Should I buy Silver and Gold?

[em26jamie]

Gold over $1450 an oz, and silver... holy guacamole! Over $40 an oz.

Copper not looking as strong. Only $4.26 per pound.

Few investments have been better over the past few months than gold and silver, especially silver.

And that kind of scares me. If they start to raise rates, will gold go way down? If they do raise rates and the gov't defaults on their debt because money won't be as cheap, will that make gold go even higher? People have been talking about a gold and silver bubble, and in the past, whenever bubbles are mentioned, they eventually happen and pop. If/When will that happen? I've been wanting to buy some silver, but didn't have the money. Now that I have some money, do I really want to buy? It's gone up 25% since I started saving up for some.

[peanuts]

And that kind of scares me. If they start to raise rates, will gold go way down? If they do raise rates and the gov't defaults on their debt because money won't be as cheap, will that make gold go even higher? People have been talking about a gold and silver bubble, and in the past, whenever bubbles are mentioned, they eventually happen and pop. If/When will that happen? I've been wanting to buy some silver, but didn't have the money. Now that I have some money, do I really want to buy? It's gone up 25% since I started saving up for some.

Raising rates is far far far away. The Ben Bernanke has said repeatedly "an extended period of time" when referring to the historically low interest rates. If it does come to the point where they need to raise rates it will be because their hand is forced due to inflation. But, at that point gold and silver should be much higher than now.

Everything is a "bubble" No price action is a perfect straight line. Gold and Silver bubble will be a reflection of the FED's actions to devalue our dollar. That is the real bubble... the money supply. When the spigots gets turned off, then gold and silver price highs are in sight, if not already reached. We are nowhere near that point. More money will be printed, QE cubed is right around the corner when nobody steps up to the plate to buy our bonds in June when QE2 burns out. That's why Bill Gross, the manager of the largest bond fund on Earth has gone from 12% of the portfolio in US 30yr treasury bonds in January to 0% in Feb, to -3% (short) in March!!! Here's the article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/PIMCO-bets-against-US-rb-3790514655.html?x=0

The best thing about silver is that you can buy it in increments of dimes, quarters and halves, currently about $3 for a dime, $7.50 for a quarter and $15 for half dollars. These all need to be dated 1964 or older, and are 90% silver. When you save up lots of money, then you can buy 1 oz rounds of .999 fine silver that are about $42 each right now, and get discounts when you buy rolls of them.

If you want to invest then you want to dollar cost average into your position. If you buy now, then buying for less in the future is a gift. Put a little bit away each time you get paid and then make a buy each month.

$50 silver seems to have a target on it.

[peanuts]

Raising rates is far far far away. The Ben Bernanke has said repeatedly "an extended period of time" when referring to the historically low interest rates.

And he says it again...

I hope some folks are on board with me here. I hate being right and nobody taking advantage.

[em26jamie]

And he says it again...

I hope some folks are on board with me here. I hate being right and nobody taking advantage.

After your previous post, I looked at all the change we have saved in a big bottle for quarters, dimes, and nickels (nickels have to be specific year, not just 1964 or before) and I found a grand total of 1 1964 quarter. I think I'm going to buy some silver this week.

[billyjoe]

9 Months ago I started a quest to obtain cheap silver by finding 35% silver wartime nickels minted 1942-1945. I finished today after looking at 252,000.

That is 126 boxes from the bank of 2000 nickels per box. How many do you suppose I found? Exactly 138 for a ratio of 1-1826. Little more than 1 per box. At current silver melt prices each nickel is worth $2.0418 for a grand total of $281.77. Looking back, the ratio of finds was about the same after 125,000 . Just 2 nickels off.

Any coin collectors out there might be interested in the other finds I came across. Ask and I'll post the complete results. It took many hours to search these coins and for the silver found it would work out to slave wages but I enjoyed it. Now moving on to another money making scheme. The bank tellers will miss me..............NOT!

--------------billy

[peanuts]

Thanks for sharing your scheme. How did you keep getting all of those nickels? I'm interested to hear about the other finds you made. Anything rare?

[billyjoe]

Thanks for sharing your scheme. How did you keep getting all of those nickels? I'm interested to hear about the other finds you made. Anything rare?

I opened up small accounts at 5 banks and a credit union and rotated amongst the 20 or so branches of those banks. Some were not so friendly but others were real nice. Still doing inventory on the other finds . Will post them in a few days. Now am working on another plan that I hope will be more profitable and less time consuming.

----------billy

[billyjoe]

Thanks for sharing your scheme. How did you keep getting all of those nickels? I'm interested to hear about the other finds you made. Anything rare?

Finds continued: out of 252,000 nickels

34 Buffalo Nickels dates worn off

20 Buffalo Nickels full dates oldest 1915

136 Canadian Nickels pre 1982. These contain 99.9% nickel and are worth keeping. Check a graph of historical nickel prices. As of 6/9/11 value 10.36 cents each melt value.

-----------------to be continued----------billy

[em26jamie]

Does this mean you just exchanged dollars for boxes of nickels and went through them? Do banks just have boxes full of nickels for us to sift through? Or do you just take $100 into a bank and ask for a box of nickels?

I went through all our change we have saved in a big 2 foot tall coke bottle bank and found a few wartime nickels, 1 1964 quarter, but no dimes. The dates on the dimes can be tough to see, especially if the dime is really shiny.

[billyjoe]

em26jamie,
I just give them $100 and they give me a $100 box of nickels. You have to make sure it's a sealed box. Many people are searching around here and you may get a box that has been searched. If you're on good terms with the bank and know when they order their coins, they might order an extra box for you. Around here they get coins in either Tues or Wed from Brinks or whoever they use. And they order the previous Friday.

------------billy

[billyjoe]

I just organized the silver wartime nickels by year and where they were minted. I checked mintage numbers of each of the 11 possible combinations and it worked perfectly. With a final total of 142, I found the fewest of the least minted variety. The 1943-d. 15.3 million were minted and I found 3. The most abundant should have been the 43-p and it was. 271.2 million minted and I found 41. The rest also were found in numbers correlating to their mintage. From 44-s, 21.6 million, 5 found to 45-p, 119.4 million minted, 27 found.

While looking through these hundreds of thousands of nickels it made me realize even more what a waste it is to buy lottery tickets. My son told me yesterday that he decided to buy a lottery ticket when the jackpot reached 350 million. Then he did some research and found out he was more likely to get killed 10 times driving to buy the ticket than his chances were of winning the 350 million.

------------billy

[billyjoe]

Finds continued: out of 252,000 nickels

34 Buffalo Nickels dates worn off

20 Buffalo Nickels full dates oldest 1915

136 Canadian Nickels pre 1982. These contain 99.9% nickel and are worth keeping. Check a graph of historical nickel prices. As of 6/9/11 value 10.36 cents each melt value.

-----------------to be continued----------billy

Nickels found continued: errors---'57 clipped edge, '83 cud (metal blob), '01 cud, 2, 1991 both sides appear melted and distorted, '85 off center, '88 off center, '05 copper showing through, '83 melted obverse, '83 clipped edge, '03 blurry seems almost doubled, 2 double headed nickels.

Proof nickels found 1961, 1965 Special Mint Set, 71s (2), '72s, '69s, '76s, '80s, '00s, '06s

188? V nickel very worn. Next post will continue with number of each of the 17 lowest mintage found.

-------------billy

[billyjoe]

These are the 17 Jefferson Nickels with the lowest mintages and how many were found.

1. rarest 1950d -mintage 2.63 million none found
2. 1939d- 3.51 million---none found
3. 1938s- 4.1 million--3 found
4. 1938d- 5.38 million--4 found
5. 1939s--6.63 million--2 found
6. 1951s--7.78 million--4 found
7. 1955---8.27 million--11 found
8. 1949s--9.72 million--16 found
9. 1950---9.85 million--18 found
10. 1948s-11.3 million--6 found
11. 1946s-13.6 million--10 found
12. 1942d-13.9 million--5 found
13. 1943d Wartime 35% silver 15.3 million-3 found
14. 1958--17.96 million-20 found
15. 1953s-19.21 million-18 found
16. 1938--19.52 million-25 found
17. 1952s-20.57 million-8 found

Contrast these mintages with the numbers being made today. For example 2006d-809 million, 2007d-626 million, 2008d-346 million.

In addition to the above I found about 60 from 1939 to 1959 that were like new and worth saving although they aren't worth a whole lot.

------------billy

[peanuts]

Au = $1540
Ag = $35.90
Pt = $1730

At less than $36 per troy ounce, silver seems to be one of the better values in the PM market. The GSR is 42.9... still way too high. Platinum also looks pretty good. Gold has been great, in that the volatility of silver and platinum are not found in the gold market. The other metals will soon catch up to the much more widely traded gold market.

[Eric]

Forget gold and silver. Buy bitcoins. Haha, I'm kidding. But I have been slowly "mining" them for a while now. Should be interesting to see where this new economy goes. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, do a quick Google search and you'll learn all about it.