WHAT IF THEY WOULD HAVE HELD THE SILVER?
This was an interesting thought to consider.
I know that a lot of people take it kind of hard on the crypto pioneers from back in the early days of BTC. Personally, I think that selling 10,000 BTC for two pizzas was a good idea. After all, unless someone could show that BTC was worth something, it could never have increased in value. At some point, someone had to sell some BTC for something before anyone could ever sell any for more.
SOMETHING ELSE TO CONSIDER
Rather recently, I was playing around with some of the Silver Franklin Half Dollars which were minted from 1948 – 1963 and consisted of 90% Silver and 10% Copper. At the time that they were minted, they were worth the face value of 50 cents. Then, Silver went up in value!
So, I got to thinking, what if the US government had held that Silver? How many Silver Franklin half dollars were minted and how much would they be worth today?
It took a little work, but I’ve made some calculations. These coins were minted in Denver, San Francisco, and Philadelphia with a total of 481,701,109 minted. In total, 154,178,490 were minted in Philadelphia, 295,415,219 were minted in Denver, and 32,107,400 were minted in San Francisco. The face value of those coins was $240,850,554.50 USD.
If we use the current value of Silver, which is about $16.38 USD, and remember that each coin is 12.5 grams, 90% of which is Silver, then just the Silver used to mint each of these 50 cent pieces is currently worth about $5.9245 USD. That’s almost $5.50 USD more than the face value!
In total then, the Silver used to mint the almost 482 million Silver Franklin half dollars is currently worth about $2,853,838,220 USD. Once we subtract the face value, we have $2,612,987,665.50 USD in value that the US government could have had if they had saved their Silver. Of course, compared to the current US debt of over $21 trillion, an extra $2.6 billion really doesn’t seem like much. But then again, I only looked at data for one coin...
Anyway, I just wanted to use this illustration to show that we don’t really know what will eventually increase in value. The US government certainly didn’t.
If you want to peek around a bit yourself, this source shows the mintage figures that I used and this source was used to help figure out the melt value in USD. To check out ever worse data, you can always take a peek at the US Debt Clock.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-fifty-cents-being-worth-almost-six-bucks
Until next time…
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Well, I guess the value this money get is only from the governments after making laws for it.
Yeah, that is where the 50 cent value comes from, huh?
"...we don’t really know what will eventually increase in value."
Hey Papa! Not trying to mess with you or anything but, for the sake of conversation, I have to heartily disagree with this conclusion. Here's why:
Every single time a currency starts on a precious metal standard (gold/silver) and shifts over to a FIAT system, the value of the currency will ALWAYS crash and HODLing your silver and gold will ALWAYS be massively profitable during that currency collapse. It's really a complete no-brainer, once you understand that the age-old rule is completely true: HE WHO HAS THE GOLD, MAKES THE RULES.
With China and the Petro-Yuan, we are all about to learn the above lesson. Whether it is a hard lesson or a wonderful lesson all depends upon how much precious metal you are currently holding or shortly acquire. Silver/Gold are actually "on sale" right now - they can't really go much lower, but has massive upside potential for the next few years. It's going to be like making a bet on 10:1 odds and whoever put their money on the "1" is going to win, big time. Your own conclusion even showed 50 cents of silver now being worth $6 - so that's a 12X return. So, how can you say that people "never know" about this kind of thing? Anybody who takes just a little bit of time to study the history of money and currency collapses can only gain an appreciation for becoming a stacker of precious metals.
Thanks for the research and the stats on the silver 1/2dollar. Interesting stuff.
#steemsilvergold
For most "investors" investment timeframe is very limited. Consider BTC downtrend is only 2 months and how many people have already panic sold their assets? This example with silver coins is even worse as timeframe is over 50 years. Most invest with short termed goal in mind.
Thus knowing what will rise within this short term you are willing to invest for is really hard and I support Papa on this.
I disagree that "most investors" are out for short-term profits. I think it is more true the younger the investor class is - and less true as people get older and wiser.
Sure, a few people can & do make massive short-term gains, especially last year in cryptos - but that is the exception, not the rule. The future of crypto markets will be very good, but only if you know WTH you are doing & don't panic sell.
Wiser investors understand that "the turtle wins the race." That is not a popular concept amongst our current crop of crypto-enthusiasts, becasue a whole bunch of them bought into BTC when it was over-valued and are now panic selling at a significant loss. If they only understood that "HODL" is not just a MEME, it's a strategy of patience, and that patience pays off - then they would actually realize profits instead of losses.
Precious metals are a very long-term investment, which may currently be shorter, since we are about to go through a money/bank/debt reset. I think that people who truly understand what is going on are loading up on both precious metals and will soon be buying more into the current crypto dip - which still has a ways to keep going down before you should consider buying-in. Cryptos are currently being "crashed" by the bigger players so they can all get in at lower prices. I won't be surprised if BTC hits 4K or lower. But, then the big money comes in - more than the last time - MUCH MORE. Don't let all of the FUD that's coming out lately scare you off of good cryptos.
But, out of the 1,600 cryptos that are out there today, 80% or more of are scams or mismanaged projects and they will fail. You must pick the right ones. BTC and a few others are pretty "sure" bets. But, even SAFER and wiser is a strategy of also stacking gold & silver. Diversify. That is also a no-brainer here. It certainly provieds me a much-needed & appreciated sense of security to know that my metals are stable, even if the cryptos are going crazy.
Trust me when I say that for every person who is making it big in cryptos, there's probably some noobs in the market who are losing big. Fewer and fewer traders will be able to make big profits in cryptos as time goes on, because the big money & professional traders and money-makers will be the ones eating up a larger and larger share of the cheddar.
Everyone on SteemIt is, hopefully, increasing their skillset when it comes to managing trading/money/investing - and that puts us ahead of the curve. But, as time moves forwards, it will be more and more difficult to keep yourself ahead of that curve. Education is more, or equally important in building real wealth. Not college or school, neccessarily, but being self-educated in this stuff. THAT is what will really matter, more than anything, as we move through this dicey time of a money reset.
Thank you for your insights, can't find anything to disagree with :)
Can you share what is the best way to buy into precious metals? Which ETFs to consider and etc?
Check out sdbullion.com - they usually have an introductory offer for first-time buyers to pick up 10 oz. of silver at spot price. Also, apmex.com is a good, reliable bullion dealer. I stick with the strategy of buying bullion weight as opposed to buying collectible coins. I think it best to keep your precious metals in smaller (1 oz) denominations because they will be more useful for trading/barter if you need to use them. Big bars (over 10 oz.) are not so easily trusted by most people who do trade precious metals, on a local level. In a pawn shop or gold and silver store, never sell for less than spot price.
I have bought a car and a boat over the last few years with silver eagles and silver rounds. Not everyone deals with or understands silver, so you have to find the right people to trade/barter with, but you can just go down to a local pawn/gold store and get cash if they don't understand what real money is. They want the fake (paper) stuff - only because they are generally uneducated about real money, or they are just looking for some cash to spend.
As far as ETFs go, that's a whole other ball of wax.
Okay, good point! You are correct! Thanks @bi5h0p!
Thank you @papa-pepper. I had my hunches about saving silver and now you've confirmed it.
Something I noticed in 2011 in my country was that the 10cents coin which was originally gold-plated became copper plated. Our copper-plated 5cents coins (which are bigger and heavier) are not in circulation anymore. I remember the days when people fashionably chuck it in the street if it appeared in their wallets
I think that even ordinary people have learnt this bad habit of saving cash as opposed to real money; gold and silver..
We just never know do we? @swt3df1
Ben Franklin Loved to Party !!!
Good thought experiment, but as always, the USSA squanders their gold and silver. All the millions of ounces used during the Manhattan Project to refine the Uranium during WWII was sold of in the 70s. I sure we are BROKE, printing 50 Billion a week, according to debtclock.org, that's 1 TRILLION every 20 weeks. As a taxpayer, my bill is currently $978,000 to payoff the $112 Trillion of Unfunded Liability. BROKE< BROKE< FIAT to ZERO
wooow nice to see these nice coins
I Also have some old coins at least 400 years old coins that were used
Smart calculation version @papa-pepper. Interesting information. Thank you for giving science to us.
I love that what silver and gold bought 100 years ago is basically the same as what can be bought today with the same amount. Just goes to show that leaving the dollar un-pegged has only hurt it's value long term.
Another lovely past Brother!
J. R.
You're right about that! Those poor little dollars...
hahaha xD such a shame they will be used as toilet paper or fire starter someday.
I can't really respond to this, as to do the response justice would make several entire posts.
Bix Weir of RoadToRoota has gone really in depth upon what the FED did, and why they did it.
Why would The US govern-cement care about saving silver when they can print money out of nothing?
Now, the people that own the FED, they have all their holdings in gold. However, there is a LOT more gold in the world then any claim. The Grand Canyon has more gold than has been mined in The US to date.
Further, the US$ is debt. It is the flip-side of the coin to the national debt. If the national debt is ever paid off, say goodbye to all the dollars too. So, The US has never had any plans of balancing its budget, or paying off the national debt.
Yeah, totally right. You are also correct about the fact that it would take you several posts to properly reply. Thanks @builderofcastles.