Tony Lawrence Coins and Stuff: bullion

Monday, July 21, 2014

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

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

A commemorative half dollar at the price of bullion?

This is an unusual coin in many respects.

It was the first commemorative coin issued by the U.S. Mint since 1954 and it was the first 90% silver coin since 1964. It's one of only three silver half dollars made after 1964.

Yet you can buy it for little more than the value of the silver it is made of. I bought the one in the picture for $13.75 and that included shipping.

That wasn't always the case, though. In 2002, an MS70 sold for $1,064.00. Today even that could be had for a bit over $120.00 or so.

What happened? Well, part of it was surely due to the mint going way overboard with Olympic issue commemoratives in 1995 and 1996. That turned more than a few people against the series. This 1982 had been produced in high numbers (over 7 million), so there were plenty to go around.

I suspect that all the clad commemorative halves also help push prices down - new collectors may think all modern commemorative halves are clad.

Do you know the two other 90% halves? One is the 1993 Madison Bill of Rights and the other is the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy half. The Madison also sells near bullion prices, while the Kennedy is a little more expensive.