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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

In the world of Precious Metals stacking, one thing never gets any love:

Silver spoons. As in, silver place settings of any style.

There are sayings about silver spoons that imply that they are connected to great wealth, and maybe in the 1700s that was true. But nowadays, you can buy them in good condition for less than the price of an ounce of silver, and you can USE them to eat with at every meal, anti-bacterial properties and all. Class up the kitchen!

Compare these to coins or rounds and ingots.

You get rounds or ingots of silver, you keep them in a drawer, and when you die, your lazy crackhead children sell them for half price to whichever pawn shop is between them and the liquor store.

You get old silver coins, you keep them in a drawer, and when you die, your lazy crackhead children dump them in a Coinstar machine at face value so they can buy a carton of Reds.

But on the other hand, if you get silver place settings, you spend years enjoying them every time you eat (and non-silver utensils taste nasty, trust me), and then when you die, your lazy crackhead daughters fight for them as they magically contain whatever remnant of your love remains for them.

Your lazy crackhead sons will still pawn them for half their value.

I also have the silverware, inherited. We use it 1-2 times a year. It’s nice, but annoying to wash by hand. 
 

It’s one of those things I’d never buy but it’s kinda nice to have 12 hrs a year. I’ve never priced it out...but if the world goes to anarchy, I could trade a spoon for some bread or a beer. So I got that going for me. 

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Maybe people have been loading up on coins, but many many 1oz gold coins are fresh out of availability from apmex, provident, etc. 

I specifically want some philharmonics, and the local dealers show them having in stock.  Went to the shop this weekend and they wouldnt sell it to me in person -- due to covid you have to order online.  I asked if i could just buy it on my phone and take immediate delivery -- no, have to wait a few days for bank to clear.  WTF?  How the fuck were you able to do in person commerce before that?  Lunacy

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2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Maybe people have been loading up on coins, but many many 1oz gold coins are fresh out of availability from apmex, provident, etc. 

I specifically want some philharmonics, and the local dealers show them having in stock.  Went to the shop this weekend and they wouldnt sell it to me in person -- due to covid you have to order online.  I asked if i could just buy it on my phone and take immediate delivery -- no, have to wait a few days for bank to clear.  WTF?  How the fuck were you able to do in person commerce before that?  Lunacy

Sounds like a smokescreen for "we don't have it."

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My budget is much more modest. I just want to find one or two Mexican Dos Pesos, like, 1/20 oz each more or less, normally there'd be handfuls available at $90-95. Oh, you can find them, and people are selling them for $120-130. And getting it. I could see it if they were rare. But these are coins with the numismatic value of a bottle cap. (Now somebody will link to valuable bottle caps,) OK, so they have less numismatic value than a bottle cap.

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15 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

My budget is much more modest. I just want to find one or two Mexican Dos Pesos, like, 1/20 oz each more or less, normally there'd be handfuls available at $90-95. Oh, you can find them, and people are selling them for $120-130. And getting it. I could see it if they were rare. But these are coins with the numismatic value of a bottle cap. (Now somebody will link to valuable bottle caps,) OK, so they have less numismatic value than a bottle cap.

https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12857058#Comment_12857058

You mean like this???

I am starting to look for one of the dos pesos as well, though I will insist on one of the circulating ones (not the 1945 dated restrikes). I'm willing to pay a little more for the circulating version, but last I looked the best price I found was $200 so I will wait. I'm game for the 2.5 as well, same deal, no restrikes, not to much north of spot.

collectible_bottle_cap_6ujdgo0zjklq.jpg

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24 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Back in the Before Time, I'd occasionally get a pre-restrike one from places like Apmex for the same price as a restrike, no extra mark-up. If somebody's pulling in extra now, gotta respect the grift.

What's a restripe, and pre-restrike? I also wouldn't say grift, unless they say it's just as good as the other. 

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9 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

What's a restrike, and pre-restrike? I also wouldn't say grift, unless they say it's just as good as the other. 

Originally, these gold coins (both the Mexico 2 and 2.5 pesos, and also many other world coins) were issued for normal circulation, back when gold was still money. These got different dates each year like other coins. Later, the government decided to make more of these as bullion, meaning they were sold for their gold content (which was a lot more than face value) but these were no longer used as money. The restrikes were typically all one year, 1945 I think in this case. So these restrikes are genuine gold, the same as the originals, but they were never really money.

I am (slowly) working on a set of each type of Mexican coin that circulated as money (a 'type set'). For this for me, the restrikes do not count, but the originals do. If all you care about is the gold (true for most people), there is no reason to avoid the restrikes.

Edited by pantone159
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Yeah, the gold pesos we are talking about were because of Mexico's coinage reform in 1905 where they pegged 2 pesos to about 1 US dollar, gold. Since the US$ was about 20 to an oz of gold at the time, a 10 peso gold coin was almost exactly the same as a $5 US.

(The Mexicans actually made .75 grams gold a peso, so it didn't match up exactly to the US, but it's a very small difference.)

I think at first there were only two coins, the 10 peso Hidalgo, and the 5 peso Medio Hidalgo. (1/2 Hidalgo, Hidalgo is the guy on the coin.) After the Revolution, they added the 2 1/2 (Cuarto Hidalgo) and the 2 (Quinto Hidalgo), as well as the 20 (Azteca, IMO the coolest coin of the set). In 1921 on the 100th anniversary of Independence, they issued the honking massive 50 peso Centenario, which is a magical talisman in the culture, hell, there's a dive bar down the road from me with a painting of a Centenario painted on the door where you can drink a beer and take in the show.

As Pantone159 said, they stopped being literal money sometime in the 40s [edit: 1931] when the peso inflated to the point where you'd be crazy to spend them for face value.

I do think they got a new lease on life. They were traditional gifts, and for a while at roughly 40pesos/oz they matched up pretty well in US$ with the post-FDR $35/oz price of gold, especially when Americans weren't technically allowed to stack more than a few US gold coins. I am told that one nickname for the US dollar was "Peso de oro" (oro = gold), in the 50s or 60s, who knows if that couldn't apply to Mexican coins AND US banknotes of the time.

When you think of all the extra chaos people experienced in Mexico, with weaker banks and currency, as well as never having to turn in their gold, it makes sense that they'd still have an attachment to it. I mean, it's not goldbug central, but it's slightly more mainstream than in the modern US.

The French and Austrian have also done lots of restrikes of certain coins. I don't think the British do-- they make their gold Sovereigns up fresh every year.

 

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Anybody have any idea when the 2021 Libertads will hit the market the market this year? I like to buy coins from different countries (all just for silver or gold content). Libertads seem to be more scarce and priced higher relative to spot. 

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Today I was going to celebrate my second vaccination by swinging by the best-priced coin shop and splurging on some small gold coin, didn't really care what.

Dude was cleaned out. Said he had just sold 50 1/10 oz gold Eagles at $230 each. He did have one 10 gram Credit Suisse bar the thought of which almost made me swoon from boredom.

His silver Eagles were $10 over, other things close behind. These spot prices are not anywhere near the real price to buy.

I did score about a dozen display cases that he just gave me for free. I know a bunch of crafty jewelry type people who could use them at shows, so maybe I will swap them for beer.

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4 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Dude across town is moving them for 260 each. It's almost like people are playing with free money.

Shit, Trump bucks, and Biden bucks are just as good as any ol' money. I'm gonna guess that people are just looking at the free money, and think that they might as well hedge against the inflation anyways since it'll be better than the cash at hand.

Edited by workswithseed
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6 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Shit, Trump bucks, and Biden bucks are just as good as any ol' money. I'm gonna guess that people are just looking at the free money, and think that they might as well hedge against the inflation anyways since it'll be better than the cash at hand.

Well I dunno. We have made 12 cents interest off the stimulus money we parked in a new joint savings account.

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Random factoid for those who are into old gold pesos 1905-on, and who maybe get a kick out of counting their dragon hoard in pesos:

If you take 1 gold Sovereign, and add it to 1 gold 20 Francs, the total weight is so close to 17.5 gold Mexican Pesos that the margin of error is probably less than you might get with a random handful of the Mexican coins.

So if you're a peso man, you can be a crypto-peso man to mix it up. Just alternate sovereigns with 20 francs, you got 17.5, 35, etc in pesos.

This may be of vital importance when the Chinese send a new Maximilian to rule all of North America from Chapultepec Castle.

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So you folks might be aware that some of the folks on WallStreetBets decided to buy silver a few months ago.  They were hoping to break the COMEX and squeeze the silver market.  Apparently they actually got somewhat close to the goal.  The LBMA published a report admitting as much:

Quote

...
Surprisingly, the LBMA report acknowledges that strong inflows into silver-backed ETFs in late January and early February, if they had persisted, could have led to the LBMA London vaults running out of acceptable (good delivery) silver bars for the ETFs. ...

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/lbma-acknowledges-buying-frenzy-in-silver-market-and-silver-shortage-fears/

On the heels of the LBMA report, Craig Hemke published a call to action on SprottMoney.com that the folks at WallStreetSilver have heard:

Reference:

https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/A-Time-to-Fight-Back-Craig-Hemke-April-20-2021

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On 4/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, RDCanecutter said:

Random factoid for those who are into old gold pesos 1905-on, and who maybe get a kick out of counting their dragon hoard in pesos:

If you take 1 gold Sovereign, and add it to 1 gold 20 Francs, the total weight is so close to 17.5 gold Mexican Pesos that the margin of error is probably less than you might get with a random handful of the Mexican coins.

So if you're a peso man, you can be a crypto-peso man to mix it up. Just alternate sovereigns with 20 francs, you got 17.5, 35, etc in pesos.

This may be of vital importance when the Chinese send a new Maximilian to rule all of North America from Chapultepec Castle.

Hmm, sovereigns do have a dragon on them (unfortunately losing the battle), so they do seem pretty appropriate for dragon hoards.

As far as taking over Chapultepec, would there be another round of the ninos heroes hurling themselves off the cliff to try and stave off the Chinese?

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1 minute ago, pantone159 said:

Hmm, sovereigns do have a dragon on them (unfortunately losing the battle), so they do seem pretty appropriate for dragon hoards.

As far as taking over Chapultepec, would there be another round of the ninos heroes hurling themselves off the cliff to try and stave off the Chinese?

I am less than expert in Sino-Aztec relations, but I can confirm that those local crafts sold by orphans on Mexican beaches in fact come in giant plastic bags direct from China. My friend the Canadian Pirate confirmed it. He's even whiter than I am, so people in Mexico say all kinds of things in front of him, not knowing he has been screamed at by at least two Mexican wives and so probably knows Spanish words they never learned.

In short, there is already cooperation, in the shadows.

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Guess I’m glad Dad collected a few of these... but the family (two DILs) have used some of it for jewelry in the form of earrings/pendant sets. Mrs. Brat wears the 50 Peso about once every 10 years.

The kilo silver ingots I would like to have made into three beer tankards. Anyone know a silversmith?

 

 

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70159278-42A5-4C7F-9A8E-ACFD829D27E5.jpeg

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10 hours ago, Armybrat said:

The kilo silver ingots I would like to have made into three beer tankards. Anyone know a silversmith?

 

70159278-42A5-4C7F-9A8E-ACFD829D27E5.jpeg

All I can do is google for Texas silversmiths. The guy I'd ask to do it is in North Carolina, but for a job like that if I were you I'd want to deal directly with a guy I know at his shop, or better yet, his house.

An established family-owned jewelry store might have the talent on-site to do it. Art festivals would be hit-or-miss because lots of the crafty folks are just wire-benders. Another thing you could try is to contact local fine arts guilds, half the people in those may be amateurs but the rest might be highly skilled.

Dunno if the purity would be a problem-- 999.6 fine might be too soft to hold up to normal use, if that's what you even want. But if a dude can cast silver mugs, I am sure they could mix in a little copper to strengthen it.

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Flipping through the radio I came upon one of those "Let Us Help You Buy Gold" ads. It's like watching wolves train sheep. I guess their target audience is people who still think FDR will come grab their gold. About every two decades or so this sort of things seems to flare up with "Financial Advisors" helping trusting retirees out of their nest eggs, and then about half the Financial Advisors do a little time after all the money's gone....

If somebody's reading this who doesn't know how to get gold, and wants some, here's my guide:

Go to a pawn shop. Ask if they have gold coins. If they do, take a picture of them and write down the names of whatever they are supposed to be. Leave before they show you any jewelry.

At the bar in between the pawn shop and the tattoo parlor, have a beer and google whatever coin you saw. Multiple places should have the dimensions, weight, and current "melt price" (no you ain't gonna melt it, that's just a term) of the gold. Write that down. Ignore eBay listings, those are fantasy prices.

Go back and ask them to weigh and measure it. They will. Ask them what they want for it. If they want maybe 5% over melt, and you like the coin, hell, get it. If you don't like the price, thank them, go have another beer, then get a tattoo.

There. That's how you can get gold. Or a tattoo.

Edited by RDCanecutter
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17 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Actually this. What should be my go to to sell gold/silver, and I know how much should I get back? I know they'll take it lower than melt, but how much less?

You should search around until you are getting at least 95% melt. These days you might even get melt or a little over, depending on the item. [EDIT: actually it looks like several things are fetching more than melt right now.]

I know you aren't close to Alabama, but here is a guy who does it right, listing by the minute what he buys and sells for. He has the second-best buying prices in town. I put him here as an example of how a dealer can be transparent, if they want to.

https://www.alabamagoldrefinery.com/product-category/coins/

There may be a similar place near you. Even if a place doesn't have a web site, they should be able to give you a close estimate over the phone. If they won't, well, that tells you something too.

We Buy Gold places are pretty fly-by-night. You might get 50-75% of melt at those places. They can be useful for finding out if a gold chain is real or just plated.

Edited by RDCanecutter
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10 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I kinda figured that, but could have been a better way than I can think of.

For taking a few dozen ounces and turning them into cash, an honest local coin shop can't be beat. You could piece them out on eBay (I did that many a time too) and for things like American Silver Eagles you will maybe make a dollar more an oz on eBay after fees and mailing and thirty minutes work to do the listing.

The one exception I found where eBay thrashes the coin shop is if you have some old private mint silver with some sentimental draw for somebody. eg I had a UT "coin" that would have been generic silver at the coin shop, but to a lady in Texas was worth 2x melt on eBay.

If you are new to eBay, I would not start selling on it with silver.

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Finally found some small gold that didn't have stoopid premiums so I jumped on it. Random 20 Francs from Provident Mint going for $16 (less than 5%) over melt.

It was kind of hard to find it on their site, it's not under "Old Gold" like it would normally be. You have to click on "In Stock Gold" and then noodle on down until you see it.

It's the first metal I've bought since I played High Roller and used an eBay Buck to help nab a Mercury Dime back in January.

Hopefully the 20 Francs doesn't arrive looking like it hit a belt sander. Will post eye candy for ye my goblin brethren.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some news worth keeping an eye on...

Quote

...
In a 58-page protest submitted to the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, the LBMA and the World Gold Council complained that the “Net Stable Funding Ratio” provision of the Basel III regulations would require the London bullion banks to hold funds offsetting 85 percent of the value of the unallocated gold they hold for customers, and the banks could not afford this.
...
The protest continues: "The required stable funding for short-term assets would significantly increase costs for London Precious Metals Clearing Ltd. clearing banks to the point that some would be forced to exit the clearing and settlement system, which may even be at risk of collapsing completely. ..."
...
The LBMA and World Gold Council protest is dated May 4 and is posted at the LBMA’s internet site here:

https://www.lbma.org.uk/articles/lbma-responds-to-prudential-regulation-authority-consultation
...

https://gata.org/node/21134

If the BoE and/or BIS don't relent and require Basel III compliance as it currently stands, banks might close their gold trading operations (like ScotiaBank did last year) which will drain liquidity from the paper markets.  Things could get a bit chaotic, especially given the current circumstances with shortages of physical gold everywhere. 

On a possibly related tangent, the CME last week lowered margin requirements for gold/silver contracts...

Quote

CME lowers bond margins for gold, silver, platinum, and more

... the margin for gold is down 10% and silver margins have dropped down 9.2%. ...

On the intraday chart below you can see that the price was moving higher well before the news hit the wires. When the official release did take place by the time the major publications caught wind of the story it gave gold futures a second wind to push higher. This morning the momentum has continued and $1820/oz has been breached. One thing that is clear from the volume histogram is the fact that the average volume in the European session is higher than usual.

https://www.kitco.com/news/2021-05-07/CME-lowers-margins-for-gold-and-silver-futures-contracts.html

 

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Hearing about the disaster that is the current wave of Covid in India, I wonder if that wouldn't affect the price of gold if people cash in for emergencies. I doubt any of the physical gold would ever reach us, but it seems like the overall price would drop some if more were freed up.

I'd rather be wrong, not have people forced to sell it, and still pay higher.

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23 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Hearing about the disaster that is the current wave of Covid in India, I wonder if that wouldn't affect the price of gold if people cash in for emergencies. ...

I take no pleasure in speculating on this matter, but from what I've read/seen, the hospital system there is overwhelmed and inadequately supplied.  Indians don't need emergency cash to pay for medical service if they can't *get* medical service. 

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Well up jumped the silver, y'all.

I'm sittin at home mindin my business when a dude who has a gold shop texts me askin if I want to add onto his sign. I painted his logo on the side of the building last year, got paid a Sovereign's worth of gold and what-not. So this involves adding three words, I work up several designs, go over there thinking I'll ask for a 1/10 oz Eagle, then he picks the absolute simplest design, doesn't even want it all that big.

I remember how this guy is the dream customer-- knows what he wants, says it, then likes what you do. So I ask if he's got a gold 2 peso. He ain't got no gold 2 peso, but let's go inside and look. I am not feeling it with the gold he does have, so I say, what if I do it for 4 silver rounds? Deal.

My Precioussss

 

AGRSignPayment.jpg

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The gold arrived., O My Goblin Brothers.

Random 20 Franc turned out to be an 1857 Nappy III from France. Most likely cleaned, which means very little to me, because the weight is good. (Cleaning coins, currently the worst voodoo curse you can put on collectibles, was once what collectors did. But anyway this is just bullion.)

Shown here with a US cent for comparison. Abe was ready to get into it with Napoleon III down in Mexico, sent General Sheridan with some hard-handed veterans to occupy Texas and prepare for action against the French in Mexico. Nappy III blinked.

DIEU PROTEGE LA FRANCE on the rim.

A-goblin-prepares-for-the-launch-of-the-original-Gringotts-Wizarding-Bank-at-Warner-Bros.-Studio-Tour-London-013.jpg

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14 hours ago, pantone159 said:

That is cool. I assume you were expecting to get one of the rooster 20 francs? I don't know my French gold, but my quick research says this is a circulation coin, not a restrike. I like it!

 

I had no idea, I figured the odds were either a rooster or the Swiss Miss. I honestly expected it to be all banged up or scratched. Maybe the next one would be.

I guess they have a basket of 20 francs that don't quite make the grade for a higher mark-up, or are one-offs that don't merit making a new listing for a coin or two.

I agree, it doesn't seem like they restruck this one. And at 145 million made, no real reason for a counterfeiter to make some out of gold to get a mark-up that doesn't exist. I love common coins.

My quick googling says that the 20 francs the French restruck, they'd change the rim from "Dieu Protège La France" to "Liberté Egalité Fraternité."

Edited by RDCanecutter
ze english, eet is 'ard
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Exit strategies when collecting gold and silver. Anybody got one?

My metals are a counterpart to my stock market "play money"-- I had a small stake that I put into each. With the stocks, I originally tried to get them to the same level, then I watch them "race" each other. I have check points where I buy or sell them based on criteria that amuse me.

With the gold and silver, I pretty much just buy whichever one I have less of in $, so I guess I am working the Gold-Silver Ratio at a basic level. A couple years ago, I was tired of "Dead Dumb Silver" and started selling chunks of it to fund things like printing tshirts I could sell at art shows for 3 times my cost.

Then came the pandemic, nowhere to sell in person, and money printer brrr. As a kid who lived through the Ford/Carter years of War On Affordable Comic Books, and who later got his paychecks for a while in Pesos, I am flinchy about inflation. So I put some free Trump/Biden money into metal again.

So now, I have some silver I bought less than a year ago at $20 total cost/oz, that I could toddle down to the coin store and sell for 29/oz, cash. But for what? I don't want to sit on cash, I want to work a deal with it.

The days of March 2020 when a blind pig could make easy stock market money seem over for now. What do y'all think? What would y'all buy?

As for the gold, that's stack-and-hold hasta la muerte. We are pinched-soul little goblins after all.

Edited by RDCanecutter
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I once found myself overextended on investments at a time my business/income hit a rough patch.  I had to go to my local coin store and sell some metal.  I could feel part of my soul dying.  I don't ever want to repeat that experience. 

Most people have no qualms paying for insurance against various personal tragedy scenarios.  I see value in having insurance against human hubris (monetary tragedy).

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I am not looking to sell it all. Maybe occasionally shave off ten or twenty percent to use for something else that might make money. Then fold part of any profit back into more shiny.

When I sold a dozen ounces of silver to pay the tshirt printer, I felt nothing, Lebowski, NOTHING. My soul is dead. But more likely it was because I didn't have to, fortunately.

The only time I sold gold was so I could buy two Olympic-quality fencing blades. It seemed worthy and noble enough to use gold. 

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