i bought 20 morgan silver dollars 0.90 oz each in 2010. it was not worth it.

Do it. Silver is great. It looks nice. It feels good. I like stacking it.

Fuck, I just bought 20 acres in the desert using about 100oz of silver as my down payment.

Silver is still very much a thing.

Check us out over in /v/silverbugs if you want to get started stacking/saving/collecting silver. To get started I'd just get some American Silver Eagles, Canadian Maples or other low-premium low cost government and recognized coin. Then you can start stacking bars and rolls if you want to get into all of that. I'm a big fan of the Scottsdale 10oz stackers even though they're a bit pricier. You can buy Sunshine Mint 10oz bars for less which is likely more economical anyway.

Avoid eBay sellers unless it's the official eBay store for a proper and known mint. Scottsdale Mint's eBay store will give you much faster shipping than buying from their website direct and can often get free shipping and the bar(s) for less than the website price if you win their auctions.

But yes. Gold and silver is still worth while. There are certainly people who will accept both as forms of payment for everything from vehicles, to land, to guns, to whatever you want.

I occasionally wonder about the people who are selling gold and silver, saying "quick, buy our gold and silver now so you can make a fortune when the value of the dollar drops!". I wonder if they believe what they are saying, why would they sell now instead of keeping it themselves and sell it later, since it would net them greater profits?

Buying gold is rarely a way to make a significant amount of money. The whole point of gold is its stability. When the market is up, stability is less important, and the value of gold drops somewhat; and when the market is down, investors seek to hold value and gold is one way to do that, so gold rises. But these shifts are relatively small compared to the market, and the smallness of those changes is what gold is all about. Over time, the value of gold generally keeps pace with inflation. Holding gold will never be a way to get rich.

However, anyone who's watched daytime television has seen advertisements hawking gold as the next big wave in investment, predicting massive increases in value. Just who is running these commercials; and if gold is such a great investment, why aren't they buying it themselves instead of buying TV ads to sell gold to you? That should tip you off. The companies running these advertisements are financial services companies. They are in the business of lending money, generally at high interest rates. They frankly don't care what you do with the loan, whether you buy gold with it or a jet ski; what they're after is the interest on your loan. Trust me, they make far more money off your interest than they would if they bought gold instead.

Some companies take it a step farther and stamp the gold into non-negotiable coins, often giving some impressive-sounding name for the coin to give the impression it's a valuable piece of currency, prized by collectors. Be skeptical. The vast majority of these are simply a way for them to sell you the gold at a price higher than its actual value as gold; but to anyone you might sell it to, it's only worth the gold it's made from, so you'll lose money. There are some exceptions. South African Krugerrands and American Eagle coins, for example, are minted by governments as a way to facilitate private ownership of gold and do have a value slightly higher than the bullion itself, but their price fluctuates in line with other gold; so they're really of no greater value than just a plain gold bar, just easier to buy and sell.

--- http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4214

I think you need to be realistic about G/S. It's not magical. It has held its value for thousands of years for very specific reasons (it doesn't spoil, its malleable, etc.) The idea behind holding it through some sort of crisis, as I understand it, is as a store of wealth. While stock/bonds/money bills/promissory notes may become worthless during the crisis, you are banking on the idea that when (or if) conditions or currency stabilize after the crisis, the age-old tradition of gold and silver being valuable and coveted, will still be in force. Therefore your holdings in the metals should be able to fetch the same or similar value in buying power that you had before the crisis. A store of wealth.

During the crisis, depending on how bad it is, it may not be as helpful. You can't eat precious metals, they are heavy, its a "soft" metal (gold at least,) and therefore not fit for use as a weapon or tool. When it comes to strictly surviving , gold and silver are pretty far down on the list of your basic immediate needs. If it breaks down to a sheer survival scenario food, water, tools, weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, etc., will have much more immediate use and value to you then some precious metals.

So invest accordingly. Also be wary of those who are buying precious metals as an investment to make profit, as they depend on others to buy in as well to push up the price. When it comes to investments, everybody has a scheme and is looking for a sucker. The metals markets, like all markets are manipulated and rigged. Good luck.

I've thought of this myself, say you had stocks in 2008 and cashed those out for silver/gold in metal form, would that have helped a lot then if you did it before the crash?

Check out r/silverbugs. It's a very active subreddit.

I have a generator, tools and welding gear. I wouldn't trade any of it for gold in a total collapse scenario. Or in a soft collapse scenario for that matter.

Well, it depends.

If you are looking long-term for something to bury or as an inflation hedge, by all means--do it!

Just be aware that, in the event of global societal collapse (not likely) gold will be utterly useless to you. People will not want to trade in it--they may at first, but if things aren't getting back to "normal" in short order people will want nothing to do with precious metals.

You can never go wrong with guns, ammunition, drugs (antibiotics and painkillers), and potable water/clean food (or the means to make them so). Two-way radios will also be (excuse the pun) worth their weight in gold when the collapse comes. I recommend spending a few bucks and building your own Faraday cage and storing your electronics in there. Nothing wrong with an extra bit of precautions!

I think if you're going to invest in gold/silver, it would be better to actually acquire the gold/silver you're investing in. Saying you have it on paper likely won't be enough during a severe economic crisis, which I also believe is on the horizon for the near future. Actually having the goods is more dangerous, less insurable, but more guaranteed. I would say that that is up to you.

I think in a lot of ways though, your investments should reflect how bad you think the coming economic crisis will be, and how damaging it could be to the infrastructure around you. A better investment might be solar cells for your roof, a rainwater catch/purifier system, and acquiring things like firearms and ammo. Look at this way, if nothing happens, then you have gold/silver that might have slightly appreciated in value that you're terrified of selling for the rest of your life for fear of the economic crisis hitting the moment you do in fact sell it off and that money becomes worthless--or investments towards your property that could alleviate any tension caused by economic hardship. As long as your property is guaranteed to remain yours, that's the main thing you should worry about, and investments to improve said property and protect it would be better than silver/gold in a safe. Solar cells will help over the course of your lifetime by reducing or eliminating that utility bill, same with the rainwater system if that proved beneficial enough. And guns and bullets are just fun to play with, hopefully nothing you ever need, but guns can also appreciate in value if maintained properly. Guns can absolutely become collectors items......... especially on the black market if said gun becomes illegal in the future. Food for thought.

What the shit, i thought this was going to be about adding "Voat Gold" or "Voat Silver" to the site.

http://www.reddit.com/r/QuarkOmega/comments/37z74l/is_it_summer_time_for_digital_gold_learn_more/

(soz for Reddit haven't cross posted yet) ( i host 3 v subs here )

if you read that you will learn something.

Stack some metal in your house in case you ever need it.

I buy online from APMEX because they are in Oklahoma City, so no sales tax for me.

Get 60 or 80 Silver Eagles, plus a few of Gold Eagles. Break that into several shipments across a year.

No fuss, no muss. Comes right to your mailbox.