Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

[metalman]

Whenever I get to worrying about my gold bullion investments, I go here and here for a flawless indicator.

Why?

Because that is where the trend data are on high denomination US gold coins, $20 Liberty and St. Gaudens.

Only a small portion of the population can afford these coins. These smart investors were buying while Joe Six was dozing in front of Cramer's show and they're buying still when Joe is selling the family jewels to pay his taxes.

At these two links you learn what rich people are doing in the high end gold market.

What do you see in the prices?

Green, green, green, baby! With only a couple of red prices to indicate falling prices.

Some day they'll turn red. Hasn't happened since I started watching seven years ago.

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

I bet silver will meet or outperform the exotic collector coins by the end of this bull market trajectory, and it's a deep value play, compared to those highly illiquid investments.

[metalman]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

I bet silver will meet or outperform the exotic collector coins by the end of this bull market trajectory, and it's a deep value play, compared to those highly illiquid investments.

could be. what's your take on rubino's latest analysis?

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

Picked this up off his latest post:

* Now, about the silver shortage: Yesterday I called the Northwest Territorial Mint to order some silver coins and spoke to a frazzled but energized saleswoman who claimed to also run the gift shop. Among other things she said that customers are ordering huge quantities of silver bars and coins, and walk-ins (people showing up in person to buy bullion) are gobbling up all the Mint’s on-hand inventory. As a result, a decent-sized phone order now takes up to 60 business days to ship. This is one of those rare cases where the investing public has the power to purposefully affect a commodity market; if we all order physical silver the supply shortage will become impossible to hide. Just one New York Times story and it’s game over for the shorts.

For the past year I've been utterly sick and tired of anything to do with stocks, ALL the endless panting obsessive stock chatter makes me merely feel nauseous. Plus I think that most of these stock obsessed people are so engrossed in the detail that they are just flat out dumb on the bigger investment insight. Mid cap and small cap gold stocks are cherry bombs - TNT for your serious money along with all the rest of the bleeding stock market which will probably go into "fibrillation" on multiple different occasins as oil ratchets to $500 a barrel. And that "serious money" is 90% of your money, if you are a serious investor.

Peter S. C. H. I. F. F. 's outfit back in 2003 wanted to put me into an entire portfolio of mining shares. I stuck with it for one year, then dumped their entire portfolio and started just following my own instincts. Today almost five years later I can't believe they call themselves a conservative outfit - they are placing 75% of their high net worth client's money into freaking stocks , as though this were some sort of astute posture for the next five years. Peter plugs gold stocks and mining stocks, and hardly mentions bullion, as though everyone can see it's self evident that stocks are best. I say this kind of advice for this decade is meathead advice.

What all these people are thinking right out of some backwards looking textbook is "take small amounts of your money and put it into ultra high potential juniors, and get some home runs". The point of this strategy is you need to keep those speculative positions SMALL, to keep a grip on your risk. I say the opposite - look for one or two assets that provide you with a decent amount of upside but are free of the fundamental characteristic of stock markets, which are promises to pay, in a schizophrenic, manic depressive market facing Peak Cheap Oil. Then when you've found one or two such assets which can perform well in inflation and are completely uncontaminated by the equities markets notoriously schizophrenic behavior, put a major, non-trivial part of your investments ther and stop obsessing about investing, which is an activity that can eat up your soul and turn you into a dried out spiritual prune by the time you get old and wizened.

Meanwhile you can own some of the physical, already delivered assets all those razzle dazzle broker endorsed mining shares are promising to pay you back for, first hand, in the form of the commodity itself. without going anywhere near the shares. These sleazeball stockbrokers want to serenade you about "leverage" on the asset, by owning the producer. I'm listening to this broker who wants my 2% - 4% commission and thinking - if you can own the asset itself, what the **** are you doing messing around in the stock markets in what promises to be an ultra high inflation decade due to Peak Cheap Oil? The 1970's were far more dangerous to one's money than were the deflationary early 1930's, because during ultra high inflation decades you get a mercilessly range bound see-saw traders market.

Brokers love it because at every stomach wretching turn of the market their captive sheep clients buy, and sell, and buy, and sell, etc.

I've dealt with the Northwest Mint, even two years ago, and they were having the same delivery problems they have today. I don;t even give a shit whether silver is going into scarcity. All you need to know about it is that it's cheap-ass cousins, tin, nickel, lead and zinc have all risen 500%-800% and silver has barely risen 300% and is one of the monetary metals. It's good for at least a 200% rise in a decade. I put an oversize chunk of my money in it for a decade, and when all of Peter S. C. H. I. F. F.'s clients are crapping in their diapers when the market does a face plant, I'm holding, not "promised ounces in the ground from a mid-cap with dazzling potential", but lots and lots and lots of real already minted ounces of former precious-metal-money, in distributed locations where it's locked up and segregated in my name and not within a country mile of any pooled account.

People who say "well if there's a problem with retrieving any real metal from my paper shares I'll be perfectly happy settling the delivery in paper cash" are being myopic beyond description. They deserve whatever they get eventually. I'll be feeling on top of the world with the delivered metal that's gapping up $20-$50 a day, while all of Peter S. C. H. I. F. F.'s other clients are anxiously calling up their brokers asking for some hand holding, while they get scared (by the paper certificates they are holding) into leaking panicky trading commissions and tax consequences every damn year as the markets run their positions like a yo-yo.

What the f**k does anyone here have to microanalyse positions for, or look for gurus, or endlessly parse the potential for a deflation where paper money suddenly becomes ascendant in a Peak Cheap Oiol world? What kind of Alice in Wonderland world is that? They are getting so smart micro-analysing all this stocks crap that they come out the other end stupid as a brick when it comes to risk-adjusted reward. Oil is going into permanent shortage. No, this is not a deflationary event in a fiat money world. It is an INFLATIONARY event, and it's scheduled to be the ONLY act for the next 20 years, until we come up with some propeller-head gee whiz gizmo that produces abundant energy out of the hot air of alt-energy proponents dreams.

Meantime, anyone who positioned themselves with a significant part of their assets for massive inflation in hard goods which soar with inflation and become a select refuge whenever the stock markets are barfing (which will be often), has just retired comfortably. You can go to communities where everyone is terribly erudite and has read endless articles and dissertations "proving" that inflation is there, as far forward as the eye can see, and when it comes to investing their money they turn into the most halting, nervous nellie little old grandma's, with 10% of their money invested in gold and maybe 50% in hyperactively diversified "bond and cash positions" because they think they are being "prudent" doing that. What a load of bullshit. If they cannot find the conviction to invest non-trivially for the event they've spent years studying endlessly, then their entire absorption in this topic is a meaningless academic exercise.

Elaborately constructed stocks portfolios in the early twenty first century are in my jaundiced view, for dillettantes, and I'll say that even when they go through their next manic rise. Anyone can double their money, due to the inevitability of Peak Cheap Oil, by simply investing in the most humble physical commodities, rather than circling around paper shares like moths around a flame. But if in one's infinite wisdom, one only doubles 10% of one's total assets from this searing insight, due to little old granny asset allocation, one has not accomplished much. Rubino's article extract merely gives a broad hint of what's to come in a dozen commodities. Silver is of course a big sleeper, merely because it hasn't yet gone up much compared to all the others. One can use the elementary "flea market" approach to investing < cheap = good > to figure that much out. But it's astonishing how many people lack the elementary vision to position themselves with maximum simplicity for this event. Instead they will be running their legs all over the damn place constructing endlessly complex portfolios with fifty excruciatingly researched, dabbling little positions.

[metalman]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

Picked this up off his latest post:

* Now, about the silver shortage: Yesterday I called the Northwest Territorial Mint to order some silver coins and spoke to a frazzled but energized saleswoman who claimed to also run the gift shop. Among other things she said that customers are ordering huge quantities of silver bars and coins, and walk-ins (people showing up in person to buy bullion) are gobbling up all the Mint’s on-hand inventory. As a result, a decent-sized phone order now takes up to 60 business days to ship. This is one of those rare cases where the investing public has the power to purposefully affect a commodity market; if we all order physical silver the supply shortage will become impossible to hide. Just one New York Times story and it’s game over for the shorts.

For the past year I've been utterly sick and tired of anything to do with stocks, ALL the endless panting obsessive stock chatter makes me merely feel nauseous. Plus I think that most of these stock obsessed people are so engrossed in the detail that they are just flat out dumb on the bigger investment insight. Mid cap and small cap gold stocks are cherry bombs - TNT for your serious money along with all the rest of the bleeding stock market which will probably go into "fibrillation" on multiple different occasins as oil ratchets to $500 a barrel. And that "serious money" is 90% of your money, if you are a serious investor.

Peter S. C. H. I. F. F. 's outfit back in 2003 wanted to put me into an entire portfolio of mining shares. I stuck with it for one year, then dumped their entire portfolio and started just following my own instincts. Today almost five years later I can't believe they call themselves a conservative outfit - they are placing 75% of their high net worth client's money into freaking stocks , as though this were some sort of astute posture for the next five years. Peter plugs gold stocks and mining stocks, and hardly mentions bullion, as though everyone can see it's self evident that stocks are best. I say this kind of advice for this decade is meathead advice.

What all these people are thinking right out of some backwards looking textbook is "take small amounts of your money and put it into ultra high potential juniors, and get some home runs". The point of this strategy is you need to keep those speculative positions SMALL, to keep a grip on your risk. I say the opposite - look for one or two assets that provide you with a decent amount of upside but are free of the fundamental characteristic of stock markets, which are promises to pay, in a schizophrenic, manic depressive market facing Peak Cheap Oil. Then when you've found one or two such assets which can perform well in inflation and are completely uncontaminated by the equities markets notoriously schizophrenic behavior, put a major, non-trivial part of your investments ther and stop obsessing about investing, which is an activity that can eat up your soul and turn you into a dried out spiritual prune by the time you get old and wizened.

Meanwhile you can own some of the physical, already delivered assets all those razzle dazzle broker endorsed mining shares are promising to pay you back for, first hand, in the form of the commodity itself. without going anywhere near the shares. These sleazeball stockbrokers want to serenade you about "leverage" on the asset, by owning the producer. I'm listening to this broker who wants my 2% - 4% commission and thinking - if you can own the asset itself, what the **** are you doing messing around in the stock markets in what promises to be an ultra high inflation decade due to Peak Cheap Oil? The 1970's were far more dangerous to one's money than were the deflationary early 1930's, because during ultra high inflation decades you get a mercilessly range bound see-saw traders market.

Brokers love it because at every stomach wretching turn of the market their captive sheep clients buy, and sell, and buy, and sell, etc.

I've dealt with the Northwest Mint, even two years ago, and they were having the same delivery problems they have today. I don;t even give a shit whether silver is going into scarcity. All you need to know about it is that it's cheap-ass cousins, tin, nickel, lead and zinc have all risen 500%-800% and silver has barely risen 300% and is one of the monetary metals. It's good for at least a 200% rise in a decade. I put an oversize chunk of my money in it for a decade, and when all of Peter S. C. H. I. F. F.'s clients are crapping in their diapers when the market does a face plant, I'm holding, not "promised ounces in the ground from a mid-cap with dazzling potential", but lots and lots and lots of real already minted ounces of former precious-metal-money, in distributed locations where it's locked up and segregated in my name and not within a country mile of any pooled account.

People who say "well if there's a problem with retrieving any real metal from my paper shares I'll be perfectly happy settling the delivery in paper cash" are being myopic beyond description. They deserve whatever they get eventually. I'll be feeling on top of the world with the delivered metal that's gapping up $20-$50 a day, while all of Peter S. C. H. I. F. F.'s other clients are anxiously calling up their brokers asking for some hand holding, while they get scared (by the paper certificates they are holding) into leaking panicky trading commissions and tax consequences every damn year as the markets run their positions like a yo-yo.

What the f**k does anyone here have to microanalyse positions for, or look for gurus, or endlessly parse the potential for a deflation where paper money suddenly becomes ascendant in a Peak Cheap Oiol world? What kind of Alice in Wonderland world is that? They are getting so smart micro-analysing all this stocks crap that they come out the other end stupid as a brick when it comes to risk-adjusted reward. Oil is going into permanent shortage. No, this is not a deflationary event in a fiat money world. It is an INFLATIONARY event, and it's scheduled to be the ONLY act for the next 20 years, until we come up with some propeller-head gee whiz gizmo that produces abundant energy out of the hot air of alt-energy proponents dreams.

Meantime, anyone who positioned themselves with a significant part of their assets for massive inflation in hard goods which soar with inflation and become a select refuge whenever the stock markets are barfing (which will be often), has just retired comfortably. You can go to communities where everyone is terribly erudite and has read endless articles and dissertations "proving" that inflation is there, as far forward as the eye can see, and when it comes to investing their money they turn into the most halting, nervous nellie little old grandma's, with 10% of their money invested in gold and maybe 50% in hyperactively diversified "bond and cash positions" because they think they are being "prudent" doing that. What a load of bullshit. If they cannot find the conviction to invest non-trivially for the event they've spent years studying endlessly, then their entire absorption in this topic is a meaningless academic exercise.

Elaborately constructed stocks portfolios in the early twenty first century are in my jaundiced view, for dillettantes, and I'll say that even when they go through their next manic rise. Anyone can double their money, due to the inevitability of Peak Cheap Oil, by simply investing in the most humble physical commodities, rather than circling around paper shares like moths around a flame. But if in one's infinite wisdom, one only doubles 10% of one's total assets from this searing insight, due to little old granny asset allocation, one has not accomplished much. Rubino's article extract merely gives a broad hint of what's to come in a dozen commodities. Silver is of course a big sleeper, merely because it hasn't yet gone up much compared to all the others. One can use the elementary "flea market" approach to investing < cheap = good > to figure that much out. But it's astonishing how many people lack the elementary vision to position themselves with maximum simplicity for this event. Instead they will be running their legs all over the damn place constructing endlessly complex portfolios with fifty excruciatingly researched, dabbling little positions.

awesome post... long, too

itulip says input costs rise faster than sales prices = bad news for juniors. why anyone keeps at them is a mystery to me.

i wish i was schiff! if i lived in the uk i'd maybe be schiff. does schiff drink beer, too, like mega?

that's fun.

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

No Mega's best friend drinks expensive Beaujolais out of a crystal goblet, lives in hoity toity New Haven and vacations in the Hamptons, and gives lots of interviews.

[jk]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

No Mega's best friend drinks expensive Beaujolais out of a crystal goblet, lives in hoity toity New Haven and vacations in the Hamptons, and gives lots of interviews.

there's nothing hoity toity about new haven. if it weren't for yale, new haven would be bridgeport. as it is, i believe that new haven, along with hartford and bridgeport, are among the 10 poorest cities in the country. interesting, given that connecticut is the 2nd wealthiest state. [perhaps you meant greenwich, home of hedge fund managers and where george w. bush grew up.]


re you earlier post. iirc asset allocation produces about 80% of returns, while choosing individual investments is responsible for only the remaining 20%. this is to say that the decision about how much to be in, e.g., stocks, is 4 times more important than choosing which stocks to be in. thus, your comment that on how much to allocate to pm's is very much to the point.

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

I was being largely "rhetorical" about Peter Mega's best friend's residence. Actually his office is in DARIEN Connecticut, well north of Greenwich, but his residence is listed a good long commute away, on the west side of the Hudson, in Palisades, NY. He must keep a residence in Darien vicinity during the working week as that's a long awkward commute across the Tappan Zee bridge to make every day.

Peter Mega's best friend really launched Euro Pacific into the bigger leagues because an obscure newsletter by an rather speculative options and penny stocks advisor named Bob Czeschin traded stocks all over the world, and introduced / recommended Euro-Pac to his clients as a one-stop shop for buying and selling shares in many foreign bourses. I think Czeschin's newsletter in question closed down and a good chunk of his 3000+ subscriber base were directly solicited as clients thereafter by Peter Mega's best friend . This jumped their client base notably (in the early 2000's) and provided the critical mass to open an East Coast office and garner the bigger money clients.

Peter has actively used his public speaking to build up his business since, so if one observed this entire progression the mechanical lego-like process of vaulting up to the national attention was laid out and executed with such manufactured progress that it leaves one in the end somewhat jaundiced as to the "spontenaety" of all the public speaking which aided the process along. In fact my view of ALL such public forays amongst ALL analysts coming to prominence these days is somewhat jaundiced by the occasional peek behind the scenes at the coldly manufactured nature of their progress. Lots of plain old PR hustle at work in there, which over time accrues to a general aura of "sagacity and uncanny foresight". :rolleyes:

Notwithstanding all the above, there is something also disarming about Peter Mega's best friend's quite emphatic and occasionally slightly bombastic style. He's absolutely devoid of many of the more typical forms of conceit - and he's a veritable bulldog in debates with people who are flim-flamming on the national ecnomic diseases under discussion. In effect he wears the very frankly commercial aspect of his business right there on his sleeve, for all to freely examine, so I for one could never say he ever presents hmself as something he is not. That's a real breath of fresh air, so I find myself forgiving him the exorbitantly high commissions he charges his clients. Everyone with money to invest is presumably an adult. If they don't like his rates, they can go elsewhere. Simple.

BTW - I must conclude FRED either is still searching for the bug in the Vbulletin scripts which has the pesky little "Mega's Best Friend" transcription for S.C.H.I.F.F.'s name nested in it, or alternately, is taking a remarkably relaxed approach to the idea of toying with contributor posts (our posts, last time I checed) to alter their meaning as they arrive onto these pages. I was laboring under the misapprehension that one of the central tenets of a blog or forum, is that the hosts not ever "tinker" with any contributor posts, as this contravenes frivolously with the most basic notion of free discussions. I grant this idea may be hopelessly anachronistic and nobody has yet informed me of that.

If this were my website, I'd not stand for the automated alteration of any text whatsoever - not even for five minutes - and that goes particularly for the automated alteration of the names of prominent analysts or brokers who have commercial interests as CEO's of large brokerage houses. The benefits of abstaining from that would appear clear as day. The rationale for tolerating this sort of laxity therefore escapes me, even when it's utterly frivolous as is the case here.

______________

Blow by blow: The manufacturing of a visionary: ( :rolleyes: )

CURRENT QUOTE:

Flip on your TV or open a major financial newspaper (including the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times) and you’re likely to see the name Peter Mega's best friend these days.
Perhaps the most passionate prognosticator on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Mega's best friend’s predictions have given thousands of investors around the world the chance to save millions of dollars… while making millions more.

• Mega's best friend called the Tech Wreck in 1999, saving his clients at Euro Pacific Capital a fortune when the Nasdaq lost more than 70% of its value.
• He (Mega's best friend) called the bull in crude oil, days before it began an historic march from $60 to $140.
• He (Mega's best friend) called the sub-prime crisis and housing crash, just before the bottom fell out in late 2006.
• He (Mega's best friend) called the gold boom just before the yellow metal began its run-up from $480 to $1,000.

Behind the scenes, Mega's best friend has quietly been developing a set of proprietary “crash proof” strategies and recommendations. They’ve begun helping his private high-net-worth clients at Euro Pacific protect their portfolios… and safely grow their massive wealth… amid the worst economic downturn in 78 years.

... (blather blather)

[metalman]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

I was being largely "rhetorical" about Peter Mega's best friend's residence. Actually his office is in DARIEN Connecticut, well north of Greenwich, but his residence is listed a good long commute away, on the west side of the Hudson, in Palisades, NY. He must keep a residence in Darien vicinity during the working week as that's a long awkward commute across the Tappan Zee bridge to make every day.

Peter Mega's best friend really launched Euro Pacific into the bigger leagues because an obscure newsletter by an rather speculative options and penny stocks advisor named Bob Czeschin traded stocks all over the world, and introduced / recommended Euro-Pac to his clients as a one-stop shop for buying and selling shares in many foreign bourses. I think Czeschin's newsletter in question closed down and a good chunk of his 3000+ subscriber base were directly solicited as clients thereafter by Peter Mega's best friend . This jumped their client base notably (in the early 2000's) and provided the critical mass to open an East Coast office and garner the bigger money clients.

Peter has actively used his public speaking to build up his business since, so if one observed this entire progression the mechanical lego-like process of vaulting up to the national attention was laid out and executed with such manufactured progress that it leaves one in the end somewhat jaundiced as to the "spontenaety" of all the public speaking which aided the process along. In fact my view of ALL such public forays amongst ALL analysts coming to prominence these days is somewhat jaundiced by the occasional peek behind the scenes at the coldly manufactured nature of their progress. Lots of plain old PR hustle at work in there, which over time accrues to a general aura of "sagacity and uncanny foresight". :rolleyes:

Notwithstanding all the above, there is something also disarming about Peter Mega's best friend's quite emphatic and occasionally slightly bombastic style. He's absolutely devoid of many of the more typical forms of conceit - and he's a veritable bulldog in debates with people who are flim-flamming on the national ecnomic diseases under discussion. In effect he wears the very frankly commercial aspect of his business right there on his sleeve, for all to freely examine, so I for one could never say he ever presents hmself as something he is not. That's a real breath of fresh air, so I find myself forgiving him the exorbitantly high commissions he charges his clients. Everyone with money to invest is presumably an adult. If they don't like his rates, they can go elsewhere. Simple.

BTW - I must conclude FRED either is still searching for the bug in the Vbulletin scripts which has the pesky little "Mega's Best Friend" transcription for S.C.H.I.F.F.'s name nested in it, or alternately, is taking a remarkably relaxed approach to the idea of toying with contributor posts (our posts, last time I checed) to alter their meaning as they arrive onto these pages. I was laboring under the misapprehension that one of the central tenets of a blog or forum, is that the hosts not ever "tinker" with any contributor posts, as this contravenes frivolously with the most basic notion of free discussions. I grant this idea may be hopelessly anachronistic and nobody has yet informed me of that.

If this were my website, I'd not stand for the automated alteration of any text whatsoever - not even for five minutes - and that goes particularly for the automated alteration of the names of prominent analysts or brokers who have commercial interests as CEO's of large brokerage houses. The benefits of abstaining from that would appear clear as day. The rationale for tolerating this sort of laxity therefore escapes me, even when it's utterly frivolous as is the case here.

mind not clogging up my thread with your blather? what's this got to do with $20 gold coins prices as an indicator of where gold is going?

if fred wants to discourage mega from spamming the site, whatever. go look for 'itulip' on shiff's site. can't find it? rest my case.

shiff's brother runs a pr firm. does ej's? not.

what do you think of high end gold coins as a leading gold market indicator?

[*T*]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

So what exactly are we looking at metalman? The uptick downtick red green gizmo - is that vs. last trade or over last month or what? Care to educate the ignorant?

[metalman]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

So what exactly are we looking at metalman? The uptick downtick red green gizmo - is that vs. last trade or over last month or what? Care to educate the ignorant?

the info at the link how to use this guide tells how to use the guide. the green or red indicates the direction of prices for those that changed since the last 'tic'. mouse over the price and it shows what what the previous price was.

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

The high powered investments are the MS66-MS-70 coins. What Metalman fails to point out is that these are indeed great investments if you bought them eight years ago when they were priced close to the bullion value, but that as their valuations rise to many multiples of their bullion value they become ever more illiquid as investments. Yes, you get great upside in an inflationary environment, but when a whiff of deflation sets in they crash much harder than do the gold or silver prices. And of all of these assets, as always has been the case, the cheapest one with the best supply constraint fundamentals, weathers the deflationary interludes best, and that asset is silver, not gold, nor increasingly high priced rare coins.

For the broadest, deepest, and ultimately biggest bid upon inflationary hedges, the asset that remains most affordable to the 3 billion emerging savers in the world is the one with the greatest potential to rise, as well.

I had an entire portfolio of rare coins three years ago, and dumped it because of their restricted buyer's market and notable illiquidity - when there is a deflationary downdraft, and we'll certainly have them at regular intervals, you can get well and truly trapped in rare coins wth lofty premiums over the bullion value. And here's the big caveat - we'll never know if one of these minor deflationary interludes in our inflationary world won't turn into "the big one", i.e. a bgger deflation. Holding a large portion of one's assets in rare numismatic coins then becomes like being the "canary in the coal mine" - you get to die first, while warning all other inflation assets of the change in investing climate. No thanks.

Their potential buyers will be an ever shrinking pool of the more affluent. Now look at the diametric opposite of this investment class - the potential buyer market for silver will be ever expanding, as more and more people begin to get a glimmer of understanding that they need precious metals to protect themselves, there is a vastly larger pool of owners for silver worldwide than there is for owners of gold or $10,000 rare coins. Think $3000 gold - how many of the small savers in poor countries will be able to afford it? And there is the real leverage. At present only 7% of the silver market is bought by investors. All the rest is consumed by industry. Silver is in permanent deficit. You cannot count "recycling" as a permanent portion of global silver supply. Without "recycling" silver remains deeply in annual deficit relative to consumption.

I will gladly hold raw, cheap silver bullion rather than "rare coins" (and even over gold) going into our inflationary future. Everyone is familiar now with "Peak Cheap Oil", but the concept that this causes inflation to be a locked in secular trend is still only hesitantly accepted here, because the monetarist notion that "inflation belongs to the banks to create" still befuddles people on oil's future role as the final arbiter of inflation's inevitability. All the many hundreds of millions of small savers throughout the developing world will be buyers of silver in 5-10 years. Who will be the buyers of $10,000 rare coins?

Metalman is to be congratulated for his wisdom and foresight for having bought these coins nearly a decade ago when they were dirt cheap. And he was indeed correct, as they are indeed premium inflation investments. But these are all American rare coins - it is an American market, not a global market, due to Roosevelt's melting down of the bulk of American gold coins in the 1930's. But that does not mean that people building their PM allocations today, in 2008, should dabble much in this area of inflation hedge assets.

I suggest instead to buy the "walmart-end" of the precious metals today (any kind of silver bullion), to get fabulous leverage to inflation and the entire commodities complex in the future, combined with unbeatable liquidity, because silver can run 500% up and still be the cheapest of all the rare metals for working class savers worldwide, for many years to come in our inflationary future - buy silver, because those working class savers are very, very many in numbers and will all need an inflation refuge, and also because silver has more industrial patents than all the rest of the metals combined, in a furiously industrialising world.

The lowly assets rise far. The lofty assets with a large premium see their potential to rise further become more restricted, as they rise ever higher. So in answer to Metalman's question - the answer is YES, rare numismatic coins are indeed a flag and early warning signal for the health of the gold bull market. And that's precisely why they provide you the least lead time or exit options if markets turn deflationary, which they probably will at several intervals across the next decade.

[metalman]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

thanks. knew i could count on you to make all of my points for me.

The high powered investments are the MS66-MS-70 coins. What Metalman fails to point out is that these are indeed great investments if you bought them eight years ago when they were priced close to the bullion value, but that as their valuations rise to many multiples of their bullion value they become ever more illiquid as investments. Yes, you get great upside in an inflationary environment, but when a whiff of deflation sets in they crash much harder than do the gold or silver prices.

precisely. thus the topic of this thread.

And of all of these assets, as always has been the case, the cheapest one with the best supply constraint fundamentals, weathers the deflationary interludes best, and that asset is silver, not gold, nor increasingly high priced rare coins.

For the broadest, deepest, and ultimately biggest bid upon inflationary hedges, the asset that remains most affordable to the 3 billion emerging savers in the world is the one with the greatest potential to rise, as well.

least volatility, lowest risk, lowest return in the class. surely the core of any pm position, but not its whole.

I had an entire portfolio of rare coins three years ago, and dumped it because of their restricted buyer's market and notable illiquidity - when there is a deflationary downdraft, and we'll certainly have them at regular intervals, you can get well and truly trapped in rare coins wth lofty premiums over the bullion value. And here's the big caveat - we'll never know if one of these minor deflationary interludes in our inflationary world won't turn into "the big one", i.e. a bgger deflation. Holding a large portion of one's assets in rare numismatic coins then becomes like being the "canary in the coal mine" - you get to die first, while warning all other inflation assets of the change in investing climate. No thanks.

again, to the topic of the thread... gold numismatics as a leading indicator.

the dollar is steadily deflating against things. the 'big one' started in 2001 and accelerated in 2004. if you are expecting the dollar to massively appreciate ala 1930s you haven't been paying attention and don't understand the fundamentals. think of it as a ratchet... slips once in a while but can only go so far down because the dollar can only appreciate so much. if you understood that you'd have not dumped your gold numismatics collection before the big runup...

Their potential buyers will be an ever shrinking pool of the more affluent. Now look at the diametric opposite of this investment class - the potential buyer market for silver will be ever expanding, as more and more people begin to get a glimmer of understanding that they need precious metals to protect themselves, there is a vastly larger pool of owners for silver worldwide than there is for owners of gold or $10,000 rare coins. Think $3000 gold - how many of the small savers in poor countries will be able to afford it? And there is the real leverage. At present only 7% of the silver market is bought by investors. All the rest is consumed by industry. Silver is in permanent deficit. You cannot count "recycling" as a permanent portion of global silver supply. Without "recycling" silver remains deeply in annual deficit relative to consumption.

ok, ok. you're a silver hound. we know. but to the other point of this thread... 1% of usa top wealth class has 99% of the invested money in the markets. what they are buying matters. do the math... 100,000,000 people with an average of $1000 each to invest move prices a shitload less than 1,000,000 rich folks with an average $100,000,000 spread across a lot of assets. that's the structure of our economy. the former is the rare gold market, the latter your prized silver market.

I will gladly hold raw, cheap silver bullion rather than "rare coins" (and even over gold) going into our inflationary future.

me too. but gold numismatics are a good leading indicator.

Everyone is familiar now with "Peak Cheap Oil", but the concept that this causes inflation to be a locked in secular trend is still only hesitantly accepted here, because the monetarist notion that "inflation belongs to the banks to create" still befuddles people on oil's future role as the final arbiter of inflation's inevitability. All the many hundreds of millions of small savers throughout the developing world will be buyers of silver in 5-10 years. Who will be the buyers of $10,000 rare coins?

i dunno. i bet if you polled you'd find the majority are down with the peak cheap oil = long term inflation theory... but not as pedantic or vociferous.

Metalman is to be congratulated for his wisdom and foresight for having bought these coins nearly a decade ago when they were dirt cheap. And he was indeed correct, as they are indeed premium inflation investments.

yeh, so when do i sell them? thus, again, the topic of the thread.

But these are all American rare coins - it is an American market, not a global market, due to Roosevelt's melting down of the bulk of American gold coins in the 1930's. But that does not mean that people building their PM allocations today, in 2008, should dabble much in this area of inflation hedge assets.

huge caches of usa gold went to europe early 1930s to escape confiscation, widely rumored before the event. much of the cheap stuff i bought in the 2001 period was from european estate liquidations. the kids inherited the stuff and said, 'ugh. gold. get rid of it'. and the us dealers scooped it up cheap.

I suggest instead to buy the "walmart-end" of the precious metals today (any kind of silver bullion), to get fabulous leverage to inflation and the entire commodities complex in the future, combined with unbeatable liquidity, because silver can run 500% up and still be the cheapest of all the rare metals for working class savers worldwide, for many years to come in our inflationary future - buy silver, because those working class savers are very, very many in numbers and will all need an inflation refuge, and also because silver has more industrial patents than all the rest of the metals combined, in a furiously industrialising world.

so why'd buffett sell his silver?

The lowly assets rise far. The lofty assets with a large premium see their potential to rise further become more restricted, as they rise ever higher. So in answer to Metalman's question - the answer is YES, rare numismatic coins are indeed a flag and early warning signal for the health of the gold bull market. And that's precisely why they provide you the least lead time or exit options if markets turn deflationary, which they probably will at several intervals across the next decade.

finally you get to the point at the. liquidity is a double edged sword. historically numi gold do fall in price first but because they've gone up so much you get to sell on a 10% to 20% discount to peak value. prices do not collapse as you say precisely because the market is illiquid. meanwhile, our highly liquid silver can fall 10% in a day.

i have a pile of silver and am happy with it. one problem, tho... it's bulky. try fitting a serious $100k plus silver investment in a safe box. again, it ain't for rich folks.

[Guest]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

Metalguy - Sorry, but this is flatly disingenuous on your part. Barely six-eight months ago we had a discussion here about whether fundamental oil price rises could be inflationary. A whole long string of people weighed in stating categorically that this was "nonsense" because "only banks can create inflation". Of course this was when the oil price was still down in the $60's. For a guy who claims today that "the majority" have long been comfortable with the "pricey oil - inflation" thesis, I sure don't recall you as having been an outspoken proponent of this novel idea at that time.

Fact is, you hung back and offered no unequivocal clarification that I can recall. And I do recall that thread clearly due to the incredulous feeling I had reading all of that monetarist unanimity. Meanwhile people like Rajiv, Grapejelly, and I don't even recall who else, but they sure were many, were all openly reacting with mirth at the idea that oil's price could be a straight equivalent to inflation. Not one post unequivocally agreed with my suggestion. Today? I get irritated at such instances of "revisionism". Fact is, less than a year ago here virtually no-one spoke up robustly endorsing this oil price = inflation point. I know, because I posted a thread about it and did not get a single endorsement.

Even your beloved iTulip did not unequivocally endorse the fundamental price of oil as having risen markedly until barely six - eight months ago. They may have had a token editorial on the home page about Peak Cheap Oil, but when I posted a thread stating that fundamentally expensive oil directly causes inflation, and is one of the most powerful inputs to inflation, and 9 out of 10 people in that thread flatly refuted it, iTulip's clarification was nowhere to be found! Hence your observation exhibits some components of the old "whitewash" which I find appears with predictable regularity whenever a defense of iTulip is called upon. Please, can't you just vary your partisan script on that account just once in a while?

i dunno. i bet if you polled you'd find the majority are down with the peak cheap oil = long term inflation theory... but not as pedantic or vociferous.

Quote:

Everyone is familiar now with "Peak Cheap Oil", but the concept that this causes inflation to be a locked in secular trend is still only hesitantly accepted here, because the monetarist notion that "inflation belongs to the banks to create" still befuddles people on oil's future role as the final arbiter of inflation's inevitability. All the many hundreds of millions of small savers throughout the developing world will be buyers of silver in 5-10 years. Who will be the buyers of $10,000 rare coins?

[raja]

Re: Whenever I worry about my gold investments, I go here for a flawless indicator

Whenever I get to worrying about my gold bullion investments, I go here and here for a flawless indicator.

Why?

Because that is where the trend data are on high denomination US gold coins, $20 Liberty and St. Gaudens.

Only a small portion of the population can afford these coins. These smart investors were buying while Joe Six was dozing in front of Cramer's show and they're buying still when Joe is selling the family jewels to pay his taxes.

At these two links you learn what rich people are doing in the high end gold market.

What do you see in the prices?

Green, green, green, baby! With only a couple of red prices to indicate falling prices.

Some day they'll turn red. Hasn't happened since I started watching seven years ago.

Too bad we don't know the rich people's "indicator" that leads them to buy or sell gold