you at that moment.

Note that when we came out of that aforementioned “mini collapse” scenario we went back to using dollars (to find they are no longer worth a dollar). In the more extreme case that’s the point when silver and gold would come into play.

Neighbor across the street came to me during that and asked why I wasn't shopping once or twice a week. I told them I planned in advance for something like this and didn't need to. I could go once a month for meat and a few minor things...

Part of my pantry... out of frame to the left are 2 chest freezers, behind me more wire shelving units... it is 10x10 foot... and packed full!