I want to make some money...American Silver Eagles

Let's 'hope' he wasn't able to do it.

 

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It was a mean spirited snipe meant to squash your enthusiasm.. don't let it bother you...

 

That was YOU?

 

I can't even begin to tell you how many estate sales I've been to in which ridiculous numbers of 2011 ASE's in full tubes were included in the lots. Every one of those now gone "guys who were smarter than the bankers" took a serious bath buying silver, even though many of them probably seldom took ones in water.

The point is - the "doom and gloom" prophesy has long been the siren song of the unhappy. It's easy to imagine that everything is going down the dumper when the things you once held dear seem to be disappearing. It's a natural reaction, but one we need to fight. It's going to be alright. Change is not only good, it's necessary. People who depend on planning for the way things used to be will get severely burned nearly every single time. We aren't going back to the old economic ways; not now, not soon, not ever.

This is why it's a good thing we're not immortal. We'd all eventually lose our minds. The "values" of millennials already have my mind 3/4 blown; I'm not sure how much more I can handle.

I do try to keep up, though. I'm 62 and moving into my new place this week and my biggest concern is properly getting all the stuff on my home network working smoothly and how to run the ethernet cables to where the router needs to be. (And praying my Xfinity guy has seen a Macintosh before.)

 

Wanting to make money investing in precious metals is kind of like wanting to make money buying insurance. When bullion prices shoot up, it is usually because something bad is happening...the purchasing value of the dollar is dropping or because there are threats of war for example. A wise man told me thirty years ago to get a little gold, put it somewhere safe and hope it goes down in value.

 

There's not competition among colleges and universities?

My take is that the stuff going up most sharply is the stuff where customer choice is least coupled to price. In education, you just cover everything with a student loan; it makes little difference in the moment whether you're running up $40K or $60K per year, it's just something you'll figure on paying down forever at whatever you can afford per month. (Textbooks, on the other hand, are definitely a controlled market -- you're told which ones you need, and there's only one source for each.)

In healthcare, routine expenditures hide behind copays and zero-copay services. And for medical emergencies, you're going to go bankrupt anyhow, so why not go bankrupt over $3M of the best care money can buy, instead of $300K of bare-bones care?

 

Same thing has happened to lots of folks buying in at the top of any market, including "Stawks". That's why getting rid of and staying out of debt, is a smart and sure thing! But of course, our money is debt, so I don't know, "Doom and Gloom" might be the order of the day for the current dollar? It's current iteration is younger than I.

 

There is not meaningful competition among colleges and universities, no. It's a cartel, and like most cartels, it survives through supply restriction - in this case the accreditation services. Example: I can take a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) from Stanford University learning how to code in Swift for iPhones, iPods and Macs. Same material as the in-person course, but I can't get credit for taking it unless I'm on campus. Sounds like a controlled distribution to me, doesn't it to you?

I grant you that spending OPM matters a lot.

 

Younger than I, too. That's what makes us both irrelevant. We're the dinosaurs. We need to stop infecting those younger than us with our 1964-1971 zeitgeist. What we (our generation) worried about made sense up until then, and what we were taught early in our lives (that junk about money backed by metal) just doesn't count for squat any more. Eliminating specie money remains one of the most brilliant moves in the history of economics.

I think coin people remain painfully unaware just by how much the final closing of the gold window changed the world for ALL TIME TO COME. Nothing from that time on was even conceivable to those who came before, and nothing before then should even matter any more. But you can't say that to people who worship "the good old days". Sure, if we had "forced" ourselves to stay on specie currency, nominal prices would be much lower now, but our typical standard of living would be much, much, MUCH lower too. And the distribution of income problem would be far more severe than it is.

Money is the economic "oil" that lubricates a modern economy. Restrict it to the amount of anointed metals that can be dug out of the ground and the gears of the economy would have long ago ground to a halt and seized up.

 

Those who believe that silver will increase in value try to get it at the lowest cost. The lowest cost is junk 90% silver coins that can be purchased at spot price. Silver Eagles and .999 bars sell at a premium over spot to buyers but that premium is rarely paid to sellers. If silver price goes up any amount your junk silver makes a profit. If you have ASE and .999 bullion the increase must be more than the premiums you paid. Attempting to sell a coin for a premium over value will provide a good education on the difference between intrinsic value versus real value. The same people selling that stuff on television will only purchase at a deep discount from what they charge. For the SHTF investor there is a short period where silver or gold will have value in barter. After that window closes bullion plummets to near zero value and it's place is taken by medicines, food, hand tools and other practical items. A $2000 pair of Air Jordans would not get a $50 pair of sturdy work boots.
Utility trumps rarity in crisis times. I deliberately did not talk about gaining bullion through investing in mining company stock or mutual funds.

 

Are you saying that there's a buy-sell spread on ASEs and .999 bars, but not on 90%? That's news to me...

 

ASE's are not a bad investment, in that you can get close to actual silver value when purchasing. They fall more into the bullion category, than the collectible.
The problem is professional investors, who buy wholesale, then sell retail, charging bullion value, plus, then adding on a per coin premium. Then shipping, insurance, etc.
When you go to sell, you get less than the actual bullion value. Prices have to skyrocket to make any profit.
Someone is selling it cheap to the dealers, then buying it off the dealers for a profit to the dealer.
Grading? ASE's are not hard to find in high grade, as the mint does a good job, and they do not circulate. Unless you have a genuine rarity, it isn't worth it.
I notice you received the usual unwelcome replies and little insight or good advice.

 

There are only two prices that are important when investing in precious metals.

The price when you buy it and....

...the price when you sell it.

 

My 401k did well too until the .com crash in 2000 and housing crash of 2008-9. Up to about half of what it was. Wait until all of the Baby Boomers start selling more than there are buyers for to see how low prices drop. Then add in inflation.

 

You reckon the Nixon Shock was the first time a government experimented with unbacked currency? Ever heard of the "chao"? Exactly! lol

 

We make plans and God laughs... Otherwise, buy low. Sell high.

 

How about a Roth IRA? You will thank me someday.

 

The OP says he's 15 years old. But never too early to start learning how to invest -- on his own, of course, since our schools won't dirty their mittens with the subject.

 

True story. Makes me wonder why money and economics, isn't course curriculum from Kindergarten up. God knows, there's a demand for such.

 

That's right! Get them hooked on those idea early so that they don't question them. Kind of like soda.