wren

I understand the feeling but the premium per ounce gets a lot higher. In fact GF was saying a while back that he's getting keen on half-ounce coins. Speaking of whom, good evening, GF, nice to see you in. People were asking after you here and "there".

Two gold articles on the front page of the BBC website today (Ethiopia's gold is the other). If I were the cartel I'd try to hold it below 1000 for a while longer, then let it go up to 1040, say, and then keep smacking it down below 1000. Plenty of headlines "Gold Back under $1000" and frighten people into thinking it's a top. In euros and yen it didn't make a new record today.

Afternoon folks. Exciting day. I'm watching the BV livefeed. Anybody know where BV data comes from? It's titubating around $997 at the moment.

Hi, nice to see you over here. There is a dedicated silver thread in the precious metals forum, although it's quieter than this gold thread. http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=771

I was thinking along the same lines and that's a nice way to put it. I found the US$ 75 trillion value of all the real estate in the world interesting. US$ 75 trillion divided by 5 billion ounces of gold (approximate total mined) gives $15 000 per ounce.

Thanks Steve, I'll have to look at that tomorrow. Sometimes all these big trillions become meaningless to me. So I guess the US per capita GDP is about 11 trillion or so? I can just about comprehend that, but when it gets to hundreds of trillions, I sort of faze out. Is this wealth which already exists ? and if not, where in this finite world is it to come from? Perhaps I oughtn't read that "other site", but thankfully there's still a good crew over there to combat gems like this, about the dot con days (a very small sample of the, let one say, possibly unhelpful commentary): I know I shouldn't bother, but...

I saw the video of him saying that yesterday (maybe it was posted on this thread?). Obvious, but nice to see him and the interviewer say it. In a simliar vein I notice errol and others trying to educate people over on that "other site". But I didn't say the D word, no. So I don't have to correct myself that it's not already what I said. Now if you say gold it's a different matter. Up, down, shake-it-all-around your ounce of gold is still that. And gold inflation is about 2% per annum so not frightening. If your gold is really deflating you have a serious problem: you need pixie-proof containers.

Nice.I had forgotten that "buy gold" which I checked a while back, was a good one, but the other two are spot on. But talking of krugerrands and Joe Public, dare I post again the krugerrand video? Such an excellent bad taste piece IMO. I love the nerd, well, not love, you know what I mean.

Google trends for: precious metal, gold investment, gold etf, silver etf Google Trends graph The volumes are low. This one suggests to me that "precious metal" may be a better guage than the others, because there's better volume than the others, while as far as I can guess such a term could be often investment specific, unlike a more general term like "gold". I should be interested in better suggestions.

Well, I'm not a technical analyst and wouldn't care to predict short term prices (I consider mainly like 2 to 5 years or more). But many of the commentators are saying silver is well overbought and due for some consolidation and probably gold also but to a lesser extent (I read several last night on places like gold-eagle and others). But they were talking, I believe, very short term like days or a week or so. (And I appreciate that they are in the business of drumbing up trade for themselves.) One guy said the dollar was oversold, as also the DOW and like a true contrarian was betting against the herd. Glad I don't have to do this sort of stuff. I'm a plain, boring buy and hold guy.

Yes, although the simple term "gold" is unhelpful because it's used in so many other contexts. Here's the same graph with "gold investment" Google Trends graph Now with gold investment and gold etf (the best terms I've managed to think of): Google Trends graph

Welcome, Casimir, nice to have you over here. It's true that there are no anti-gold posts so far. But this site is for investors, not all of whom are "goldbugs" I suspect, and I hope that from within the site we will muster up bearish views on gold etc. as appropriate. (Right now a lot of the professional gold commentators sound short-term bearish on gold and even more so silver.) I don't miss the petty, trolling, anti-gold posts over there TBH, but those backed with some sort of argument are important.

Interesting to hear that. An earlier post gave a BBC video about people in Rudley selling their old gold to the local jewellers. This article from Reuters yesterday says that Goldcorp Inc is treating $1000 gold as a floor price for its future budgeting. http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalMinin...036295020080310 Personally I think $1000 gold is fair price at most, possibly less. No way is the price in bubble territory IMHO. But I'm content for the moment to see the mainstream media mushroom manage the public.

I just posted this at the old gold thread (it probably won't appear as I'm under moderation). (Maybe it's an oversight but I do not see it pinned in the main forum.) The new gold thread is already 60 pages long. DrBubb is happy to have us at his site. The gold thread is dead, long live the gold thread!

This is probably mainly due to dollar inflation. I don't know the exchange rate then but a pound bought fewer dollars. Priced in euros the DOW doesn't look pretty. Not to mention the price in ounces of gold.

If history repeats itself that might be the case. However, I'm worried about global energy supplies, peak oil in particular - we seem to be at about peak now, give or take a couple of years. The economic ramifications could be unprecedented. Notice that the modern troughs were at ratios of about 2 and about 1 and are pretty sharp. However, if you look at gold versus houses the trough is not so sharp. Basically I'm saying (if history repeats) that if you are trying to time when to get out of gold, there could be a period of a couple of years which is highly favourable - it's not a matter of a couple of months unless you're trying to be really greedy. It's interesting that the very widest swings are the most modern, since the US$ ceased to be gold-backed domestically in the USA (1933).

The DOW/Gold ratio is really a important ratio which goes through longterm cycles: Rather than "making money" in nominal terms, my hope is to make money in real terms by holding real, yet at present undervalued money (gold and its handmaiden, silver). The cost of houses in ounces of gold is another great ratio (see link below). It's like comparing like with like, e.g. an ounce of gold (real stuff) versus a house (real stuff) rather than versus $US (a paper promise). The DOW serves as a rough proxy of the value of the US economy, I suppose. The link in GF's signature goes to this page of interesting ratios: http://gold.approximity.com/gold_charts.html

Sure, but the member called spoon sounded like a serious precious metals guy.

In the metals forum over in you-know-where, somebody called spoon is asking where we've all gone. I tried to post this: DrBubbs's site for investors: http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?act=idx It might go through (I seem to be under moderation) but I doubt it.

Especially if you're in for the long term, I would split it, say, 20 oz. of silver to every 1 oz. of gold. The main reason is that I wouldn't care to predict which will do better whether short or long term. That way I wouldn't have to suffer possible regret at going very long one and seeing the other do a lot better. Of course, that ratio is just a suggestion and if you're very keen on silver you might up it. I think one day silver could do something really spectacular, but I wouldn't care to guess when.

He says early in the clip and again later that France and Germany cannot export because of the high euro. It certainly makes it harder for exporters but Germany is still the first or second largest exporter in the world. So I think that is blatant exaggeration. A French official, maybe Sarkozy himself, said recently that the French state is basically near enough broke. With so many American commentators (not all) I get the feeling that they are somehow inherently biased against Europe and the euro, which can weaken their commentary. Unlike the UK, Germany is still a great producer and exports a lot of real goods. It could be that the Mediterranean Eurozone countries can't match Germany and this is the Achilles' heel of the euro.

So was it '56 when they were discontinued? Well before my time in that case, honest. But among a random mishmash of old coins knocking around at home I remember a couple of farthings (nice design if I might so say so myself ) and an old 1901 well worn penny with the Old Queen. Was it a worn coin or what! Okay, now that we're talking money, or better to say coins, I shall 'fess up. I remember well the day that the old money changed to the new. And yes, we were fortunate enough that our parents had previously given us these boxed sets of the new coins (which later got spent on sweets no doubt). They had some new-fangled coins which would run alongside the old, the time-period I don't remember being a young, sweet-eating general horror at the time. On the very day dad came home from work (we lived in New Malden, Kingston, so he having walked from Berrylands station) and just putting his jacket in the wardrobe, I goes "Dad, Dad, have you got any of the new money?" He then reached into his jacket pocket and said there you go. It was a fifty-pence piece! like a whole ten bob! Blimey, the most I'd ever possessed before was half a crown (12.5 p). The sweet-shop had extra business for a couple of days. In fairness to my dad he did know what he was giving me and it was a special day. ==== As an aside. This is for bagpipe connoisseurs only (be warned!). Robert Watt playing "The Vaunt": Robert Watt - on YouTube (In honour of my Dad, a Glaswegian.)

I'm not quite old enough to have used a farthing coin in the shop when I was a wee boy. But I love the wren. (Okay I admit it might have been close; when were farthings removed from circluation?)

duplicate

For coins the buy-sell spread is lowest for good, old (and some say ugly) Krugerrands. But word is that sovs and britannias are clean of of CGT in the UK (I live abroad, so no such luck) but with smaller amounts that perhaps isn't a issue. If I lived in the UK and if I were buying coins at sub 5k quantities, I would go for sovs and britannias anyway (they might change the tax laws). So, to make up for my usual unusefulness here's some music. From the Old Gold Thread I remembered this fun musical video about Krugerrands: