Bill Murphy, a former American professional wide receiver who played one season in 1969 for the New England Patriots, has for decades been a financial commentator focusing on gold and silver. Bill, who graduated from Cornell University in 1968, has served as the chairman and director of the Gold Antitrust Action Committee. Bill has provided expert analysis at LeMetropole Cafe for over 20 years.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
James Turk is one of the most recognizable names in sound money. His career started at Chase Manhattan Bank with assignments in Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. He thereafter became the manager of the Commodity Department of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and held various advisory roles in money management.
Read MoreNew technology is increasing demand for silver.
Like, for instance, the electrification of the vehicles.
In order to electrify cards and trucks, including the new Tesla Cybertruck, manufacturers need silver.
Spot gold hit a six-year high late last week. It is the first time since April 2013 prices soared so high – peaking at a value of $1,5334.31 an ounce. Due to this price bump, US gold futures rose by roughly 1.3% to $1,537 an ounce. Despite the positive momentum, these high levels could not be sustained over the weekend.
Several factors drive the current and future value of gold and silver. Weakness in the Argentine Peso, civil unrest in Hong Kong, and the US-China trade war has forced investors to seek safehaven. Read More
The Royal Canadian Mint is a favorite coin producer for precious metals investors. Many prefer the Mint’s 24k gold offerings or maybe the .9999 silver bullion. To investor delight, the Royal Canadian Mint unveiled its fourth numismatic line for 2017.
Of note, the Mint celebrates Canada’s 150th anniversary in this line, including an ultra-high relief 10 oz fine silver coin featuring the 1867 Confederation Medal and an obverse of Their Majesties Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. The new line of coins celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary even features fireworks that light up!
Another 2017 $10 Fine Silver Coin – Celebrating Canada’s 150th: Wild Swift Fox and Pups, features the photography of Saskatchewan’s John E. Marriott.
The 2017 $5 Fine Silver Coin was designed by Tony Bianco and features a traditional Canada Day fireworks display surrounding a colored Canadian flag.
The fireworks will light up thanks to the inclusion of glow-in-the-dark technology.
Researchers believe they have discovered a way to add gold and silver to nail polish to create a durable, tined and perhaps even antibacterial nail coloring, extending the precious metals’ ancient uses for fashion in the form of jewelry.
Related: World’s Second Largest Gold Coin Stolen From Berlin Museum
The research, published in the ACS’ journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, highlights how modern techniques depend on pigment powders and additives. Scientists, investigating nano-particles in polishes, discovered they can make nail polish more durable, in the case of silver nanoparticles, treating fungal toenail infections.
To break silver, gold and platinum alloy, they shot lasers into gold in short bursts for periods of fifteen minutes. They learned that this resulted in colored, transparent polishes with a metallic sheen. Researchers used laser ablation to create a master batch of metal nanoparticles in ethyl acetate, a polish thinner, which could then be added to individual bottles of polish.
A-Mark Precious Metals CEO Gregory N. Roberts sold 3,300 shares of the company’s stock on Thursday. Sold at $17.66, the overall sale totaled $58, 094.96. A-Mark Precious Metals Inc sales, which trade 0.35% during midday trading Thursday, reached $17.45.
Related: Spanish Government Limits Cash Withdrawal 1,000 Euros
Overall, 23,027 shares of the company traded hands, and the company’s 50 day moving average ended the day at $19.22. It’s 200-day moving average is $17.67. A-Mark Precious Metals Inc’s twelve month low of $14.02 and 12-month high of $22.00.
A-Mark’s market capitalization is $122.69 million. A-Mark’s net margin is 0.10%.
The Idaho House of Representatives voted by a 56-13 margin last week to cease Idaho taxation on precious metals, including gold and silver coins and bars.
Related: China and Russia are Stockpiling Gold
Bill Sponsor Representative Mike Moyle (R) and the entire Republican caucus voted in favor of the measure. Now the Republican-controlled Idaho Senate must also vote in favor of the bill and Governor Butch Otter (R) must sign the bill.
HB 206, backed by the Sound Money Defense, Idaho Freedom Foundation, Money Metals Exchange and grassroots activists builds on Idaho’s sales tax exemption on precious metals to end income taxation on the sales of “precious metals bullion” and “monetized bullion.”
Representative Ron Nate (R), said from the House floor: “According to the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10, there is only one thing that a state can declare as currency if they think that our federal currency is going out of whack and some might argue that they think our federal currency is going out of whack already. If we are not going to allow people to declare capital losses on their Federal Reserve Notes or their dollar holdings, it would also be unfair to tax people for their gold and silver holdings. Gold and silver is an alternative to holding Federal Reserve Notes and it is the ONLY alternative that the U.S. Constitution says that the state can allow as another currency. It’s unfair to tax it just as [it’s unfair] to tax losses on Federal Reserve Notes.”
Taxpayers who sell their precious metals might be on the hook for capital gain taxes. “Policies that discourage precious metals ownership reduce the likelihood that Gem State citizens will take prudent steps to insulate themselves from the inflation and financial turmoil caused by the Federal Reserve System,” said Stefan Gleason, director of the Sound Money Defense League. “Precious metals bullion is already exempt from Idaho’s sales tax. HB 206 removes the final disincentive in Idaho tax law that stands against ownership of the monetary metals.”
Utah and Oklahoma have enacted similar income tax measures. Arizona is considering similar legislation, and states like Tennessee, Maine, and Alabama seek to remove precious metals from the sales tax.
Image: Shutterstock
Silver has increased in value 9 percent since the start of the year, largely due to improving sentiment among institutional investors. But, in the past couple weeks, many of the gains in 2017 have been erased.
Related: How to Start Your Own Gold Dealer Website
“Changing expectations towards the outlook for U.S. interest rates and the proliferation of negative policy rates across other key reserve currencies has rekindled institutional investor interest in precious metals,” according to the Silver Institute. “Meanwhile, a marked improvement in silver industrial offtake, led by photovoltaics, which achieved a record high last year, is also helping. All these factors in turn have fueled investment inflows into silver futures, options, exchange traded products (ETPs) and over-the-counter products.”
A forthcoming U.S. Fed rate hike this month led to precious metals sales. 2016 marked silver’s first yearly rise in a 9 percent increase.
“Turning to physical investment, sales of silver bars and coins in 2016 fell from 2015’s record high, due to a downturn in U.S. and Indian demand, the world’s two largest markets, according to Metals Focus, the precious metals consultancy based in London,” writes the Silver Institute. “In part, this reflected some market saturation after several years of very strong demand. The price recovery also meant that 2016 saw no repeat of the surge in bargain hunting seen in 2015.”
Michael DiRienzo, Executive Director of the Silver Institute: “We expect that the factors that buoyed institutional silver investment over much of 2016, and have carried over into the early months of 2017, will remain relevant for the remainder of this year.”
If institutional demand can maintain silver’s gains on the year before March has yet to be seen.
Markets did not know what to do after election results poured in, although many markets had been pricing in a possible Trump victory for about one month prior to the election, as polls were too close to call and also the accuracy of many mainstream polls were thrown into question.
Gold futures fell precipitously Friday, their lowest finish since June, thanks to strength in the U.S. dollars and equities. The Federal Reserve, according to many analysts, might increase interest rates next month. The main reason for precious metals decline is similar to why global currencies have fallen: the strength of the dollar. Read More
Check out Representative Brad Sherman (Democrat, California) make some religious-based assertions about when the Federal Reserve and Janet Yellen should raise interest rates. In a way, Representative Sherman makes some good points. Everything he says is true. Insert “nature” everywhere he says “God” – if you’re secular – and see the point he is making perhaps a bit more clearly. Now, learn about “interest rate” “Federal Reserve” and “Sherman” and things become a bit more mysterious.
GoldSilverBitcoin – Entering into the gold business and starting your own gold dealing site is easier than ever. As goldbugs and silverbugs might notice, there is quite a bit of turnover in the online bullion retail scene. Moreover, the general websites that are highlighted are not the only ones. There are many, many online gold dealers who have carved out their own niche. The industry itself has gone through a lot of flux lately. We highlight in this article how you – Yes, YOU – can enter into the gold selling space. While we can’t go into certain technical details, this guide will make you aware of the tools you need. Here’s how.
There are numerous products precious metals oriented online retailers focus on, such as bullion gold, silver, platinum and palladium coins and bars, semi-numismatic gold and silver coins such as Morgan Dollars and Saint Gaudens (Pre-1993 gold coins), tube holders and survival gear. One thing many people, in my opinion, do not consider while opening a precious metals shop is jewelry. While precious metal coins oft carry small premiums – save for the Pre-1933 gold coins – jewelry has higher margins.
At the third GOP presidential debate Wednesday night, moderator Becky Quick asked Ted Cruz how we could “try and help” working women in the US who “still earn just 77 percent of what men earn.” In a stumbling manner, Cruz ultimately landed on the gold standard to help women. In a disjointed tirade Cruz began:
“Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and all the Democrats talking about wanting to address the plight of working women, not a one of them mentioned the fact that under Barack Obama, 3.7 million women have entered poverty. Not a one of them mentioned the fact that under Barack Obama and the big government economy, the median wage for women has dropped $733. The truth of the matter is, big government benefits the wealthy, it benefits the lobbyists, it benefits the giant corporations. And the people who are getting hammered are small businesses, it’s single moms, it’s Hispanics.”
Cruz later tied “loose money” to the plight of women. “I think the Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy and simply be focused on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold,” Cruz said.
Cruz is not the only Presidential candidate to support the gold standard. Rand Paul has called for similar. “We need to think about our currency that once upon a time had a link to a commodity, and I think we should study it,” he once said.
Of course, in the end, it doesn’t seem like Cruz answered the question at hand.
Discussion about whether or not there is a silver shortage has divided the silver community. More information about the situation has recently come out. The discussion usually revolves around to points of view: that there is no silver shortage, merely a coin shortage as certain Mints run out of blanks to mint coins. The other says there is not enough silver in the world. As David Morgan:
“A pet peeve of mine is when an article is published talking about a shortage in silver or gold. Recently, we have seen an increase in articles claiming that there is a precious metals shortage simply because both the U.S. Mint and Royal Canadian Mint ran out of blanks. Both Government Mints predetermine a rough amount they will mint at the start of the year. When demand surges, a “bottleneck” can occur and this has happened in the past. Why is this such a pet peeve? Because a shortage in a specific silver product does NOT mean a shortage in the raw material. It would be like saying there is a rice shortage if Rice Krispies stopped being produced momentarily.”
Another sources disagree. For instance, according to The Silver Institute the world’s silver supply is in deficit by 57.7 million ounces. Nonetheless, news sources seem to only confirm a shortage of American Silver Eagles, Canadian Silver Maples, Austrian Philharmonics, Brittanias and Perth Mint silver coins. Others wonder if so many blank shortages at once has happened before. As Reuters reported:
Government mints around the world are struggling to keep up with unprecedented demand for silver coins, spurred by a drop in silver prices to six-year lows.
The mints in Canada, Austria and Australia have told Reuters they are rationing sales of silver bullion coins.
ROYAL CANADIAN MINT:
The mint has been rationing sales of its silver Maple Leaf coins since July after record monthly sales, an official said. Sales have hit records in August and September.AUSTRIAN MINT:
The Austrian Mint has been rationing sales of its Philharmonic silver coins and has increased production of silver blanks after higher-than-expected demand in July and August, a spokeswoman said.It expects supplies to return to normal by mid-October.
U.K. ROYAL MINT:
The U.K. Royal Mint has seen a 600-percent increase in sales of its silver 1 ounce Britannia coins so far this year on “unprecedented demand,” said Chris Howard, director of bullion at the Mint.
It is increasing production and has significant pre-orders for 2016-dated coins, he said.PERTH MINT:
The Perth Mint, owned by the government of Western Australia, has begun rationing supply of a new line of coins this month as it is unable to keep up with robust demand, an official said.It has sold over 2.5 million ounces of silver so far this month, which is a record and three and a half times more than August.
U.S. MINT:
The U.S. mint has been issuing a weekly sales quota for its flagship American Eagle silver coins since the end of July.A spokesman said its Westpoint production facility is operating three shifts and paying staff overtime to meet demand.
The mint was forced to stop selling its popular silver coins for three weeks in July after selling out of inventory due to strong demand.
I spoke with traders at major bullion wholesalers recently and they said that things would return to normal in 3-5 weeks in terms of silver delays on the most popular products at the retail level.
Why are US Mint gold sales on the rise? When you look closely at the news in silver market, of potentially two month delays on many products, the picture becomes clearer. Purchase of gold ETFs has increased, and the US Mint sold 7,500 ounces in gold coins and 871,000 ounces in silver coins. Sales splits in gold coins include 6,500 ounces in American Gold Eagles and 1,000 ounces in American Gold Buffalo coins.
Silver has been the attention of investors this year, in particular with long delays in the metal over the past month. Nevertheless, gold sales have remained robust. American Buffalo 1-ounce gold coins sales in 2015 are ahead of 2014 levels. As of September 23, the Mint reported sales for the year to authorized purchasers of 169,000 of the 1-ounce gold coins. In the first nine months of 2014, the Mint sold 139,500 Gold Buffalo coins.
Not only as the US Mint seen an increase in sales. As Reuters reported in September, gold coins sales have surged in the US and Europe, with sales from the US Mint reaching levels not seen since the 2013 prices crash. In the third quarter 2015, gold American Eagle sales have had the highest quarter since 2013.
“The industry has been on an absolute tear for the last three months,” Scott Spitzer, chief operating officer at Manfra, Tordella & Brookes in New York, told Reuters. “Every time there’s been a break in the price and there’s been volatility, there has been enormous growth in retail interest.”
On the retail level, procuring silver bullion has become an issue with delay in several products including American Silver Eagles, Canadian Silver Maples and even some private silver rounds. The premiums tell the entire story.
Silver.com has become the premium leader in the online retail market. As you can see by the chart below, the company raised its premium on American Silver Eagles from 22%-sub 30% around August 23.
Silver.com did similar with its Canadian Maple Leaf price.
APMEX increased its Canadian Silver Maple price:
Provident metals raised its premium on American Silver Eagles from 30%-40% in the past two weeks.
Premiums on Austrian Philharmonics have also increased with little reprieve:
While the premium change coincides with a decrease in the silver price to sub-$18 from $18.60, you can see that the silver price has regained much of this, while premiums remain high. There are still great opportunities to buy inexpensive bullion. Find them here.
US and New Zealand researchers recently found massive gold and silver deposits in reservoirs underneath a volcanic range on New Zealand. Project researcher Stuart Simmons told Quartz that find could be worth between $50 million and $250 million, though that is speculation. As Simmons explains:
Taupo Zone [is]…similar to Yellowstone National Park in the US, volcanic magma enriches underground water with heat, chemicals, and in some instances, precious metals.
The steam from the area’s hot springs is used as a source of geothermal energy, Simmons explained, and when the hot water moves toward the earth’s surface, it is sometimes caught in the pipes of geothermal production wells—which are designed to generate power from hot water in the earth. Over time, thin films of silver and gold build in the pipes of these wells.
In this day and age, energy comes from wind, water, sun and from geothermal forces below the surface of the planet. How to store that energy and transport it becomes more difficult. Oil is transportable and has a long shelf-life, making it a favorite option.
Elon Musk’s plan to bring a Tesla battery to homes and offices, the Powerwall, is a battery in 7 or 10 kilowatt-hour sizes. Tesla plans a battery for bigger operation with a 100 kWh unit named the Powerpack. The Powerwall can pull power from the grid during off-peak hours. Read More
July 23, 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the debasement of United States’ coinage. The Coinage Act of 1965 debased the coinage of silver from the dimes and quarter dollars and diminished the silver content of the half dollar from 90% to 40% before it, too, lost all of its silver content about 5 years later. The US government claimed the reason for the act was coin shortages caused by the increase in the price of silver. The Act also forbade the mintage silver dollars for five years.
The demonetization of the silver came just over two year after US President John F. Kennedy delegated authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to issue silver certificates. In his book Crossfire, Jim Marrs posits that Kennedy created silver certificates to undermine the power of the Federal Reserve, though others say that Kennedy’s decision was merely a matter of convenience during a time of transition away from silver certificates. Here are parts of the speech by Lyndon B Johnson announcing the change: Read More
A storm is brewing on the global level. In recent weeks the world has seen numerous nation-states plagued by economic turmoil. China, Greece, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and others have had a taste that the global crisis which shocked the world in 2008 was not in the past. Rather, it remained in the present, as well. The Chinese stock market crashed, and its the second largest stock market in the world. Pundits wondered – could the same happen in the US.
With Greece inching closer to a default, and European partners putting pressure on the southern Greek nation, Greeks have pulled money out of banks to the tune of 2 billion euros this week. Alongside this trend, we see an increasing interest in the precious metals sector, as well as the crypto-currency sector, on Google Trends.
Gold, too, has seen a spike in interest.
And, finally, Bitcoin, which last saw a spike in interest in 2013, has also seen an increase in interest.
As is made clear in the above announcement, GoldSilver, owned by well-known sound money proponent Mike Maloney, has begun accepting Bitcoin for gold and silver. While not the first bitcoin-to-bullion vendor, GoldSilver’s Maloney has made it clear he supports Bitcoin. He was brought to the coin very much the same way many other precious metals investors were – via Trace Mayer.
It’s not only Mike Maloney accepting Bitcoin now, but also Peter Schiff, who also recently began accepting Bitcoin for gold and silver.
Mike Maloney is perhaps best known for his popular YouTube series, The Hidden Secrets Of Money. For that series, click here.
Solar energy is seen as an important step towards cleaning up human society. The process works by using radiant light and heat from the sun harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies like solar heating, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis.
The development of solar energy is so important that, in 2011, The International Energy Agency said that “the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries’ energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating global warming, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared.”
One aspect of silver, which many people do not know about, is the amount of silver needed in order to create solar panels. Silver has long been needed in industrial applications.
Back in the days of analogue photography, film was coated with a minute layer of silver chloride, silver bromide or silver iodide. Silver has also been important for the production of motion pictures, as movie screens were once covered in paint embedded with the most reflective metal – silver – thus resulting in the “silver screen.”
Obviously today things have become more digitized. Silver demand has fallen about 70% according to some sources. But that doesn’t mean silver today serves no purpose. Photovoltaic (PV) installation – otherwise termed solar energy – is a promising technology that could lead to sustained silver demand for the long term.
Each solar panel has between 15 and 20 grams of silver, which, assuming $15 silver, is about $20 per solar panel.
Solar is not the only industrial use for silver in the modern world. Cell phones, computers, automobiles and water-purification systems all require silver, and the so-called “devil’s metal” contains antibacterial properties, prompting its use in the manufacturing of surgical instruments, stethoscopes and other health care tools. Demand is worldwide, too, as China accounts for 30% of the market. Installed capacity has been increasing rapidly every year as costs decrease.
Solar photovoltaic system prices are declining steadily, having dropped by 12-19 percent nationwide in 2013, according to a report from the Energy Department and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).
“These price drops are consistent with previous annual reductions achieved since 2010, when the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative was established,” NREL’s David Feldman, a lead author of the report said. “However, the report also indicates that there are significant variations in reported pricing both geographically and across market segments due to a variety of factors, including value-based pricing based on local competition within the marketplace and prevailing electric retail rates. Other factors include differences in specific system configurations such as panel efficiency, mounting structure, and geographic location; and the time lags between commitments and commercial operation for utility-scale systems.”
The report, entitled Photovoltaic (PV) Pricing Trends: Historical, Recent, and Near-Term Projections (2014 Edition), demonstrates a downward trajectory in PV system pricing continued in 2013, and it is expected to continue through 2016 and beyond. Some other findings in the report include:
“There is still considerable uncertainty as to how low PV system prices will drop in the next five to 10 years,” according to Feldman. “However, there appears to be an emerging consensus that the SunShot’s price reduction targets are within reach and more and more likely to be realized. We see this reflected in the fact that many of the current projections are far lower than projections made in the recent past by the same sources.”
80 metric tons of silver are needed in order to generate one gigawatt, or 1 million kilowatts, of electricity, which could power about 90 average American homes annually. In 2016, experts anticipate nearly a million-and-half metric tons of silver are expected to be needed to meet solar demand in the US. Overall electricity generated by U.S. utility-scale solar photovoltaic power plants has increased more than 100 percent in 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. Over the last 40 years, prices have dropped considerably for photovolatic cells.
Ikea has been a big investor in alternative energies and, as can be seen by the photo below, many of their stores are powered by solar.
Solar’s future is looking bright as the average cost of city-provided energy increased 37%. Increasing numbers of homeowners are therefore looking to solar as a viable energy to power their homes. Solar photovoltaic effect was first identified 175 years ago. It seems that, in the 21st century, it is poised to go mainstream.
Ruth Crowell is modernizing the precious-metals industry. She oversaw the update of the silver fix, which had been around since 1897. Shortly thereafter, she was on to changing the way the world sets the gold price, which had been done the same way for 95 years. The 34-year-old American, who had spent seven years at the London Bullion Market Association after coming on as a temp worker, has become the international trade group’s first female chief executive. Read More
Alibaba Group had a huge debut with its shares beginning to trade at $92.70, up over 36% from its IPO price of $68. That increase on the New York Stock Exchange raised the company’s total market value from $168 billion to over $220 billion. Alibaba had raised $21.8 billion in its hotly anticipated IPO, the largest in US history, dwarfing Facebook Inc’s IPO.
The price of bitcoin has fallen from its $513 price of one month ago to as low as $381.17 on Friday. This week alone the crypto-asset fell from $513 to $381. Read More
Ron Paul certainly made an impact on US history.
And so we decided at GoldSilverBitcoin to create a list of some poignant Ron Paul quotes on some important targets. So, without further ado, here they are: Read More
Bitcoin has proven itself as an established payments system, with some of the world’s most influential people commenting on its utility and innovation. Stephen Colbert called it “gold for nerds,” and Joe Rogan has been fascinated by the technology, having Andreas Antonopoulos on as a guest to the Joe Rogan Experience twice now. Some political figures have expressed concerns over the currency’s potential non-crime of “money laundering”, but overall the sentiment has focused on the technology and its goundbreaking nature. And so its really no surprise that many companies have adopted bitcoin. Bitcoin has now surpassed Western Union in total transaction volume and looks set to pass Paypal this year.
[heading]Why Did The US Mint Lift Its Rationing Of American Silver Eagles?[/heading]
On Friday the US Mint announced it would stop rationing its popular American Silver Eagle bullion coins due to falling investment demand.
The Mint began rationing the American Silver Eagles last year due to sustained demand but recently told its authorized dealers they could buy as many Silver Eagles as they wish starting Monday.
The US Mint has been rationing coin sales to its authorized dealers since late January, 2013 following a suspension due to unprecedented demand, which depleted silver coin blanks. Read More
[heading]Young People Would Rather Bank With Google Or Amazon Than Big Banks[/heading]
Originally appeared at Ounce.Me – the home of the Pizza/BTC ratio
While people would traditionally go in and meet face-to-face with a bank teller, as we’ve all done, there’s a new gig in town: self-checkout.
Today, lines are forming for self-checkout banking. Only this process is much easier than the self-checkout of the grocery store because it’s online. And it’s not just bitcoin that is attempting to get the job done.
Young people are gravitating towards a world in which the bank-tellers chair behind the glass is vacant, meaning no need for actual bank branches. As Buzzfeed’s Matt Zeitlin states, “more Minority Report than It’s A Wonderful Life.” Read More
The US government doesn’t want people in so-called “high-risk” industries to have access to the banking system.
This includes everyone from gun shop owners, to bitcoiners to marijuana dispensaries and even porn stars!
But what the Department of Justice is overlooking is the simple fact that people will turn to gold, silver and bitcoin instead of the banking system. Bitcoin does not discriminate. Read More
[heading]The American Silver Eagle Is Doing Something Most Are Unaware Of[/heading]
US Mint sales of bullion coins increased across most selections. Overall sales of gold coins rose 3,000 while silver coins increased 399,000, underscoring how silver’s reasonable price spurs silver buying among wider swathes of the population than gold.
Sales of American Silver Eagle coins topped 17.3 million in year-to-date sales. The coin has been around since 1986 and has never sold as much as during the January through April 22 period. Tuesday marks the first time that the Silver Eagle sales surpassed those from last year which were at 17,291,000 on April 22, 2013.
[heading]These Indicators Suggest Buying Silver[/heading]
Since the onset of 2013, silver is down 35.5% through the weekend. It is the worst commodity of 2013. So, then, why buy silver? Read More
If silver’s performance in 2012 could be summarized in one period, then 12/18-12/20 is it. After months of coordinated attacks on silver, sometimes brutal beatings throughout entire trading days, the poor man’s gold nose-dived 7.5% in the 3 days preceding 12/20/12, its biggest drop in more than a year. It wasn’t the only poor day silver had on the year. Late in the year, silver joined numerous assets from copper to the FX in a liquidation in the paper markets. As has been the case for over a decade, nothing has fundamentally changed in asset markets, given currency devaluation and increased central bank gold purchases. Silver stacks up against all other global financial assets, through 2012, finishing in the top ten for the year.
[heading]”A 6,000 Year Old War Against “Buy Silver”[/heading]
“Scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.” –Thomas Jefferson 1814 Read More
[heading]Banked & Poor: The Lose-Lose of Checkings & Savings[/heading]
As John Cheese at Cracked.com put it: “Being poor is like a game of poker where if you lose, the other players get to fuck you. And if you win, the dealer fucks you.” Read More
[heading]As The Royal Family Celebrates With Silver, You Should Too[/heading]
Generally, culture is created by culture creators, who generally are the rich and famous people. Fans, for example, watch their favorite actors, actresses and musicians and copy their style. Read More
[heading]Bitcoin & Silver In Tweets & Trends[/heading]
The month of June saw a steady increase in Twitter mentions of “bitcoin” with a steep drop off on July 1. The increase, however, as can be seen below, was indeed formidable. According to Google Trends, interest in terms of Google searches remained level, despite ending near the top-end of its one month chart. Read More
[heading]Gold’s Biggest Quarterly Drop Since 1968: A Farce Or Sign of Times?/heading]
Gold and silver prices have hit their lowest points since August 2010. But, are investors and pundits looking at all the wrong indicators? It wouldn’t be surprising if they were, thus leading to liquidation spurred by manipulation and more liquidation. It is the Ivy league types who have buried precious metals under a mirage of arbitrary data points. Read More
Get Your Gold Out of Dodge With Bitcoin
From my time working at a walk in precious metals dealer one of the questions that I remember coming up with relative frequency is what do I do with the metals? How do I store it? Should I keep it at home or in a safety deposit box? These questions were, for the most part, easy to answer as you could present the customer with three quick options for their storage and let them decide which would be the best. On the other hand, the question that never came with a quick simple answer was always, “how do I get my gold out of the country?”
The presumably intentional vague regulation put out by U.S Customs reads like this;
“There is no duty on gold coins, medals or bullion but these items must be declared to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer. Please note a FinCEN 105 form must be completed at the time of entry for monetary instruments over $10,000. This includes currency, ie. gold coins, valued over $10,000. The FINCEN definition of currency: The coin and paper money of the United States or any other country that is (1) designated as legal tender and that (2) circulates and (3) is customarily accepted as a medium of exchange in the country of issuance.”
As mentioned before, the regulation is conveniently vague because it does not say whether the $10,000 value will be assessed by the face value of the coin, in the case of the American Gold Eagle this would mean that every ounce of gold has the value of $50 USD, or the market value of the gold, being around $1565.00 currently. Either way it is not a value that you want to be assessed by the U.S’s elite and respected TSA force.
People even come up with rather ingenious ways to circumvent the system. I can remember one of my customers devising a plan to take a cruise ship down to a location that he was expatriating to because he said that customs inspections on cruise ships were not as thorough as they were by flight. Still other customers would talk about taking the gold out of the country in increments or to make the gold into jewelry so as to avoid the customs declaration.
All of these ideas are viable options but they remind me of various scenes from the movie Deer Hunter as all these options, if done enough, will lead to the same disastrous wealth confiscation by the proper authorities.
Ah but what about Bitcoin? The great thing about Bitcoin is, as of now, there are no foolish laws that tell you that you must declare them. More importantly there is no way of knowing that you had moved your mathematically encrypted digital files to another country or, were in the process of doing so.
There are large Bitcoin exchangers that you can sell your Bitcoin to and they will deposit money into your checking account or you may even receive a wire from a money sending company. The problem with services like these is there is a record of the payment. Money transactions should always only be between two parties. It is only in our mixed up, central banking, fiat money dominated world, that this reality has been skewed to the public.
But if I take my Bitcoin to another country how will I use it? Well Bitcoin is quickly becoming a form of payment all and in and of itself. More and more vendors are taking Bitcoin as a payment directly but for those that need to still have local currency for day to day living a simple search on localbitcoins.com will reveal where you my meet a local dealer in the country that you reside and sell your Bitcoin directly.
Of course Gold Silver Bitcoin recommends always having physical precious metals along with having Bitcoin. This allows for the maximum security in the preservation of your wealth.
The problem in answering the question a few years ago of “how do I get my gold out to the country?” is that there was not a good answer. That was when Bitcoin was still in its infancy and its potential was not clearly understood. Today however, it is the best option that one has for moving wealth out of whatever collapsing economy one may find they need to escape from without any form of declaration.
[heading]Bitcoin: Silver = 1:1: Trace Mayer & Silver Vigilante Discuss[/heading]
RTG: Hello and welcome to the Run to Gold Podcast. I’ve got with us special guest Silver Vigilante of Gold Silver Bitcoin. One Thing I admire about you is you’ve got an open mind. We’ve got some people in the gold and silver niches who don’t have open minds, whether it is Chris Duane who has been bad-mouthing Bitcoin for two years and continues to badmouth it or people who think they can just ignore it like James Turk at GoldMoney. What do you think is driving BTC?
SV: Well, I think first and foremost it’s the internet. Everyone believes in the Internet. Bitcoin is a microchasm of the Internet that can actually lead it in new directions. Google is going to try to shutdown websites that provide links for users to copyrighted material. They are going to do this the same way they did with WikiLeaks, through a “financial blockade.” WikiLeaks got around that with BTC, and The Pirate Bays will do the same. Read More
Where Does Bitcoin Fit in the Historic Ratio of Gold and Silver?
Long time investors in gold, silver, platinum and palladium as a means to protect themselves against the debilitating effects of inflation, brought on by the central bankers and their failed monetary policy, are all to aware of the fundamentals of the precious metals market and how ratios are crucial to wealth building during our current dissent into economic collapse. After all the ratios are the simplest ways to analyze the blatant manipulation (suppression) of the fair market value of metals in general.
Take the easiest and most suppressed monetary metals as a primary example. Silver and gold comes from the ground historically at a ratio of around 15:1. This means that for every 15 ounces of silver you have acquired through your labor you should be able to exchange it for an ounce of gold. Insiders in the silver market will even say that the ratio of silver to gold is closer to 10:1 do to industrial demand for silver but that is for another date and time.
A helpful website to look at for the current market rigged ratio of gold to silver is metalratios.com. Through this website one can find what the current ratio is which is around 53:1 meaning it takes 53 ounces of silver to be able to obtain an ounce of gold. Can I get an SEC witness? Probably not, but for those with the slightest bit of intelligence and who are willing to let their minds work on logic rather than rely on all thoughts and beliefs to be fed to them by the Main Stream Media (MSM), they already know the markets are rigged and as of right now are doubling down on their purchases of silver or, for the extra savoy sound monetarist , trading their gold for silver.
One can do quite well by taking advantage of the paper suppression of these assets. For instance, during the run up of precious metals from January 2011-May 2011 the silver/gold ratio went from 53:1, roughly what it is now, to 31:1 by May before the central planners had to intervene in the markets and artificially collapse the value of the metals. For those that traded gold to silver in January of 2011 and were able to trade back before the take down they were able to stack a considerable about of gold.
During that time Bitcoin was having its own remarkable climb moving from 5 dollars a coin to 10. A 100% return is never a bad thing and Bitcoin had its own disastrous downturn about a month later but remember that we are looking at the ratios.
Back in May of 2011 it would’ve taken you 4 bitcoin to be able to get one ounce of silver. Even recently the best that you could hope for was 2 bitcoins in order to get on ounce of silver. That was however before bitcoins recent rise of nearly 40% for the beginning of 2013. Click here for more on that rise.
The point is that, for the first time in bitcoin history, holders of the digital silver (bitcoin), will be able to exchange their digital tangible assets for physical tangible assets! This one to one ratio coincides perfectly with a bullion company that takes bitcoin for precious metals. Through www.goldsilverbitcoin.com you can move your bitcoin to silver without having to cash out of the bitcoin and find a dealer that will sell the metals to you in USD.
No one knows what the rate of climb will be for bitcoin. Could it overtake silver? Of course but taking a portion of your bitcoin now and buying some hard metal is never a bad idea. Especially for the first time that you can do it on a 1 bitcoin to 1 ounce of silver basis.
Gold Silver Bitcoin welcomes you to our inaugural blog post. We are now open, serving the public with the precious metals and bitcoin products listed at our website. We come from five years of experience in the bullion industry, with connections to the largest distributors, and an inclination in favor of the digital technology bitcoin. That is why we believe “it’s your choice,” and have begun Gold Silver Bitcoin to make that choice all the easier.
We remember when we were working in the California industry in 2011 as the fiscal cliff approached. Silver had finished its monumental run-up to $50, and we were exhausted from long days under the office lights and 50 pound monster boxes. The whole world was on edge as the US approached the cliff, and gold had begun its run towards $2,000. People were now moving into that market en masse. For the first time more ounces of gold seemed to be flying out the doors than silver. Read More
