How do all the old timers feel about "silver stackers?"

How do you feel about the youtube and reddit communities of "silver stackers" that have emerged in the last few years? The concept of "stacking" silver didn't even really exist until recently. Folks just went about their business buying numismatics and investing in bullion. But now there's a whole group of bandwangoners who are "stacking" (hoarding) any and all silver they can get their hands on.

This is radically different than how the old timers did it with coin shows and local coin shops and the people who bought primarily to collect or to invest. Now we have a group of people somewhere in between the collector and the investor, and that person is called the "stacker." A person who accumulates random silver, as much as possible. He or she (sometimes she, usually he) posts youtube videos and posts on reddit. They buy more than they can probably afford. And they participate in the stacking community and appear to buy based on what the community likes.

So, what do you think of these people?

 

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Horrible.

 

I think some of them who bought when silver was high might get stuck.

 

No different from people who accumulate vast portfolio of stocks in whatever the latest fad is. Lots of people lost their fortune on the tech bubble, then the housing bubble. If silver doesn't gain like they think then they will lose a lot, in exactly the same way.

The trick is to not buy more than you can afford to lose. Any that applies to anything.

 

I don't see a lot of beanie-baby hoarders or trash hoarders or cat hoarders posting about it on YouTube or Reddit.

Then again, I quite intentionally don't look.

 

I think those people should be drawn and quartered. Nobody should be able to spend their money without my permission.

 

I think of BoobTube much like I do, Wiki. They let anybody post there!

Chris

 

I love the term "stacking". I like to look in my safe and see how nice and neat it all looks stacked one on top of each other. This refers to my ASE's, Rounds, and 90%. That's all I stack. It's fun, beautiful. I bought and sold last year actually my hole stash in October and reloaded. Can I afford it? Yes! No debt and doing well. So OP if you are trying to put others down stop it. You did that with your gold thread too. And to everyone else, keep stacking my friends!

 

I guess I'm a old-timer (started collecting in late 1958), and I definitely enjoy watching YouTube videos from the stacking community. I always admire those who are bold enough to post "full stack" videos, and I often comment on videos from the silver stacking community. I do have a silver stack, mostly gathered from circulation back in the 1960s, but mainly I have a gold stack purchased over the decades. The big advantage of gold over silver is its compactness, so it can be stored in a safety deposit box.

I'd never make a gold or silver stack video myself, but I did make several videos showing my thorium (lens) "stack". One thing about a thorium stack -- the smaller the better, and no stack is best of all.

 

The "old-timers" (read script keepers for the status quo) railed against the art bar craze in the 70's. Some wrote letters to the editor demanding that NN or Coinworld stop excepting ads from dealers who dared to go off script by offering non-numismatic items. As if they, the "old school," had somehow been imbued with devine authority to define numismatics or decide how Coinworld or NN conduct their business. My answer to them in 1974 was the same as it is today: BITE ME!

The main reason for stacking in the 70's (that's right OP, stacking is not recent)
was hedging against inflation. But PM's are also swaps against the status quo. And that's the big rub with you people isn't it? How dare they not love the stock market. How dare they not have faith in the USD. How dare they make jokes about the Zombie Fulfillment Center and crony capitalism. And what's with these stackers and the zombie apocalypse? Don't stackers know an apocalypse is a complete end to the way things are? That is soooo un-linear. How dare they make light of such an event!

Yeah, that's rub alright.

Suck it up.

 

I admit it. I'm more of a stacker than a collector. But I only stack 90%, Peace and Morgans, pre33 gold, and some modern commemorative. Oh gosh, I'm a collector.

 

I admit to "stacking" whenever the opportunity arises to buy under melt. Because why not? Of course, I search every coin for errors and varieties and then I treat them like I would bullion, which I do not buy. I keep to my budget and separate what is for investment and what is for my collection.

Now, posting your holdings online for the world to see is something I would never do. I don't even tell most of the people in my close circles how much I have because they don't need to know. Not that it is a lot, but no need to provide extra temptation to do the wrong thing.

 

I don't have negative feelings towards stackers. They should invest their money as they see fit. I do see two things that I don't like about them. The first is that they seem to make discouraging comments about collectors that buy coins and if the purchase is over a few dollars over spot they stay that purchase (or you) is/are stupid.
The second is they seem to want the world to turn to crap, for something bad to happen and for the price of gold or silver to sky rocket.
If silver skyrockets and gets to be a very high price, that will end coin collecting for a lot of people as they won't be able to afford it. Why wish that?
And, if silver skyrockets and the economy crashes or the US Dollar becomes worthless, the world might be a very bad place. Why wish that?
Precious metals have a history of rising and falling and it's pretty much a given that Silver will be very cheap at some point in the future and it will also be extremely high at some point in the future. It's undeniable that that happens. A person could probably make some money at stacking silver or gold but it's not something I would want to risk and hassle with.
As to my background, I'm 52 and have just started collecting coins the last couple of years. I LOVE silver coins, so hopefully no stacker's will read my comments negatively. I mentioned that I started collecting only recently, but I left a little something out: I did happen to buy some silver eagles when I was in my 20's in 1987-1989. Back then, silver was $4 an ounce and I was able to buy silver eagles for $7 each. I still have the receipts for some of them! Now think about that: the silver Eagles i bought for $7 in 1990 are only worth about $22 some thirty years later. The truth is, had I invested in other things I would have been better off.

 

It is the stackers money. They can dispose of it anyway they feel comfortable. I look back to the early 80's when I cashed over $500.00 face at $35.00 an ounce. (If I remember it hit 38.00 and change for the high) At that time every coin was pulled from circulation at face value. That is how you make money on bullion. I stopped buying bullion in 2009 when the downturn hit. Everything I have now could turn a good return. I will hold it for a rainy day.

 

Oh, yes, art bars. How could I forget about those ugly things. Thanks for the reminder.

And how about colorized silver coins? Look at those beauts! *sarcasm*

I have started simply giving a thumbs down to these types of youtube videos. A person is bragging, literally bragging about his (sometime's her) 100 oz of silver.

I understand that not all have been doing this as long as I have and that many are not as financially fortunate as I am, but bragging about 100 ounces of silver?! Come on, now. That's not too special. And it's just plain ugly when it's filled with Santa bars, colorized coins, bullion from a country that didn't exist when I started collecting produced by a mint that it not even that country's, and part of their "stack" is in ugly "graded" slabs.

UGH

 

All great ideas! "Old Timers" would tell you that "savings" is a long term relationship. If I had bought one ounce of silver (ie:SAE) every payday, today I would have 1,400 ounces of silver (at very minor inconvenience). It would be hidden away and forgotten about. It can't "burn a hole in your pocket". That's why I like coin collectors so much! Long picture, patient, minutiae junkies.

 

Everybody is entitled to collect what they like. I actually have a colorized coin -- it's part of my "gimmicky coin" collection, which has several coins, like the curved 2014 baseball dollar, the incuse-design $2.50 and $5.00 US coins, the high relief $20 from 2009, the bimetallic $10 from a few years ago, etc. My colorized (Canadian) coin even has glued-on bits of glass, so it kills two birds with one stone in my collection. Someday, I'd like to get a palladium coin, and maybe one with a hologram, or even a coin made of iridium or rhenium.

 

Silver was as high as $50 an ounce in 1980.

 

You might consider a coin containing a moon rock, or piece of asteroid I saw offered on a coin infomercial a few months back. I believe by the Perth Mint?

 

Only very briefly midday. It never closed that high.