The funny thing about Sterling Silver finds...

[Skippy SH13]

EDIT: No longer maintaining post.

 

[Crappies-n-Coins]

Man....this is creepy. I came here to make a very similar post, curious as to why "finding silver" was such a big deal over anything else, and I'm strictly talking coinage.

Get outta my head dude! LOL

 

[worldtalker]

Umm..maybe because it's REAL money,what's in your wallet looks like money,works like money,but...isn't money,people are going to find out soon enough!


GOD Bless

Chris

 

[The Dirt Fisherman]

its actually the find that makes you smile. not the value. I can go in my back yard and find a clad quarter or a mason jar lid. every piece of silver is different in its own way and rare now days. my dad tells me stories of him finding handfuls of silver each day when he was my age. so think about how much of it is left. if my dad was doing it so was everyone else. coins aside, jewelry is even more of a joy as every piece is different. chances are good that you've never found 2 of the same pieces of jewelry in the same area unless they were ear rings. depending on location you can find 3 mercs. those are the same 3 coins. maybe youll find 3 silver rings... theyre different but still rings which makes it cool. I don't know if what im trying to say is clear lol

 

[worldtalker]

Man, I've been hearing this for 20+ years. Yeah, it's "fiat" currency... but it's CURRENCY. And spendable is spendable.

Besides that, I know of ZERO merchants that will "weigh" my sterling silver butterfly and give me a specific amount of goods for it, other than a gold/silver shop... and you know what? They only give me a % of spot.
Yes, the metal is valuable, but the EXACT same thing can be said for anything else you can barter with.

As a case in point, seashells, salt, livestock, sacks of cereal grain, cowry shells, and BEADS for goodness sake were used as currency.

I can imagine the people who went from using salt to metal coins telling everyone around them, "Seriously, when the SHTF, and I have to grab my bug-out bag, do you really think those little disks of metal are going to be worth anything? Salt, man, you better stock up. You can use it for pretty much everything, and it'll barter during the zombie apocolypse."

Heck, even our modern language still has "worth his salt." or "worth their salt." to describe things of value. YES... we also have "worth their weight in gold." I get that... but my point is the same. Value is ONLY what others place on it. In times of demand it'll take a LOT of gold just to buy something that used to be cheap in gold. Take the gold miners in California. The ones who REALLY made the money? The merchants who upped their prices because of demand. What used to cost .01, began to cost .50 in gold or more. And the miners paid. Cattle were worth a small fortune. The value of gold during over supply? WENT DOWN in real life trade. It didn't hold it's value. And when and IF the USA (in our lifetime) ever does have the problem of our currency going sour... it's not going to be gold that saves people's butts, it'll be the basic necessities of life. Because that water bottle will now cost you $1 in silver coins instead of $1 in paper. THe value of your silver will go DOWN in terms of real buying power. Today, you can get a certain number of dollars for it. When it all falls apart, you'll get a lot dollars for the $1 silver coin, but a lot less of commodity goods. Better to stock up on the commodities, if that's your end-game.

Salt, Metal, pork bellies, cowry shells. The only value each has is what OTHERS place on it. Someday, you might very well find that the $50/ounce silver coin you have in your possession is really only worth $14 in US dollars. Oh wait. That's today. Uh, DANG, I guess I need another example. *wicked grin*

Everything runs on supply and demand. I get it, I really do... I also get that hoarding/stacking silver isn't helping people build wealth... and I'd rather have food and water storage and no debt than a stack of silver. Oh, and I always keep salt on hand... always salt. LOL

Skippy

Gold & Silver MAINTAIN their value.

 

[SoCalDesertFox]

Precious metals as a rule hold onto their inherent/perceived value much better. As we find more uses for them, their worth increases even if the supply increases. The same can't be said for our current money - as its supply increases, its worth actually decreases.

Also, there's likely childhood-embedded thoughts of silver and gold from cartoons and comics and stories that gives you that feeling.

 

[jeweler21]

Thirty years ago, while serving as President of the local coin club, I presented a program at our monthly meeting on the value of precious metals.
Actually the only thing of value is items to sustain life. Food, clothing, medicine, etc. But going back to the beginning of our nation and then again in the 1880's and then to the current time of 1980, an ounce of gold or silver would purchase the same amount of sustenance. A twenty dollar gold piece would purchase a wagon load of supplies in 1780, in 1880, in 1980 and I feel certain the same would apply today. In short precious metals do not serve as an investment but as a line of security or stability and this is what leads to their attraction to us.
Good Luck & HH

 

[Captain Caveman]

I LOVE SILVER!!!! I love seeing it in the hole! When I see the edge of a silver coin in the dirt, my heart starts racing, I know its silver and I can't wait to get it out and hold it and squeeze it and love it and call it George! I can't explain it either, but boy do I love it!

 

[Terry Soloman]

 

[RobRieman]

Gold & Silver MAINTAIN their value.

Tell that to the people who bought gold at $1900/oz and silver at $49/oz.

 

[SoCalDesertFox]

Tell that to the people who bought gold at $1900/oz and silver at $49/oz.

Those are people that fail to understand market economics and didn't bother to look at spot price history over several years to see they were about to hit the fall instead of make a windfall.

 

[RobRieman]

The fluctuation of "traded silver and gold" is a scam. 80% of what is traded is futures. It is paper. Thin air. Not real. Just like fiat currency. REAL gold and silver has and always will be the standard of money for trade. You look at the price of gold and silver as fluctuating. It is not. Your example is the dollar fluctuating. $400 to buy 1 ozt. to $1900 to buy 1 ozt. The gold never changed..... It was the dollar. The hedge is the metal, not the fiat. You can go across this world, and every human being knows what gold and silver are. The wagon load of supplies is not the standard. The standard is what everyone is using as currency. Never has a wagon load of commodities been put in the bank as savings, and depending where you are the wagon of "goods" changes. The mining supplies has no value to the farmer, the farmer supplies has no value to the rancher and the rancher supplies has no value to the factory worker and one and on and on....... The paper got started by the banking industry as a way of transporting gold and silver without the risk of actually having the metals moved. Prior to the paper trade, it was more common to have an assayer in town than a bank, or at least the bank being the assayer. I remember as a kid traveling thru Canada or Mexico and the U.S. dollar was accepted everywhere..... Try it now. Just last year I was in Canada and I could not use the dollar anywhere. Nobody wanted it. I actually was told by a waitress that dinner was on her, that the restaurant didn't want my debt paper. True story..... I left twice the bill in U.S. currency and hoped that the police where not called when we left. I was at first offended...... Then I realized how arrogant most U.S. citizens are, including myself.

I agree 100% that gold is the standard of money for trade. The problem is that if the dollar is fluctuating then the value of your gold to trade with is still only worth the value of the dollar that is fluctuating. Unless you are going to wait until the dollar does not exist anymore and then see what it's worth?

 

[Jason in Enid]

Silver is so great to find because clad is just clad. It's modern, it's boring, it's no different than what is in your pocket right now. Clad has a value based on the issuing govt. Silver is a preciousssss metal and will always have a value regardless of the form it is in. Look at the Mexican coins, their govt changed the coinage and then the old ones became worthless for buying anything. The silver ones still have value as silver.

 

[ecoast]

Yep.
OP must be reading this and asking himsel 'wtf '?

... I thought the OP was talking about metal detecting and finding silver in the ground.

...sent from an anus from an asus

 

[ARC]

Cool thread Skippy.

*burp* should not post while drinking though... Happy new year.

Cant eat silver and gold... no nutritional value :P

 

[Jason in Enid]

Cool thread Skippy.

*burp* should not post while drinking though... Happy new year.

Cant eat silver and gold... no nutritional value :P

actually, silver is an incredible anti-biotic and has been used as such since at least the roman times. You may not be able to eat it for nutrition, but it's far from useless!

 

[T.C.]

In the near future, paper money may be good for fire starter or toilet paper....can't wipe yer butt with a silver round!!

Allrighty guys.. >here's some more data to toss into the fray. We're wanting to talk apples and apples, gold maintaining or not.. .blah blah blah... If you take $1 in 1900. It takes $26.80in US dollars (fiat or not) to buy the SAME amount of commodities, in 2015 based on the Consumer Price Index. (Valuation of the same goods).

A 1900 $1 gold coin weighs 1.672 grams of 90% pure gold. At today's spot prices that's $30.60 gram, making the gold coin = $51.16
A 1900 $1 silver coin is worth (at today's spot) $10.68.

WHOA, NELLY! Shouldn't they be the same? Why the difference? Pretty simple answer actually. SUPPLY AND DEMAND. That's it. Plain and simple. Gold might be a good hedge, unless you've bought high and are selling low. But that's the same for pretty much all of it.

Metals do NOT "maintain" unless you're looking at lousy value return. The real price of Gold is much higher than silver. To pretend that the value of the gold is just maintenance, tells you right there, that something is off. $1 of gold and $1 of silver were "equivalent" in 1900. If you believe METAL holds it's value, then a Morgan dollar's worth of silver SHOULD be worth 26.80 based on CPI (consumer Price Index).

And before we get all excited that Gold is so much higher than the CPI's value of $1...
Even if you believe Gold is a GREAT Hedge... consider the fact that $1 invested in the stock market (the top 500) would have yielded $19,800 in return by 2015 ($1000 investment yielded $19.8Million). To suggest that a $50 or even $100 value of gold is a great hedge is just..well... silly. Might as well buy the commodities.

If you believe that, PLEASE bury your money in the ground. I would love to find it in 20 years. It'll be WAY more fun... Speaking of whcih< I still don't have an answer why $0.30 of silver ecites me more than a $2 coin spill. I think it has magic powers...

Skippy

 

[bill from lachine]

Skippy,

Interesting thread to say the least....lol..

I know in my case I get a kick out of digging silver or gold.....not necessarily due to it's value more of a rarity issue.

After digging $5,000 or so of clad over the years it's spendable but gets downright boring.

And yes there is a hedge/insurance factor if things get downright nasty but I'd stick with silver rather than gold because that chunky ring that's worth $250 scrap would be a bit of an overkill trying to buy a loaf of bread.

Regards + HH

Bill

 

[metaldetectorguy]

I myself do not care much for the value of the silver myself but I enjoy finding a dirty tarnished silver ring. Taking it home to clean it up is like finding it all over again when you recover the shine to it.

 

[patiodadio]

I like finding clad but I love finding silver.