enrieb

I just this article on TaxFreeGold(Chards) website, its a brief summary of the monetary history of Gold, the reasons why Gold is hitting new highs why they believe it could be going higher. There is nothing new in the the article and most of us here know all this stuff, but it could be useful information if your talking to someone new to the subject and trying to summarise the basic reasons for gold ownership.

Highest Ever Gold Prices in 3 Currencies - Why & Where Next?

http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/highestevergo...ywherenext.html

Maybe we need a fight club forum where these 'debates' can take place so that we can just read the content that we come here to see.

Good idea, but two rules should apply. 1 You do not talk about fight club forum! 2 You do not talk about fight club forum!

Venezuela will slash value of currency, the bolivar

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has announced that the national currency, the bolivar, will be devalued for the first time since 2005, by at least 17%.

The bolivar, whose rate is set by government decree, will be devalued from its current rate of 2.15 to the US dollar to 2.60 for "priority" imports. However, the bolivar will be worth 4.30 to the dollar, a 50% devaluation, for items considered non-essential.

Mr Chavez was under pressure to devalue to boost revenue from oil exports. The country is currently facing 25% inflation, as well as reduced foreign earnings. However, the bolivar is far more devalued on the parallel, unofficial currency market where it trades at rates as high as six bolivars to a US dollar.

Food and health care imports, and the public sector will be able to take advantage of the lower of the two official rates.

However, cars, chemicals, petrochemical and electronics will be charged at the higher rate.

President Chavez said that the two official rates would have the effect of "limiting imports that are not strictly necessary and stimulating export policy".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8449721.stm

Keep the faith. I'm a poor man, but I don't trust the system any more. I've bought another eight sovereigns today – as a regular buyer I've negotiated a discount with a local auctioneer who does house clearances and seems to have gold coins every month: it's amazing how many old people have them stashed away. sovs

A poor man, as am I. And we will benefit all the more from keeping wealth outside the system. The gold price seems high compared to a couple of years ago, but you have to judge the risk for yourself and be prepared for any down moves and wild price swings. It was the same in 2007 when I first plunged into gold, having watched the market for a year and having missed out on a lot of gains, I was prepared to weather the falls without being shaken out, knowing that prices can move rapidly up and down as we have seen recently.

I'm not sure how knowledgeable on the gold bullion market you are, so apoliges if this is already known to you, but for the benefit of any new readers, please be careful with second hand sovereigns unless you buy from BTNA members. Almost all sovs should be fine and tradable at their bullion value, but if sovs are damaged usually after being removed from jewellery then they may only get scrap value at around 75% of spot price. I recently witnessed a jeweller trading some sov in Chards and some of the sovs did not meet the bullion criteria so they gave them back to him. If a sov is damaged on one side it will be often used in a ring or chain where the damaged side is hidden.

Sovereigns in Jewellery

Even "ordinary" sovereigns will become worn and polished by wearing as jewellery, but this cannot be helped. Some people worry that this will detract from their value. While this is true, the same argument could be applied to almost anything. Using and driving a car will cause wear and tear, and will decrease its value, however it would be rather stupid for most people to own a car just to leave it in a garage and never drive it. It's similar with using sovereigns and other coins in jewellery. The important thing is to obtain value by getting the pleasure of ownership.

http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/bullionsovereigns.html

http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/grading.html

General info

http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/information.html

I quite like this quote I copied from Steve Cook on HPC. I'm not going to argue the precise economics of the quote, I just like the general message it conveys.

Gold is the money of kings

 

Silver is the money of gentlemen

 

Barter is the money of peasants

 

Debt is the money of slaves

Well I've finally put my money where my mouth is...

...and sold to rent.

 

Completing tomorrow and moving my family into rented, despite ENORMOUS emotional pressure from everyone around me. It's a lonely place being right...

 

Managed to offload a "prime london riverside flat" (2 bed, 2 bath) for a shade under £600k.

 

Feels glorious to be free...

From:

- 1

Welcome to the forum.

Has anyone got any charts that show the volumes of the recent gold moves?

I have plenty of evidence on Fisk. I've followed his career and read his writings for many many years. A successful intel agent says all the right things and makes all the right noises to gain credbility, then when the time is right he'll earn his keep.

 

CIA to MI6 = R Fisk Esq.

 

Step forward trusted asset Robert Fisk to write the perfect article.

 

Get it yet, Jim?

Its OK we now have a thread where you can post all the evidence you have, if you would like to prove that Robert Fisk is operating as an intelligence asset.

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=7883

I think ker is GEI's own contra indicator, bit like silver sammy on goldismoney, someone should start charting his calls.

The Realist Bear reverse indicator is signaling on HPC also.

Probably something about $300 gold or particle accelerators etc...

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...126541&st=0

Not quite sure which thread to put this video in, but it does mention the FEDs gold reserves.

Rep. Alan Grayson: "Has the Federal Reserve Ever Tried to Manipulate the Stock Market?"

From:

I have 3 different designed coins.

 

the one on its own (posted a seperate post for that one), the other 2 types have a younger & older queen vic I presume but both have the same St george slaying the dragon on the back. Sorry if I am being clumsy explaining, but I haven't ever seen a real sov up close to be honest.

First time I bought a sovereign I was a little suspicious of them, but after spending a bit of time on Chards Gold Sovereigns website I found more than enough info to put my mind at rest. There is quite a bit of variety in the Obverse(heads) and the Reverses(shields/george&dragon) also the mint marks are worth exploring with a very good magnifying glass.

It may be worth investing £20 in a 2009 copy of Spinks coin catalogue, its got much more detail for identifying Sovereign mintage as well as covering all the other coins produced in the UK. No need to get the 2009 edition, most of the interesting coinage was made during the empire. You can pick up a 2005-6 copy for £5-6.

A good basic knowledge of sovereign designs, dates, mint marks, mintage will give an advantage if your ever offered some cheap sovereigns, you should be able to spot fakes from the real thing.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coins-England-Unit...5756&sr=8-3

interesting stuff enrieb.

 

I think using Ghandi's quote, we are at the beginning of the fight stage imo.

Using Allport's scale, I think we are at Scale 3 Discrimination, I think ??

 

What I am seeing is the people who have bought pm's appear to be very calm & willing to talk things through.

I suppose where we are upto on those scales changes based on which sections of society that we are talking about. HPC certainly banned the open discussion on gold as do most of the mainstream media. Only a small percentage of people follow current events and very few of those people use the internet for news. Only a tiny fraction of understand enough about what's happening to be actively following the events on forums like HPC, and only a small number of us posting on forums understand gold.

As far as the general public are concerned its still mostly ignorance about the role of gold as a safe haven and barometer for the economy/banking/trade imbalances.

The mainstream media and the investment community, that relies the mainstream media, are still laughing about 'doom and gloomers, chicken littles,TFH , goldbugs' despite everything that has already happened.

The elite bankers and politicians have always been fighting against the fiscal responsibility of gold, even if its mostly been a proxy war.

When the general public are in the fight stage against gold, it will be because the bankers and politicians they trust will have destroyed their savings, their pensions and the wealth of their countries, and thats when things could get scary for those of us owning gold.

edit

Involved in all these perplexities, the Convention tried to

cut the Gordian knot. It decreed that any person selling

gold or silver coin, or making any difference in any transac-

tion between paper and specie, should be imprisoned in

irons for six years:—that any one who refused to accept a

payment in assignats, or accepted assignats at a discount,

should pay a fine of three thousand francs; and that any

one committing this crime a second time should pay a fine

of six thousand francs and suffer imprisonment twenty

years in irons. Later, on the 8th of September, 1793, the

penalty for such offences was made death, with conñscation

of the criminal's property, and a reward was offered to any

person informing the authorities regarding any such crimi-

nal transaction. To reach the climax of ferocity, the Con-

vention decreed, in May, 1794, that the death penalty should

be inflicted on any person convicted of "having asked, be-

fore a bargain was concluded, in what money payment was

to be made." Nor was this all. The great finance minister,

Cambon, soon saw that the worst enemies of his policy were

gold and silver. Therefore it was that, under his lead, the

Convention closed the Exchange and finally, on November

13, 1793, under terrifying penalties, suppressed all com-

merce in the precious metals. About a year later came the

abolition of the Maximum itself.*

In speeches, newspapers and pamphlets

about this time, we begin to find it declared that, after all,

a depreciated currency is a blessing; that gold and silver

form an unsatisfactory standard for measuring values: that

it is a good thing to have a currency that will not go out

of the kingdom and which separates France from other na-

tions:

http://mises.org/books/inflationinfrance.pdf

------------

Anyway on the plus side I learnt a new word today.

ethnophaulism (plural ethnophaulisms)

1. Creating negative cognitive images of a different group, negative worth and/or caricatures (jokes having to do with someone's features).

2. Using derogatory or disparaging words.

total deflationist, dollar lover, stating that gold is basically useless:

 

check out from post 3

Interesting to see the usual jokey comments like "bury it in your garden/under your mattress" along with the other predictable phrases such as tinfoil hatters, shot guns and beans, mad max etc... You could almost make a game of anti gold-bug bingo.

The phrase 'goldbug' is a label and like all labels, it allows the person labeling to make out that differences are fundamentally at odds with those from the majority, a process called Antilocution or 'othering' as in other than us, not the same, different, abnormal, weirdo, nutjob, to be avoided.

Allport’s Scale of Prejudice goes from 1 – 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allport%27s_Scale

 

Scale 1, Antilocution

 

Antilocution means a majority group freely make jokes about a minority group. Speech is in terms of negative stereotypes and negative images. This is also called hate speech [2]. It is commonly seen as harmless by the majority. Antilocution itself may not be harmful, but it sets the stage for more severe outlets for prejudice.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win " M.K Gandhi

They can't ignore us anymore, though I think in general we are still in the laughing phase at the moment, with just a few very vocal critics up for a fight.

I found this on GHPC, its a summary of Allsops auction research report.

http://www.rapidinfo.uk.com/Issues/6/6-distressed.html

. However, it should be noted that, whereas the number of repossessions recorded by the CML continues to rise, the proportion offered at auction has been falling dramatically since H2 08. Although the number of repossessions forecast in 2009 was reduced from 75,000 to 65,000, this is still a significant volume of potential sales. These have yet to feed through to the sale rooms and, with around 425,000 borrowers expected to be more than three months in arrears by the end of 2009, it would seem unlikely that this trend will not be reversed within the next 12 months.

I think gold is only flirting with this level at the mo.

I agree, this $1000 level reminds me of the way gold traded around the $700 barrier for over a year (when we all used to argue with numpties on the HPC gold thread). Small movements back and fourth from $650 to $700. $700 was a bit of a psychological barrier, I remember I used to buy the dips and resented paying when the price hit $700.

If anything serious happens like a spike in the price of oil due to a hurricane in the gulf, geo-political tensions in the middle east, major terrorist attack, further financial panics etc.. then it could easily push gold up to goldfingers $1400 target, before possibly falling back to $1000 as a new support level.

The important thing is that its positive news that we are seeing gold hold in the four digit range, at a time when there is a media led green-shoots environment with the official figures all signaling low inflation, at a time when central bank monetary inflation is being looked upon as a wise move whilst consumer credit is deflating.

Gold back up into the four digits tonight at $1002. Probably go back to triple digits tomorrow when the US markets open. I wonder if this pattern will continue all week.

In other news, to be filed under 'No shit Sherlock'

Market crisis 'will happen again'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8244600.stm

The world will suffer another financial crisis, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan has told the BBC.

 

"The crisis will happen again but it will be different," he told BBC Two's The Love of Money series.

 

He added that he had predicted the crash would come as a reaction to a long period of prosperity.

$1006.80

 

From:

This is the definitive version, by which all other versions pale into insignificance.

From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwXOCKNLY

My stand is that this is the biggest financial crisis ever (in the history of mankind at least) and that we only just got started (2 years ago). As my main indicators when I will sell gold I use the house:gold index and the Dow:gold index (check out the charts linked to in my signature). The reason is that these are real things measured against other real things, and the things I might want to buy from my gold (and silver) in the end might be stocks and property.

I expect gold to go a lot higher over the next decade for a whole host of reasons, mostly due to the geo-political fall out that will emerge from the economic crisis and the shift in power from the west to the east.

There wasn't really a recovery from the great depression, the economic crisis transformed into a geo-political crisis. Advocates of Nationalism, Fascism and Communism found people desperate enough to follow extreme solutions to the problems causes by the depression. Trade wars and long term disputes over land, borders, resources and trade routes turned the geo-political crisis into a world wide war. The same pattern of geo-political crisis and war/revolution follow most major economic crashes, even if it takes a decade or more for things to reach boiling point.

This economic crisis is not going to resolve itself peacefully, and when we throw peak oil and climate change into the mix things could get very ugly. (I accept that peak oil and climate change are disputed by many)

Economic crash in Oregon boomtown

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8239227.stm

I am currently developing a box to hold bullion coins. Please see attachments. These will hopefully be on sale in the winter. Each coin will have their own capsule. There will be 20 capsules to a tray and 5 trays in the box, so each box can hold 100 coins. I may develop these boxes further for larger investors, perhaps to hold tubes.

 

I am also considering marketing the investment boxes already containing silver coins from around the world. I am hoping to sell these through mass market retail chains.

 

Any feedback would be very welcome.

 

Thanks.

They look good, but ultimately for most of us on here we can only judge from an investment point of view, and with that in mind, the deciding factor is going to be the price. Most investors tend to get the best prices deals on large silver bars, but large silver bars are not divisible in a practical way. I suppose once an individual has purchased a full box then it would not be practical to sell, say 5 coins from of the box, because then you would be left with an uncompleted box.

There are two basic types of PM buyers, one is the investor and the other is the collector(numismatician), I sort of consider myself a hybrid of the two. When I first became interested in buying bullion as an investor I was slightly paranoid about being ripped off, because I had no idea how to tell a real coin/bar from a fake one. From an investors point of view, the most important issue was not what the cheapest price I could get a coin for, it was the cheapest price that I could get a 'real coin' for, and I was willing to pay a higher premium for the genuine article. My own strategy was to buy at least one of each major gold/silver bullion coin, then I would have an original coin that I could compare other coins purchased cheaply from less trustworthy sources, like Ebay.

I think that unless you have the right market contacts to be able to ensure a competitive price, big investors may choose to go for large bars or companies like Gold Money. If you cannot compete on price, you could target new investors who would like to have at least 1-10 of each of the major coins. A wealthy investor could easily afford a full box of 100, though perhaps you could also target less wealthy investors by selling a box with just one of the main bullion coins in each of the ten compartments, giving them more of an incentive to build up the box, coin by coin, until it is a complete box of 100 containing 10 of each bullion coin. You could also have a two way trade where you could buy back your own complete boxes and pass them onto a new customer for a small commission.

From the perceptive of a coin collector, there are also other non bullion (exonumia) coin that can be collected, better known as silver rounds. There are collections of commemorative coins for Olympics, Royals, WWF etc... Completing a collection would be a good hobby for a numismatician, and a complete box could potentially be worth a premium price. It could become a bit like trying to complete those Panini football sticker albums in school (got, got, got, got, got.. not got! , I'll trade you five Phill Nevill's for a John Terry!)

http://www.24carat.co.uk/coinsbytheme.html

I own silver and gold bullion coins mostly for investment purposes, as I believe that my wealth is more secure in the metals at this moment in time. At some-point I will see a new investment opportunity and I will sell the majority of my bullion, but I will always keep a small percentage of my wealth in the metals as a hedge. It would be good to have a box to keep at least one of each main gold/silver coin, or if wealthy enough, ten of each.

I am looking for some better coin boxes to protect my gold coins. I currently have these plastic tubes that can hold 10 coins but I have lots of naps folded in paper. What do you use guys use and where can I purchase them?

thanks.

I use the acrylic coin capsules made by lighthouse, different sizes are available for each coin.

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trk...-All-Categories

Sugar price reaches 28-year high

19:42 GMT, Monday, 10 August 2009 20:42 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8193390.stm

The price of raw sugar has increased to its highest level since 1981, as supply concerns grow.

Raw sugar futures added 3% on Monday, to finish the day at 22 cents a pound.

 

"The main problem is a deficit in sugar supplies," said Nick Penney, a trader with Sucden Financial, a firm that focuses on sugar trading.

 

Growing demand in Brazil for sugar to be turned into ethanol, coupled with a sharp fall in Indian production, have both prompted worries, he explained.

 

Sugar production in India for 2008-09 fell 45% year-on-year, according to a report by Sucden.

And a "drastic fall" is expected for the coming Indian crop, it said.

 

India had less rain in the monsoon season and it was also uneven, damaging a number of agricultural crops.

There are concerns that the pending sugar crop, which will be ready around November, will be inadequate.

 

"This [sugar market] train is running express," said Alex Oliveira, senior sugar analyst for Newedge USA in New York.

"It's feeding on itself."

Deflation?

Edit: Sorry this probably isn't the best thread for this story, but I couldn't find the right one and I didn't want to start a new one for a single issue story. Still, I think rising commodity prices are always relevant for gold, and the gold thread is sort of a thread for open discussion of a number of issues.

How many of you would want to share a pint with cgnao.

 

?

I'd like a pint with CGNAO, he could probably turn some water into wine.

It doesn't seem like she needs 4 bedrooms. Getting a smaller house and saving/investing the difference in mortgage payments would probably have been a better choice, but as things stand there is the option of renting out bedrooms. If this is in the UK the first £4250 is tax free.

(DrBubb)

What does she do with all those extra bedrooms now

She wants to turn one of the bedrooms into a 'shoe room' and has plans to rent out the other rooms should she have difficulties affording the mortgage over the next few years. The problem is that Manchester is full of properties to rent and rooms in shared houses, so thats unlikely to be a reliable source of income. So she has a mortgage 50 percent larger than she needed in-order to put shoes in one room and to impress her friends with a house larger than most average families need to live in.

The far better solution as nicejim has mentioned would have been to buy a smaller house and have less debt to service over the term of the mortgage. The other disturbing aspects to this deal is that she borrowed 5k more than was necessary inorder to renovate the house to 'add value'.

The house did not need any work and it was in a perfectly presentable conditon, the 5k would have been far better spent lowing the value of the debt. 5k over the complete term of the mortgage must work out at over 15k, thats one hell of a way to 'add value'

The concept of 'adding value' by borrowing money to spend on decoration is a hangover from the housing boom as idiots grasped for a simplistic explanation as to why their properties had gone up in value, not taking the time and effort to understand the credit markets effect on land prices. Its simply not necessary to 'add value' unless you are a professional property developer and are planning to sell.

(John Doe @ Jul 27 2009, 03:23 PM)

Sounds like she’s pulled a binder. She can always fix for 5 years (just above 5% at the moment). Worst case, she can have a friend rent a room or two. 50% off peak! Fair play. Wish I could find a nice one where I am for that sort of drop.

The big picture is that ultimately the house may seem like a bargain compared to peak prices, prices that only existed temporarily due to insane credit conditions, but even at this price she is unlikely to be able to afford the mortgage payments over the long term. Therefore this is a risky mortgage and houses-prices will not be supported long term by these kind of lending standards.