Book review of Screw the BS: How to Invest in gold and silver

This is a very short book - 76 pages.  Nevertheless, it contains good advice and background information on metal investing.

The author (Tony Chou) expects gold and silver to peak around 2017. For 99 cents (Kindle edition) you can find out why and what he thinks is the smart way to invest in metals.

By the way, he does mention numismatic coins - he doesn't recommend them, of course, but he does mention them.

What does he recommend? Physically backed ETF funds. I don't know that his 2017 peak prediction will be right, but I do agree with him on ETF stocks - if you want to invest in these metals, that's the way to go. Unless, of course, you think the world is going to collapse into chaos, in which case you should be buying junk silver coins and small denomination bullion gold coins - neither of which are recommended by Tony Chou, who suggests guns and food stockpiles instead if you really think that doomsday scenario is possible.  I agree with him on that, also. 

Buy this book at Amazon and help me support this site!

Clue for the second 2014 Silver Eagle Giveaway:  Goldine, Silver, or Brass:  a die gauge between the C and O in Continental identifies these.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Second 2014 Silver Eagle Giveaway Starts Monday June 9th

Name the Numismatist Giveaway

Yes, I'm giving away another 2014 Silver Eagle. The contest starts Monday, June 9th and will end on July 31st.

Silver Eagles are made by the United States Mint and are one Troy ounce of .999 silver. Their value depends upon the spot price of silver, which is around $19.00 per ounce right now.

This one is a little harder than the first giveaway.

Sometime in June, one of my blog posts will casually mention the middle name of a certain numismatist.  That's what you need to know to win!

If nobody gets the answer, I'll draw a winner from those who answered incorrectly.

Don't bother to go looking now - the post with that name hasn't been posted yet and may not be anytime soon - but it will be posted before the end of June and you have until the end of July to find it!

And remember - this person was a numismatist.  He was not just someone who had something to do with money like a bank president. That's an important clue!

If I get more than than 200 entries, I'll double the first prize to two  Silver Eagles AND award a second prize of one Silver Eagle.

Also: be sure to tell your friends, because I'm not announcing this on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else (doesn't mean you can't do so, of course).

THERE WILL BE CLUES IN OTHER POSTS.  These are important, because more than one middle name is mentioned!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: All my coins are in a safe deposit box. I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Twenty Cent Coins - why?

One of the coins in the collection I inherited really made me curious.  It was a twenty cent piece; a common date for that series, but I wondered why we ever made such a coin.  The Red Book didn't tell me, and in the mid 1950's my options for numismatic knowledge were limited.  Our library had nothing, the Internet was more than 20 years away and even the one local coin dealer I knew couldn't answer that question.

A related question would have been why we made quarters.  After all, our coinage was based on the decimal system, so quarters was actually an odd choice. The reason for that, though, was the common practice of cutting up larger coins into quarters and eighths ("pieces of eight").  A 25 cent coin made sense because of that.

So, no twenty cent pieces until 1875.  But why then?  I did not know.

Much later I learned that the Western states didn't like the nickel 5 cent coins because they weren't silver.  Most of the remaining silver half dimes minted previously had been sucked out of circulation both during the Civil War (hoarding) and because of the new nickel coins (bad money drives out good). This left no way to make change for a quarter without the unacceptable nickel. Or at least so said Senator John P. Jones of Nevada, a heavy silver mining state.

There was undoubtedly more to the story: silver interests had lost the battle over 3 and 5 cent coins. Coinage of dollars had stopped and "free silver" was yet to win the major Morgan Dollar victory, so the silver producers surely pushed hard for this also. They were a powerful lobby then and now.

Of course it was confused with the quarter and  and was quickly dropped from circulation strikes after 1876 (proofs were made through 1878, though).

A short lived series with a lot of interesting history.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

This week's Coinweek Giveaway: http://www.coinweek.com/~cd53675ce0bee42

Also multiple contests going on at http://www.moderncoinmart.com/forum/forums/contests/

Apocalyptic dreaming

One of my favorite coin related forums is Modern Coin Mart. It's an unusual experience: unlike many forums, it's almost completely free of acrimony. I'm not saying that everyone always agrees, but that the disagreements are civil and even friendly.  There's no bullying, no "better than thou" put downs - it's a very polite forum.

It's also unusual in that a large percentage of its members are "stackers" rather than coin collectors. Stackers buy precious metals.  Some buy coins too, and the forum has plenty of numismatic topics, but stackers talk about rounds and bars and how silver is going to rise again (they hope).

Some see silver and gold as an investment, some see it as a hedge against inflation and some seem to be traders and speculators, jumping in and out as markets rise and fall. For others, however, there's another reason to buy precious metal: they believe that our economy will soon collapse and that the U.S. dollar will be worthless.

Sometimes that belief almost seems to be longing. I'm not saying that they want their non-stacking friends and neighbors to be destroyed financially, but that there is a twinge of religious fervor here. Like the crazies who pop up now and then insisting that Jesus and the Resurrection are coming THIS YEAR, these financial collapse believers are doing more than hedging their bets: they are certain that collapse is imminent.

Well, I can't say that's impossible, can I?  In fact, the relative probability is a heck of a lot better than angels swooping down with swords to slay the wicked. It is at least something that could happen, right?  I can certainly see a perfect storm of natural disasters and political mishaps that could trigger such a thing.  I can also see me picking next weeks Mega Millions number, but I'm not really expecting either one.

These folks are expecting it and when it happens, they'll have gold and silver assets. They won't be penniless - well, they will be, just as you and I will be, but they'll have gold and silver to barter with. They'll survive the economic and societal collapse of civilization.

Well, unless they don't survive the roving gangs of murderous thugs, the polluted water, poisoned food and raging disease that would accompany such a collapse.  I'm sure some of them have thought about all that too and are stacking canned goods right beside their silver bars - google "survivalist planning".

Shrug.  I insure my house against fire.  It's not really any different, is it? You and I have home insurance and mutual funds, they have stacks of shiny metal and soup. Same thing, really.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

This week's Coinweek Giveaway: http://www.coinweek.com/~cd535e2d686a500

Also multiple contests going on at http://www.moderncoinmart.com/forum/forums/contests/