NA - Gold nearing $3,000!

FastEddieB

FastEddieB

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Oct 14, 2013
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Lenoir City, TN/Mineral Bluff, GA
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Fast Eddie B
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Has anyone else been following the price of gold recently?

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Gold has traditionally been seen as a hedge against inflation, and not so much an investment per sé. Over the years I've squirreled away a handful of 1 oz. gold coins, mainly Krugerrands, Maple Leafs, Pandas and U.S. Double Eagles. The lowest I've paid was $278 in 2001, the most $1,470 in 2011, my last purchase.

At no time did the price seem "cheap", considering that in 1900 the price was fixed at $20.67/oz, and as recently as 1934 it was pegged at $35/oz.

Still, it seems hard to justify today's price, though with economic uncertainty its always been a relatively safe haven.

Anyway, anyone considering buying - or selling - a today's prices?
 
This will be useless as to advice but it reminds me. I was in electronic tech school many moons ago (~1980) and one of my classmates was following the gold & silver markets. He explained to me that silver stayed at about a fixed fraction of gold (roughly). Gold was much higher so he went out at lunch and bought several ounces of silver (a lot given our relative incomes). He was sure silver would rise to get back to the normal ratio with gold.

It turned out he was right about the ratio-gold promptly fell back into line. Silver didn’t move.
 
People don’t think FIAT currency be like it be, but it do

When you consider the future is 95% just reruns of the past, it all makes more sense
 
I have been liquidating some of my physical precious metals over the last year, so surely this upward train has a long trip ahead of it! ;)

Look at it as you would any other investment, with the inflation hedge aspect as a kicker. Never be sorry to take a profit if you think it is the right decision.
 
I have a portion of my portfolio in precious metal, specifically platinum, silver and gold. The firm's strategy is to accumulate gold but, when platinum, and more often, silver prices are depressed, those metals are purchased and then sold to accumulate gold when their prices spike. The ultimate goal is further accumulation of gold. I have invested in that segment for the past 5 years and it has proven to be a very wise decision (strongly encouraged by my financial manager). He would like to see my portfolio at about 15% gold but I am still gun shy so I am only at around 8%. Even with the secure storage fees, I am doing well in that sector. I use McAlvany Precious Metals.
 
Since about 1851 the price of a top of the line pistol and an ounce of gold have almost always been the same (the pistols have consistently and significantly out performed the gold on increasing in value).
 
robin ardoin said:
Since about 1851 the price of a top of the line pistol and an ounce of gold have almost always been the same (the pistols have consistently and significantly out performed the gold on increasing in value).
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This is from a 1902 Sears catalog:

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And gold did close above $3,000/oz yesterday.
 
Flatiowa said:
Since about 1851 the price of a top of the line pistol and an ounce of gold have almost always been the same (the pistols have consistently and significantly out performed the gold on increasing in value).
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They've always been the same price, but one has increased price more? What?
 
dmspilot said:
They've always been the same price, but one has increased price more? What?
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Think a SVI is closer to 5k these days

Infinity Firearms

Infinity Firearms, SVI Guns is a top of the line custom pistol manufacturer. If you want the best money can buy, shop here.
sviguns.com

But a high end normal carry pistol like a C2, that’s pretty on point actually
 
Racerx said:
A customer of mine smelts all the gold and any other precious metals after you kick off.
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I was at a bachelor party once and one dude I didn’t know there was a funeral home director.. he got three sheets to wind and made a comment I’m sure he intended as a joke when he was being teased about being rich “you wouldn’t believe how much gold you find in old people’s teeth” followed by a very uncomfortable moment of silence by everybody in ear shot.
 
Flatiowa said:
...a funeral home director...
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Apparently there is pretty good $ in the business. My college girlfriend's roommate, after her uncle died, was conscripted by her family to change her major to a mortuary degree to take over the business and keep it in the family. She was pretty, uh, pampered and was shocked how well she could adapt to working with cadavers etc.
 
Mahneuvers said:
Apparently there is pretty good $ in the business. My college girlfriend's roommate, after her uncle died, was conscripted by her family to change her major to a mortuary degree to take over the business and keep it in the family. She was pretty, uh, pampered and was shocked how well she could adapt to working with cadavers etc.
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Years ago when I worked in a small town in Kentucky the local funeral home guys would stop by and invite a few of us to come over after work to have a drink and observe an embalming session. I just couldn't do that ... :no:
 
Mahneuvers said:
Apparently there is pretty good $ in the business. My college girlfriend's roommate, after her uncle died, was conscripted by her family to change her major to a mortuary degree to take over the business and keep it in the family. She was pretty, uh, pampered and was shocked how well she could adapt to working with cadavers etc.
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Certainly is…my grandfather built up one of the largest funeral home companies in its time. He had 22 locations including 7 full service homes. He also built an insurance company and that was what kept him in vacation homes and airplanes ;). He was a CFI and owned a small airport when he was younger so naturally all of his four children got their pp certificates. I came by the aviation bug genetically, I suppose. Oddly enough, other than my father’s older brother, who ran the operation when my grandfather retired, none of the grandchildren were interested in the business. If I had only known how lucrative it could be…. Interesting, my wife (second) is an embalmer and funeral director.
 
Which is just another way of saying that as a nation we've experienced an inflation rate of more than 8500% since my great-grandfather was born.
 
Rene said:
Which is just another way of saying that as a nation we've experienced an inflation rate of more than 8500% since my great-grandfather was born.
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But on the plus side we don’t have to crap in a pot and carry it out in the morning. (Rural homes without indoor plumbing were still common in the 1940’s), refrigerators and lights are also convenient to have (1940’s-1950’s REC’s) not having your snoopy neighbor pick up the party line phone and eavesdrop on your conversation is also nice. (Late 1980’s were I grew up), o and interstates, and being able to basically eat any fruit or vegetables any time of year despite the season is another plus. The list is much longer but modern life does have some significant pluses over the “good old days”
 
Flatiowa said:
But on the plus side we don’t have to crap in a pot and carry it out in the morning. (Rural homes without indoor plumbing were still common in the 1940’s), refrigerators and lights are also convenient to have (1940’s-1950’s REC’s) not having your snoopy neighbor pick up the party line phone and eavesdrop on your conversation is also nice. (Late 1980’s were I grew up), o and interstates, and being able to basically eat any fruit or vegetables any time of year despite the season is another plus. The list is much longer but modern life does have some significant pluses over the “good old days".
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Oh yeah. Three houses in my family were built 1890-1915 and later (1920s-40s) had additions constructed for that newfangled plumbing. (The Ancient Romans invented it. But I had a teacher argue against Archimedes' proofs. So we aren't even so modern post 2000.) The assessed valuation on each home is higher than the existing housing average I listed. (It is an expensive market here.) A cousin owns a 1950s era Kelvinator which still runs and was the first refrigerator his grandparents owned. (Before that it was lutefish and hölskykurkut.)

The standard of living in my family and community seems to have gone up until 1958-60 before falling. My parents vaguely remember party-lines, and there is a freeway . . . not for locals . . . 50 miles for trucks and tourists from Ignace to Canada.
 
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Mahneuvers said:
My college girlfriend's roommate, after her uncle died, was conscripted by her family to change her major to a mortuary degree to take over the business and keep it in the family. She was pretty, uh, pampered and was shocked how well she could adapt to working with cadavers etc.
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I wasn't pampered. Over the years I have flown a number of bodies in everything from a travel casket to strapping a frozen body into a passenger seat. Body conditions from pretty decomposed to still warm to frozen, with stench. I still get the willies handling bodies.

Back in my racing days one fuel customer owned some funeral homes. He had the only race car shop with stained glass windows. His unofficial motto was, ''People are dying to keep me racing''...
 
I had a friend growing up whose father owned the only funeral home in their town. She said she REALLY hated it when the family car was in the shop and her dad would drive her to school in the hearse.
 
Zeldman said:
... Body conditions from pretty decomposed to still warm to frozen, with stench. I still get the willies handling bodies...
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Wow! It's hard to believe, after all that, you have the great sense of humor you have. Or maybe that's why you do.
 
Corin said:
Greater Fool Theory: The greater fool theory argues that prices go up because people are able to sell overpriced securities to a "greater fool," whether or not they are overvalued. That is, of course, until there are no greater fools left.

It doesnt mean you cant profit, just dont be the one holding the metals/crypto when it goes down.
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Many are probably too young to remember when the hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. My dad was a farmer and very suspicious of banks, when he sold his fall harvest each year in the late seventies he would immediately convert it to 100 oz silver bars through his stock broker buddy. When the hunts started making their move he had a dragon hoard of them in the basement and cleaned up. He still had six left when the gov stepped in the silver market and it crashed. My mom didn’t end up selling those until 2008 when they finally got back above what was paid for them.
 
I do think it’s worth noting the ratio of physical precious metals holdings to futures contracts on the books….
 
Flatiowa said:
I do think it’s worth noting the ratio of physical precious metals holdings to futures contracts on the books….
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You can sell 60,000 %
the producers.jpg
So long as nobody thinks a payout is coming. :rolleyes:
 
Mahneuvers said:
Wow! It's hard to believe, after all that, you have the great sense of humor you have. Or maybe that's why you do.
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No, carrying bodies was just a part of the job. Flying a plane was the job description while serving the folks living in the villages is what I really did.

And, I may add, not once did I hide in a body bag just to scare the #%$& outta the cargo guys...
 
Zeldman said:
. . . . I still get the willies handling bodies.
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This reminds me of a joke.

A rich dude was out hunting in the wilderness with a guide and asked him what would happen if he twisted his ankle or something.

The guide replied that he once "got a 800-pound elk off the mountain".

"Really?" the rich dude said.

"Yup, took five trips. But I got 'er all down".
 
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