Best low-end bullion investments for survival?

South Africa is one who probably has a lot of gold on their shelves.
They will wait a while or filter it into the market. They are right now in a terrible production situation.
During WW 11 the very inefficient device used in the Manhattan project had run out of copper for wire to compete the last bit of refined bomb material for one of the two (Fat man and little boy)one plutonium based , the other Uranium based.
The head of the project received an idea that silver would work.
I am not sure whether it was coin or ingot but I have seen or read it was completed and the wire was returned in ingot form.
They actually used the captured products that Germany was sending by sub to Japan. Two weeks latter August 8, 1945 the first bomb was used. The door was opened .

 

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I believe the 1 billion figure is what is available now......as in raw unrefined silver. This figure is always there. Once the silver is refined and minted or used in industry, new silver replaces it. There is always 1 billion ounces available......although that could change with some strikes or other events.

I don't think the available silver is taking investors into account. If the 1 billion ounces were used up for some reason, you can bet some would be melted in the form of coins to make up the demand difference. This is bullish for silver.....but not as long as the 1 billion ounces is always available.

 

"Raw unrefined silver" doesn't sound like "investment grade silver" to me.

 

The beauty of America is that everyone is free to believe what they want without checking. That's what makes a market and why it has been so easy to make money owning silver the past few years. It isn't my intent to change any minds. The silver "glut" has been debated on CoinTalk since the silver price was $5.

Good luck to all.

 

The beauty of my job, working for a mining company, is that it allows me to get a little different perspective on things.

I can't complain, though-- most of the common silver I own, I bought at 3.2-3.6 X face. But I can't see silver breaking out too much above the current levels.

 

Good stuff, John,

First off for 'survival' and more importantly for fungibility, buy 90% circulated U.S. silver coins and MS Silver Eagles. Any gold needs to be AGEs and better if it's fractional.

As for gold bugs, survivalists, etc., folks, it's all a matter of risk management.

The two items you have to measure when considering a possible future event and how best to prepare for it, are - the chances it will happen and the cost to me if it does.

And note that this ignores, by definition, black swan events as they are unknowable.

So, if we look at the total collapse of the U.S. Dollar as a possibility, what are the odds? I give it 5-10%. Not much of a chance, but let's look at what it cost me if it did happen? Consider it, a completely worthless dollar - credit cards don't work, no bank accounts, no social security checks, no pension checks, and no medium of exchange. Close enough?

Ok, that's pretty gd bad. But if we think about it, it wouldn't be forever, but probably for at best a few weeks until they got some neo-dollar on the street. What would I need to have to survive those few weeks? Probably a few thou in silver coins, maybe a little gold, some food stuffs in the house, gas in the tank, options for some things, etc. Not really a 'cabin the woods off the grid' sort of preparation is really needed.

Now what is the cost to me for the above insurance premium? If the odds hold true and Event X never occurs, it would be relatively minor. Giving it all up for an offgrid cabin in the woods carries a steeper cost.

just some mutterings,

rono

 

I had a friend who worked for an oil company tell me years ago that it would be a bad idea to buy oil company stocks when oil was $15 because his company forcasted that it was going to $9. He had a different perspective too from the inside, but fortunately I went my own way and made energy stocks my largest holding.

 

Well, my company, and others as well, own or operate base metal (lead, copper, zinc) mines that are producing silver as a by-product. The silver can be sold for a profit at any time, since it's all "gravy". There are a half-billion ounces of silver produced every year. Furthermore, the decline of the photographic film industry has had a big effect on the way silver is viewed in the market.

Also, there is a big difference between your friend's company, and my company. His company was involved with extracting a limited resource that is in demand all over the world and once it's combusted, it's gone forever. My company is involved in extracting resources that, while they have a worldwide demand, they can usually be recycled once their usefulness in their present form has ended.