wren

A couple of months ago I compared the per gold gramme cost of CID's various gold coins. QE2 sovereigns were the cheapest of all (less than Krugs or Phillies). I received sovereigns from them in small plastic bags which you can press closed at one end. I've been happy with CID's service having ordered from them several times.

The Chinese have got the right idea encouraging their population to put savings into gold and silver (pig farmers have already gone for copper and nickel ). This will help protect their savings and stabilize the country and possibly their economy. Meanwhile in the USA and UK, the governments seem not to give a damn about the long-term financial security of the general population.

Pig farmers in China have been stockpiling copper. I think this shows how much people want to invest in something tangible. It augers well now that they are free to buy silver and gold. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=a1B_ZBQfii8Q

Note that selling gold is mentioned before buying:

When the ratio is low the history of the last several years suggests that it's a good time to swap silver into gold. When the ratio is high it has been favourable to swap gold into silver. This way over the years some guys increase their total ounces over just sitting and holding. However, considering that you have bars and coins selling one to buy the other would incur extra costs from the premiums (and VAT in the case of buying silver). I believe that sometime probably late in this bull market the ratio will go to 20:1 or less (very long term like 20 years or so it could even go to 8:1 or lower). So although the swapping has been friutful in this bull market so far at some point the swappers who swap at say 48 or 50 (which has been good so far) will get caught out. E.g. the ratio goes to say 48:1 and silver owners swap for gold, but the ratio continues to drop which one day it will have to if it is ever to reach 20:1. If that happens they would have been better off not swapping as silver does a Mars shot while gold does only a Moon shot. In your case with physical silver bars I'd suggest that you just buy and hold until they buy a lot more house than today. The huge spike was the time to exit gold and silver for different assets. It's best to compare them with real assets like houses and don't let the nominal paper money price deceive you.

Just bumping this thread. Charlie said he is going to the September London pub meeting. http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....ic=7656&hl= I hope you guys have a nice meeting.

An interesting article about currency debasement in the Roman Empirte. Near the end: http://mises.org/story/3663

Start them young. But come to think of it a child imagining that as king he should buy lots of gold seems quite natural. Surely gold is often a part of fairy tales and naturally associated with being rich. Choosing three nines fine though, means, he's a gold bug.

Good point.

Yeah, sorry. Those are the German prices (7% VAT). I forgot that you pay differently in the UK.

Just comparing CID 1 kilo bars with 1 kilo coins, the coins are cheaper (brutto prices): Heraeus or other manufacturere / oder andere Hersteller 1 kg 1000.00 Gramm €484.33 Silver Koala 1kg 2009 1000.00 Gramm €461.22 Silver Kookaburra 1kg 2009 1000.00 Gramm €466.18 Silver OX/Ochse 1kg 2009 (Lunar) 1000.00 Gramm €461.62 So the 1 kilo Koala is the cheapest. Very nice coins, I have a 1 kilo koala. Off topic: CID has a special offer of 1 oz palladium maples. VAT is 19% for me though! Brutto €297.50 versus a bid price of €200!

1000.50

In euros too, and while today the USD price was going up, the euro price much less so. It didn't even make it to €700. I think the cartel concentrated on getting a sub-1000 NY close in the face of a dropping dollar and they did a good job. But there are many more weeks and months of the gold season to come. Silver did not bad today. The G:S ratio briefly dropped below 60.0 .

It broke above 1000 in Asian trading and was knocked below 1000 in NY trading. Highly predictable. In a few hours we go back to Asia. I'm just pleased that it broke 1000 as I have got bored waiting for that. It may be a battle of even weeks to come at around 1000.

James Turk talks gold and sterling in the Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1...aven-money.html

It seems that some Chinese firms involved in derivatives contracts were not authorised by the State to do so. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090907/tbs-...va-ec2362a.html

Australian production increasing again after recent declines: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/busin...5005200,00.html

Would be nice for me if the euro strengthens (I'm in the Eurozone). I want cheap silver!

I have only a few coins. When I got silver from CID: Britannias in sealed plastic squares (as from the mint I assume) Pandas in capsules. Australian ones in capsules. Eagles, Maples and Libertads in little plastic bags (these probably come as rolls of 20 from the mint, so I guess they split them into bags for small orders). Aesthetically I think I prefer silver coins to gold ones.

Thanks for checking. Must be something at my end. I just noticed there is a nice full moon out tonight. Clouds rushing across the sky and the moon as it's very windy today. Anybody think this can affect the markets? The moon, not the wind.

Is http://www.gold-eagle.com down? Might it be due to excessive traffic?

Bill posted the other day that he is not against gold as an investment. However, considering the 19th century "cross of gold" experience, he is against the so-called "gold standard". It seems that the problem back then in the USA was that few people owned gold but many owned silver (coins and plenty of silver mines in the west to boost supply). So a gold standard basically put most of the money power in the hands of a small clique especially bankers who would use it to back fractional reserve banking. This is why I dislike the phrase "gold standard" as on the face of it it implies 100% gold-backed money which was not the case.

I expect silver to go to half a day's work at least, maybe a whole day. If an average UK house goes to 100 oz gold (which I think likely in a few years) and if the G:S ratio goes to 20:1 that would be 2000 oz silver per house. I believe that these are very realistic expectations going on the historical record. They may go to greater extremes e.g. house for 60 oz gold, G:S 15:1 (the long-term historical average) which would mean a house for 900 oz silver - about 3 years' salary at 1 oz per day's work.

If you're in it for the long term in a few years you will look at these prices as remarkably cheap. I wish I had some serious money back in 2003. I would have loaded up at EUR 5 (liitle more than a packet of cigarettes or a beer in an expensive bar). Gold was under USD 325 when I became a gold bull back at the end of 2002. I was too poor to take advantage then. Looking back though it would have required lots and lots of patience to hold on all those years. Do you have a GoldMoney account? It's a good way to buy VAT-free investment silver. If you sign up via this site you get the first 6 months' storage for free. <cue music> Get yourself some silver and hide it away for a rainy day.