What's a fair price for common US silver coins

There has not been a single post by anyone on this forum ever that has suggested sitting on the USD. The is not and never will be PM vs. The USD. They serve two very different purposes. If you feel the purpose of the chart is to show that the dollar inflates, then fine, but lets hope so because that is exactly what the dollar is designed to do. If you don't think mild inflation is a good thing. I hope you never have to meet her ugly step sister, deflation, because that is one nasty lady.

 

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Exactly my frustration as well. Many PM websites like to talk about the dollar this, the dollar that, etc ad nauseum to get you to buy pm or newsletters from them. Who the HECK ever said keeping dollars is a good idea? If they wish to argue why pm is better than stocks, better than bonds, better than real estate, better than collectibles? Ok fine. Those are other valid asset types like PM. Better than cash? Kind of a no-brainer.

 

Yeah, it is almost like the whole cornerstone of the stacking philosophy and yet it means so little. I share the frustration, I have no idea why folks post it over and over again. Maybe we can get Jim to post a sticky, "The dollar inflates, we all agree"

 

A dollar never inflates. A dollar is a unit of measure. It's like saying a pound inflates.

 

That is not true at all. If what you are saying about the Dollar is true, that also has to be true for the Euro. If so, the exchange rate would be fixed and never change, but that is not the way it works.

Now if you you look at a pound vs. a Kilo, they are units of measure and there will always be 2.2 pounds per Kilo for all eternity.

 

Not bad prices I'd buy at those, most local shops here are selling 20xs face

 

So if the term dollar originated as 416 grains of standard silver, how is it not a unit of measure? Review the coinage act of 1792 and let me know.

 

How many grains of silver are in a dollar today sir? How many times has the Coinage Act been changed? Quoting over two century law that was changed within a few years of enactment I do not understand how this supports your argument. Is a dollar still LEGALLY 416 grains? Of course not, so how is this applicable to the discussion?

 

Huh??? If that is what you believe, I will make you the deal of the century. Since you think it is a unit of measure that never changes, instead of $1 for 416 grains of silver. I will double that and give you two dollars for every 416 grains you have. Where can I pick up my silver??? I'll bring the dollars.

 

Hmmmm...and I thought that the Coin Chat forum was mostly political.

Congrats, you guys just blew it out of the water.

(No offense intended.)

 

So if we say even ten years ago, a "dollar" is worth one hundred cents, by your theory a dollar is worth how many cents today? My point is the term dollar describes an amount of something. You can't inflate a unit of measure.

 

The dollar is long since detached from silver but it doesn't mean that it still doesn't measure an amount. 100 cents.

 

Nope, here is the definition of cent.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cent

a unit of money that is equal to 1/100 of the basic unit of money in many countries : one percent of a dollar, euro, rupee, etc.

It clearly defines cent as a unit of money, that is a percentage, 1/100 of the whole. It would be similar to taking a pizza and cutting it into 100 equal slices, calling the the slices, "1 percent slices". Now that pizza is equal to 100 "1 percent slices", but that certainly does not make the pizza a unit of measure.

 

Okay. I'm done with this argument. You clearly don't get it.

 

Deflation, you mean like buying a house in 2007...?....If inflation makes the dollar loss about half it's spending power every 20-30 years your ancestors will be paying a million dollars for a 99 cent taco in a matter of 15 generations.

 

No matter how much a taco will cost, it is just a number, it simply does not matter what a taco cost in the past. As of today, the Japanese are paying 104 yen for a taco. Are they overpaying? Is this some sort of hardship for them?

 

It matters if wages don't inflate at the same pace and in pretty much every example wages trail.

 

That argument holds no water because it is a totally separate issue. Wages can and have "trailed" in periods of deflation also. History has shown, average salaries do drop in deflationary times and a lot of times they drop faster than the delflation rate. It is the exact same problem, so it cannot be tied to inflation.

Now the second part of your argument is also incorrect. I think we can agree for most if the 20th century, it has been an inflationary time. In 1900 the average salary was $438 and in present day, it is $44,000 dollars.

Now according to the West Egg inflation calculator, $438 in 1900 works out to be 11,897.12 in 2012 dollars, so in over 100 years of inflation, the average purchasing power of a wage earner has increased 4 fold, and has not trailed as you suggest.

This cannot be stressed enough, declining purchasing power of the USD is just not problem the bullion peddlers make it to be, and yet it seems to be this core belief of the stacker crowd.

In my opinion it is really just another fear tactic used by the bullion industry to peddle their goods. I mean take another look at the graph that Doug444 posted that started this conversation. Instead of just showing the numbers or a bar graph showing the facts, they overlaid a dollar bill that suggests it is disappearing. Why? The purpose was to instill fear. Don't drink the Koolaid.

 

I think it's a big problem, especially for lower income people whose wages do not keep up with increases in the cost of living. I have spoken to well-paid union people I've worked with who brought up how much prices for food and other items seem to be rising rapidly. I do plenty of shopping and I am noticing the prices rising super-fast. I won't get into a debate on what factor food and fuel should be in calculating inflation, but the rise of these commodities, for whatever reason, is to me at least a very serious issue. I don't buy government inflation numbers, though I admit there are strong deflationary forces at work.

 

Yeah, but do you buy into the fact that it is worse with deflation? In deflationary times, manufacturers get less and less for their goods. The way they deal with this, is paying people less for comparable work, and trust me, when they start with the take aways, it is brutal. So even though the cost of goods are going down, wages might be falling much faster. That is why not being able to "stay even", is really not an inflation problem, but just a problem in general.

There is a never ending battle and balance, between labor and management. At the present time, I believe management has the upper hand and they are very good at getting more production and paying less. This is what I believe the real issue is, not inflation itself. When unions were in their hey day, workers wages were absolutely crushing inflation, labor was in charge, and at least for the short term, the little guy was getting ahead reguardless of inflation or deflation.

I do want to make it clear that I am talking about mild controlled inflation. I readily admit, high uncontrolled inflation, is certainly a problem. That has more to do with too little time to adjust and the consumer is just run over by the truck.