Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at investing in antique swords and sabers. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)
Precious Metals:
News from Canada: June 1, The Hunt Is On For $100K In Gold And Silver. JWR’s Comment: This is a wild golden goose chase, but at least it beats Pokemon Go.
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Gary Christenson: None Dare Call It Nonsense. Here is an excerpt from his essay:
“The Big Picture:
- The world has chosen to use debt-based currencies instead of gold and silver. There are consequences.
- Debt has counterparty risk and currency risk. Gold does not.
- Debt fails when the “full faith and credit” narrative is no longer believable.
- Creditors of sovereign nations should realize they will be repaid ONLY if the debtor nation borrows even more. This is a flawed system.
- History shows that “out of control” spending, excessive debt, and government corruption create consumer price inflation, currency devaluation, and wealth inequality. At the extreme, the value of your savings and retirement denominated in fiat currency units, diminishes or vanishes.”
Economy & Finance:
H.L. sent us this at Wolf Street: US Home Sales Drop, Drop, Drop Despite Lower Mortgage Rates. But Mortgage Applications Jump. What Gives?
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St. Louis Fed Promotes Still More Free Money For Banks (And Hiding It All)
Forex & Cryptos:
Pound Headed For Record 14-Day Losing Streak As May Resignation Expected
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Here is a slightly different perspective on a news item that I mentioned a few days ago: Europe hits 5 banks with $1.2 billion fine over currency trading cartel
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US Copyright Office Says It Does Not ‘Recognize’ Craig Wright as Satoshi
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Bitcoin Bull’s $800,000 Tax Bill Due as Israeli Court Rules Crypto is ‘Property’
Tangibles Investing (Antique Swords and Sabers):
There is one “niche” collectible that requires a lot of research, before you buy: antique swords and sabers. I recommend that you gather plenty of references and do some study for a month or perhaps two, before you even consider taking the plunge and buying your first investment grade edged weapon. Here in the United States, pre-1919 cavalry sabers are a good investment, particularly it they have provenance to a decorated officer. With sabers, condition alone is not enough to assure a substantial long term gain in value. It is condition plus provenance.
I have found that in addition to reference books on swords, illustrated catalogs of completed auctions with accompanying realized price sheets are key references. These days, with access to the Internet, some complete catalogs are available online. And if you can find a catalog but no realized price sheet, don’t worry. You can almost always find that information online, and print out your own realized price sheet. And even failing that, a phone call to the auction house will usually connect you with someone who is willing to either snail mail you a copy, or e-mail you a scan of the price sheet.
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Some of the biggest arms and armor auctions are run by Christie’s. But remember, it is collectors who buy at the big names auctions, at the tail end of the investing chain. The real “pickers” buy from estates, at guns shows, and at the small auctions, to make money.
Provisos:
SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers.
News Tips:
Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who particularly watch individual markets. And due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” investing news. We often get the scoop on economic and investing news that is probably ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!
Sir, whatever story you intended to link at Zero Hedge, has no linky.
I like the idea of currency backed by gold and silver. Since I am 75 YO I grew up in a system that was backed by gold and silver. But it is a system that can only work in a population the size of the worlds pre 1900’s population. There simply is not enough gold and silver to back the worlds currencies.
There is more than enough gold and silver in the world for ANY size population. The problem is that banking cartels are controlling the value of g & s and keeping them artificially low. If they were allowed to reflect their true value their prices would act more like cryptocurrencies, fluctuating with demand.
There is enough gold and silver. Gold would range between $8k and about $12k per troy ounce, silver would range between $400 and $800 per troy ounce. The traditional 16/1 ratio of silver to gold is likely to organically reassert itself. Fiat currency would be easily traded for physical gold and silver, it would just take a lot of fiat to buy not a lot of metal. Those of us who currently hold precious metals would become very rich when converted to fiat currency. Oh, and it wouldn’t be just gold and silver, it would be a whole basket of precious metals, to include platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and maybe some I haven’t even considered.
It would seem to be great for gold to be $8,000 to $12,000 per ounce.
But what would a gallon of gas cost? Or how much would a good 4×4 truck cost in the new metric of $12,000 US dollars to one ounce of gold?
I would imagine it would shock people
We’re talking purchasing power. That 4×4 is not going to cost much more than it does today, if any. The purchasing power of gold will skyrocket vs the purchasing power of fiat currency. The purchasing power of fiat is decreasing by about 3 to 6% per year anyway and that’s the plan coming from the FED. Going to precious metals backed currency, redeemable in precious metals should help to hold inflation in check. In point of fact, over time, the purchasing power of fiat should start going up as the economy stabilizes. This would also encourage the FED to start cutting back on the inventory of fiat currency that is currently in the economy. As the amount of fiat currency in the economy goes down, the purchasing power of the fiat currency in circulation will go up.
This is starting to sound like a primer on Austrian economics. I’ve been studying this for a little while. You’ll find the Austrian economists are all for a precious metals backed economy. So am I. It all depends on how much fiat currency the government leaves in the system on what the value of gold and silver, etc. in fiat will be.
The reason a new F-150 will cost $45K+ today is because there is too much money in the system and the morons in DC and the States keep artificially tinkering with the minimum wage. As with the value of gold, etc. the value of labor should be set in the free market, not by politicians and bureaucrats and the almighty FED.
The real reason that Nixon took the US off gold was that other countries were short circuiting our gold. In other words the US was honoring exchange of US dollars for gold back then. Many countries [France being the largest demander] were building up cash reserves to the tune of 100s-of-millions of dollars then taking shipment of gold right into their coffers. Nixon did the right move at the time–to stop the transfer of gold overseas from our treasury and the destruction of US dollars once gold was transferred.
What really should of happened was that the US dollar was backed by gold- but you MFer countries can’t exchange it. It’s our gold and our printed dollars. Every dollar printed is backed by gold but that doesn’t mean you countries can take our gold in exchange.