It has happened again.

Recently I had a post about finding a roll of silver dimes. While I didn't find another one of those (that would be epic) I did "find" something else. If you didn't already know, I work at a grocery store and we get all types of people coming in paying with cash. Well, yesterday, while I was outside taking someone's groceries to their car, a woman came in and paid with a 1986 Silver Eagle. My cashier had no clue what it was and took it as a dollar coin b/c she didn't know what else to do. About a half hour later I was looking in her till and I saw it in the extra drawer and I asked where it came from. Apparently an older woman had come in and bought some of her groceries with it. It is sad to think that people don't even recognize what a silver eagle is. I mean, its not like it says "1oz fine silver" on the back or anything....

 

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Her loss is your gain; nice score!

-LTB

 

Nice find! Ever notice how grocery store finds almost always come from "older" people?

 

It's sad in a way, because they are probably on fixed incomes and having a hard time in this economy if they are spending such coins. It's really too bad that they don't seem to know that they can get much more than the face value for their coins, and thus stretch their budgets that much further.

 

I thought Social Security was supposed to make the elderly not in poverty, NO POLITICAL STATEMENTS

 

Taylor, that's not really the intent of Social Security. I agree that this is a sad story on one hand, but good for the lucky collector! Indicative of the times, I M O.

 

I must admit that if I weren't into coins (and I'm thinking prior to this hobby), I wouldn't have the slightest clue either!

My friend owns at 7-eleven and said about 10-15 years ago, some guy came in with a $10 gold coin and ask for $10 in cash.....

 

did he take it? lol

 

I agree Nikki. A couple years back I had a family member call me and ask me if I wanted a bunch of funny looking $1 bills someone had just spent in the convenience store where she worked. I told her yes please. Turns out a customer came in to buy cigarettes and paid with cash including 8 $1 Silver certificates. Nice score for me.

 

Yep! My friend was clueless but her husband collected coins and told him about this "neat looking gold coin". He told her, "Bring it home and put it in the safe." LOL!

 

Are those silver certificates really worth anything? I heard they're not but that it also depends on their condition.

 

Not worth a big premium, but obsolete bills with blue treasury seals worth keeping around. The bonus was that there were a couple of star notes in the group.

 

If it were me, I would give her back the coin and tell her the worth. I'm not really a believer but I like to think that I can look myself in the mirror.

 

She didn't know the coin's worth and did what the customer asked of her. I really believe if she knew the value of it, she'd give the coin back (plus this wasn't today's gold worth. This was 10-15 years ago). Also, by the way she referred to him, she said "some random customer". So, she didn't know him.

 

I used top work at a small service garage, and let it be known I was interested in any coin out of the ordinary that ended up in the till. There was usually some interesting finds slid into the top drawer of my tool box, but never a silver eagle! Nice find!!!

 

Young man, you have much to learn. Might as well be the bearer of bad news, Social Security............is a Ponzi scheme and because our government is involved in it, it's the only legal one.

You can google Ponzi Scheme and read more about it.

 

Yup, built on the Bernie Madoff investment model......

 

Social Security was never intended to be something for people to retire on and depend on for their retirement. It was intended to be a supplement to whatever retirement investment planning you did to take care of yourself in your old age. It was to be a safety net just in case your retirement plans all fell through so that you wouldn't starve.. In fact even the original name for the program was not Social Security, it was Supplemental Security. The problem was that people did not understand the program and they THOUGHT it was supposed to be their retirement fund and so many never bothered saving for their old age. For awhile it worked fine, the money people received did provide enough to live on because there were 4 or 5 people paying into the program for every person drawing SS. There was plenty of money and in order to "buy votes" politicians often approved increases in SS payouts greater than the rate of inflation. Today there is now less than two people paying in for each person drawing.

At this point we should examine the "Ponzi scheme" funding method that SS uses. You would be surprised at how many people out there think that they have been paying into SS for years and all their payment are going into a special account with their name on it and their money has been piling up year after year waiting for them to tap into it. Nothing could be further from the truth. All the money a working person is paying into the program is immediately used to pay out benefits to those people who have already retired. During the fifties and sixties this wasn't a problem because there were many more people paying in than drawing out and the program was running a surplus. By the 1980's the surplus was gone and the program was in danger of going broke. So they doubled the SS taxes taken out of workers checks and "fixed" SS. Once again there was more money coming in than going out and the program had a surplus which they promised to invest so it would keep growing and keep the program solvent for many decades. And how did they invest the surplus? They bought US Treasury Bonds. In short the government borrowed it, gave the program IOU's, and spent the money.

Last year we reached the break even point again with more money going out that there is coming in and they are now having to dip into the "surplus" to make up the difference. In order to do that they have to start redeeming those bonds and they can't do it, so they have to go out and borrow even more money to redeem those bonds. Then add to the problem is that the baby boomer generation is just starting to retire. They represent around 20% of the whole population and will eventually double the number of people drawing SS. This will eventually bring it down to more than one person drawing for every person paying in. That is not sustainable no matter what you do.

A lot of people also will say that they deserve their SS because they paid into it for all those years. One thing the don't realize in that they will be drawing the money out a LOT faster than they paid it in. Typically a person on SS will receive within four years the same amount of money that he paid in over 45 years. When SS was set up the average life expectancy was 66 years retirement was 65. It was expected that a large percentage would never reach retirement and most of those that did would not live long enough to draw more than they put in. Today people retire as young as 62 but the average life expectancy is pushing 80. So people have been paying in for 20 years, drawing everything they paid in in three years, and then continuing to draw for another 17 years.

I hope this isn't considered to be too political. It isn't intended to be, just a little history about SS and how the program operates.

 

Thanks for that lesson buddy!