Comic Book Investing

[ComicConnoisseur]

Damn I wanna live in Georgia! My house is about the same size,but cost me 800K.

What's with that box for 500K in New York?

We may have sunny skies,with California girls,but we pay a huge price for it.

 

You can get the same kind of nice houses like Georgia in Florida for even a cheaper price $50,000 to $80,000.

Three things though you need in Florida if your use to a urban city.

1. Car( If your use to public transit with buses, taxis and subways, then Florida is not it.)

2. Internet.(Most things in Florida are not walking distance(no mom and pops, just malls. You will feel isolated.)

3. Air conditioning.(Self-Explanatory).

Yep, but in the end you will get more land for a cheaper price then living in Massachusetts or some other high-end market. (thumbs u

 

[Aweandlorder]

The house in Jamacia is seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. Not your typical one family house.

 

For half a mil I can get 40-50 units in entry level areas in most parts of this country.

[Aweandlorder]

It's just bad form (and a little tacky IMO) to be crying poverty and to claim to be barely getting by as you choose to live in your 1 million dollar house in Beverly Hills or condo in NYC or whatever other affluent area. No, you are not middle class, no you do not know what it means to he struggling, and yes you are being disrespectful to those people in the other 95% of the country who actually are. If you're doing well financially, good for you. But keep it to yourself, this is a board for comic books.

 

Rant over.

 

-J.

 

[HighStakesComics]

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

& PS-Don't let anyone talk you into churning your whole life policies.

 

Wooooooooooooo

[RockMyAmadeus]

By the way...

 

Gold isn't an investment, it's a hedge. Same with most other precious metals.

 

You don't buy metals to make money; you buy them to not lose it.

 

An ounce of gold in 1914 buys pretty much the same thing that an ounce of gold buys in 2014. That $20 gold certificate from 1914...?

 

 

 

 

You keep repeating this, but you are very wrong. A dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today. A $20 gold coin contained just under an ounce of gold, so you multiply 23 x20 and you come up with $460. Even rounding up to $500, just to be generous, you are still not even close to today's cost of an ounce of gold.

You could buy a car in 1914 for $1,000 or 50 ounces of gold. Today, a new car would cost about 15 ounces.

That $20 Gold Certificate you mention, in uncirculated condition, just might have held up a lot better than you think.

 

Your entire argument rests on the premise that "a dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today."

 

I note that you probably get this information from the government's CPI index inflation calculator.

 

I would like to know why you believe this calculator is correct, without any investigation. Technology has made many things reported on the CPI artificially cheaper than they otherwise would be, and this is not figured into the CPI. For example: the price of milk is included in the CPI, but the price of milk is artificially lower than that of 1914, because in 1914, pasteurization and homogenization...practices which strip milk of much of its nutritive value, but makes it much more cost-effective to produce...wasn't being practiced on anything like large scale.

 

Whole, raw milk, the way it naturally comes, is far more expensive than the processed, stripped down product most Americans consume today.

 

Another example...in 1914, $20 bought you a very nice, tailor-made, "name" suit. In 2014, that retail cost is about the same: $1300. Same as one ounce of gold.

 

In the 1914 Sears catalog, you could buy a .44 caliber "frontier revolver" for about $3.50. In other words, for $20, you could buy almost 6 of them.

 

In 2014, an 1858 Remington 44 caliber revolver is not the $80.50 your CPI figure states it should be....and it's not even the $227 that it would be to match the price of gold. It's actually $340, which far, far exceeds the CPI.

 

In any event, I am pretty familiar with how much an uncirculated $20 gold certificate is worth. This, of course, is not only not average, it is quite uncommon. $20 in 1914 represented quite a bit of money to just about everyone, and gold certificates were not saved by more than a handful of people, precisely because no one could afford to save them (think about putting a brand new, crisp uncirculated $1,000 bill...if such a thing existed...in your cabinet today.) They circulated, and they circulated well.

 

We can't use the extremes to support an argument about the average. Is this where I tell you that you are "very wrong"...?

 

[thehumantorch]

By the way...

 

Gold isn't an investment, it's a hedge. Same with most other precious metals.

 

You don't buy metals to make money; you buy them to not lose it.

 

An ounce of gold in 1914 buys pretty much the same thing that an ounce of gold buys in 2014. That $20 gold certificate from 1914...?

 

Well. It ain't worth an ounce of gold, that's for sure. At one time, though, you could trade it for just about an ounce of gold.

 

And....

 

Those who let it ride through 2008, without panicking and selling off have done fairly well...thus far.

 

 

It's certainly a hedge but it can also be an investment. Bought it at $250 per ounce and sold most of it at $1500 per ounce. What I kept is now my hedge.

[shadroch]

By the way...

 

Gold isn't an investment, it's a hedge. Same with most other precious metals.

 

You don't buy metals to make money; you buy them to not lose it.

 

An ounce of gold in 1914 buys pretty much the same thing that an ounce of gold buys in 2014. That $20 gold certificate from 1914...?

 

 

 

 

You keep repeating this, but you are very wrong. A dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today. A $20 gold coin contained just under an ounce of gold, so you multiply 23 x20 and you come up with $460. Even rounding up to $500, just to be generous, you are still not even close to today's cost of an ounce of gold.

You could buy a car in 1914 for $1,000 or 50 ounces of gold. Today, a new car would cost about 15 ounces.

That $20 Gold Certificate you mention, in uncirculated condition, just might have held up a lot better than you think.

 

Your entire argument rests on the premise that "a dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today."

 

I note that you probably get this information from the government's CPI index inflation calculator.

 

I would like to know why you believe this calculator is correct, without any investigation. Technology has made many things reported on the CPI artificially cheaper than they otherwise would be, and this is not figured into the CPI. For example: the price of milk is included in the CPI, but the price of milk is artificially lower than that of 1914, because in 1914, pasteurization and homogenization...practices which strip milk of much of its nutritive value, but makes it much more cost-effective to produce...wasn't being practiced on anything like large scale.

 

Whole, raw milk, the way it naturally comes, is far more expensive than the processed, stripped down product most Americans consume today.

 

Another example...in 1914, $20 bought you a very nice, tailor-made, "name" suit. In 2014, that retail cost is about the same: $1300. Same as one ounce of gold.

 

In the 1914 Sears catalog, you could buy a .44 caliber "frontier revolver" for about $3.50. In other words, for $20, you could buy almost 6 of them.

 

In 2014, an 1858 Remington 44 caliber revolver is not the $80.50 your CPI figure states it should be....and it's not even the $227 that it would be to match the price of gold. It's actually $340, which far, far exceeds the CPI.

 

In any event, I am pretty familiar with how much an uncirculated $20 gold certificate is worth. This, of course, is not only not average, it is quite uncommon. $20 in 1914 represented quite a bit of money to just about everyone, and gold certificates were not saved by more than a handful of people, precisely because no one could afford to save them (think about putting a brand new, crisp uncirculated $1,000 bill...if such a thing existed...in your cabinet today.) They circulated, and they circulated well.

 

We can't use the extremes to support an argument about the average. Is this where I tell you that you are "very wrong"...?

 

 

 

Of course I am wrong. Because if I wasn't, that would mean you are, and who knows what earth shattering events that might precipitate. Should we believe the official gubermint statistics or your cherry picked examples? Obviously, we will go with your choices. To do otherwise would threaten the collective wisdom of the omniverse.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

By the way...

 

Gold isn't an investment, it's a hedge. Same with most other precious metals.

 

You don't buy metals to make money; you buy them to not lose it.

 

An ounce of gold in 1914 buys pretty much the same thing that an ounce of gold buys in 2014. That $20 gold certificate from 1914...?

 

 

 

 

You keep repeating this, but you are very wrong. A dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today. A $20 gold coin contained just under an ounce of gold, so you multiply 23 x20 and you come up with $460. Even rounding up to $500, just to be generous, you are still not even close to today's cost of an ounce of gold.

You could buy a car in 1914 for $1,000 or 50 ounces of gold. Today, a new car would cost about 15 ounces.

That $20 Gold Certificate you mention, in uncirculated condition, just might have held up a lot better than you think.

 

Your entire argument rests on the premise that "a dollar in 1914 is worth about $23.50 today."

 

I note that you probably get this information from the government's CPI index inflation calculator.

 

I would like to know why you believe this calculator is correct, without any investigation. Technology has made many things reported on the CPI artificially cheaper than they otherwise would be, and this is not figured into the CPI. For example: the price of milk is included in the CPI, but the price of milk is artificially lower than that of 1914, because in 1914, pasteurization and homogenization...practices which strip milk of much of its nutritive value, but makes it much more cost-effective to produce...wasn't being practiced on anything like large scale.

 

Whole, raw milk, the way it naturally comes, is far more expensive than the processed, stripped down product most Americans consume today.

 

Another example...in 1914, $20 bought you a very nice, tailor-made, "name" suit. In 2014, that retail cost is about the same: $1300. Same as one ounce of gold.

 

In the 1914 Sears catalog, you could buy a .44 caliber "frontier revolver" for about $3.50. In other words, for $20, you could buy almost 6 of them.

 

In 2014, an 1858 Remington 44 caliber revolver is not the $80.50 your CPI figure states it should be....and it's not even the $227 that it would be to match the price of gold. It's actually $340, which far, far exceeds the CPI.

 

In any event, I am pretty familiar with how much an uncirculated $20 gold certificate is worth. This, of course, is not only not average, it is quite uncommon. $20 in 1914 represented quite a bit of money to just about everyone, and gold certificates were not saved by more than a handful of people, precisely because no one could afford to save them (think about putting a brand new, crisp uncirculated $1,000 bill...if such a thing existed...in your cabinet today.) They circulated, and they circulated well.

 

We can't use the extremes to support an argument about the average. Is this where I tell you that you are "very wrong"...?

 

 

 

Of course I am wrong. Because if I wasn't, that would mean you are, and who knows what earth shattering events that might precipitate. Should we believe the official gubermint statistics or your cherry picked examples? Obviously, we will go with your choices. To do otherwise would threaten the collective wisdom of the omniverse.

 

Your sarcasm notwithstanding, "Official" isn't as impressive...or legitimate...as people wish it to be. The "gubermint" is made up of people, too, after all, all with their own agendas and ideologies. I explained how the CPI is flawed; do you have a legitimate rebuttal, or just sarcasm?

 

And...ALL examples are "cherry picked", by the definitions of the terms "example" and "cherry picked."

[kav]

Plus you have to take technology into account. In 1975 a calculator was $100. Now they give them away free. Likewise with digital watches.

[delekkerste]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

[HighStakesComics]

Two things concern me about buying gold at the current levels-roughly $1300 oz

 

1.) It has all the forces of the universe working to keep it suppressed. Most bulls will admit that large investment and central banks are net short.

 

2.) Although the ratios can favor one or the other, for the most part gold and silver trade in tandem. I'm fairly certain Silver hit a generational top at $50 an oz (same price as Hunt Bros market cornering run up). It would take an act of g-d to get it within $10 of that price. I'm not too sure gold can reach new highs without silver doing the same.

 

That said, truth be told I'm still holding some gld I bought at $58 shortly after the etf went live. I also had gld call options expire worthless shortly after the president was re-elected. I thought it might take out it highs back then and failed miserably.

[Jaydogrules]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

[Junkdrawer]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

[mysterio]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

 

Not a fair comparison without the profits from the trade. I held an AF #15 in about VG/F when I was in high school that was priced at $400. Cheap by today's prices, but at my income at 17 it may as well have been $10,000.

[delekkerste]

I'd say, if you're doing well financially, share what you know in a thread devoted to comic book 'investing'. Explaining why issues of liquidity, scale, price instability, intrinsic value, and health of the sector make comic books terrible investments today relative to traditional vehicles like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds could be of considerable help to those who are at once struggling financially, and attempting to use the comic hobby as a major 'investment' strategy.

 

And +1 to the post directly above.

 

I think you're spot-on there, Bob - there are many people who think they've found the answer to their financial worries in the comic book market. Some of these people also feel like the stock market and the economy as a whole is rigged by the elites, and feel a sense of pride that they are able to supplement their incomes through the comic book economy as opposed to these "rigged" traditional channels. In fact, some have not only given up on the stock market, but seem to have given up on the real economy as well.

 

Of course, any suggestion that this is not a sustainable financial/life strategy is not going to be received well by those relying on the extra income they're currently making from comics. And many of these people would rather remain hostile to the prospect of investing in stocks or real estate after the boom-bust cycles of the past decade and a half, even if it's proven to be detrimental to their own interests over the past 5 years. I doubt that anything being said in this thread is going to change anybody's mind, and I think the opportunity cost of not investing in traditional investments over the long-term will prove to be greater than the opportunity cost of not investing in comics, so those who eschew the former will lose out most in the end.

 

 

 

[Junkdrawer]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

 

Not a fair comparison without the profits from the trade. I held an AF #15 in about VG/F when I was in high school that was priced at $400. Cheap by today's prices, but at my income at 17 it may as well have been $10,000.

Approx April 2006 gold hit $600. Lets say you bought 8oz for $4800 OR in Jan 2006 you bought this AF15 from HA http://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/amazing-fantasy-15-marvel-1962-cgc-vg-fn-50-off-white-to-white-pages-presented-in-this-historic-silver-age-issue-are-t/a/16012-16008.s for clost to that amount. My point roughly is that selling out at 1800 the 8 oz (genius by the way) would have given you 14,400, that's pretty much what a 5.0 was selling for at that point. Now factor in IF he did not sell til today 1300 x 8 =$10,400 and whats a CGC 5.0 Af 15 worth today??? not 10k

[RockMyAmadeus]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

 

Shhhhhhhhh....

[Jaydogrules]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

 

Not a fair comparison without the profits from the trade. I held an AF #15 in about VG/F when I was in high school that was priced at $400. Cheap by today's prices, but at my income at 17 it may as well have been $10,000.

 

Yes I could have. But gold tripled in a few short years time and AF 15, while performing very well, did not. At least not in the grades I was looking at. So I was blessed enough to get the AF 15, and have enough left over for the hulk 1 and showcase 4, and even roll what was left over into a mutual fund.

 

I'm not saying that wasn't lightning in a bottle it probably was. But I certainly derive far more enjoyment from my books than I ever did the gold. The fact that the books continued to rise in value while gold backed off its highs is just icing on the cake. Comic books as an alternative investment vehicle ? Yep, worked for me.

 

-J.

[Junkdrawer]

They say that an ounce of gold has bought a fine suit of men's clothing for hundreds of years. As such, over the long run, it's really just a store of wealth as opposed to something that builds wealth (something many people looking to "get rich" buying gold don't seem to understand). On this count, I agree with RMA.

 

That said, while the price of gold tends to be worth an equivalent of said suit of clothing over the long run, its price can fluctuate both well above and below this amount. At $250 an ounce, it was too cheap. At $2,000, it was too dear. I think gold can be a portfolio hedge and I believe that it can be an investment, even an attractive one, at times. On this count, I agree with Shadroch.

 

+1. I was in at gold at about 600 and was out at about 1800 and used a portion of the windfall to buy my wait for it..........My AF 15. Darn tootin! See what I just did there?

 

-J.

Not sure, but I think you could have gotten an AF15 back when gold was 600 for a lot less and could have by passed the gold all together.

 

Not a fair comparison without the profits from the trade. I held an AF #15 in about VG/F when I was in high school that was priced at $400. Cheap by today's prices, but at my income at 17 it may as well have been $10,000.

 

Yes I could have. But gold tripled in a few short years time and AF 15, while performing very well, did not. At least not in the grades I was looking at. So I was blessed enough to get the AF 15, and have enough left over for the hulk 1 and showcase 4, and even roll what was left over into a mutual fund.

 

I'm not saying that wasn't lightning in a bottle it probably was. But I certainly derive far more enjoyment from my books than I ever did the gold. The fact that the books continued to rise in value while gold backed off its highs is just icing on the cake. Comic books as an alternative investment vehicle ? Yep, worked for me.

 

-J.

Did you sell at 1800 prior to 1900 or was it the 1800 that came after the 1900 peaking?

[RockMyAmadeus]

Gold has done some very interesting things in the past 30 years, things it really hasn't ever done before (and likely won't do ever again.)

 

Most of it was a long term reaction to the vestiges of the world's removal from the gold standard. That really put a wallop on gold itself, and gold in relation to other metals and to fiat currencies.

 

For centuries and centuries and centuries, gold was valued at roughly 16 times silver. That was true all the way until the 1860's. An ounce of gold bought you 16 ounces of silver.

 

The US mint actually tried to peg silver at 15:1, but that resulted in coins that had a gold content worth more than their face value...enough more that melting them was worth the cost. Hundreds of thousands of US gold coins from 1795-1834 were melted because, in relation to silver, they were worth more than face. In one melting party in Paris in 1831, 40,000 gold half eagles went into the melting point. But I digress.

 

In any event, things started changing with the discovery of gold in California. All of a sudden, there were hills filled with gold, acres of it, and the country was awash in it...so much so, that its value in relation to silver DID drop, and silver became "worth more", due to its now relative "scarcity" against gold. This forced the US mint to lower the weight of fractional SILVER coins in 1853, so THEY wouldn't be removed from circulation and melted, as gold had been 20-30 years earlier.

 

Then along came the Civil War. Gold disappeared, then silver, then base metals. All of it. It all became scarce (except in the West, where gold was the currency in use), the price of silver shot up in relation to gold, and even though gold was artificially pegged (because, remember, an "ounce of gold" was the "US Dollar" of the world markets at the time. It was fixed, and everything else moved in relation to IT), it, too, saw increases of price...remember, in relation to SILVER. Fiat currency had been tried, and fiat currency had failed, every single time, because everyone trusted metal...and you essentially only had gold, silver, copper, and iron as working metals in and prior to the 19th century. Nickel was expensive to refine until the 1860's, and other metals were quite scarce.

 

There was no such thing as "electronic wealth", there was very little such thing as "paper wealth." If you had wealth, you either had real estate, a successful business, or metal. Stocks would come...but not quite yet.

 

Then, in the 1870's, as the nation was finally getting over the Civil War, the balance shifted...MOUNTAINS of silver were being mined out West. MOUNTAINS of it.

 

And the value of silver against gold not only corrected, but plummeted. So, in the 1870's, 80's, and 90's, you had various silver interests trying to prop up the value of silver (because, remember, if it gets below a certain price, it's no longer worth the cost to mine it), which resulted in some absolutely fascinating politics of the era, and the Morgan Dollar! The Feds were constrained by law to purchase X million ounces of silver, month in and month out, which propped up the value of silver. Still, by the 1880's, silver had lots its fight, and it would never again trade at a 16:1 ratio against gold, except for a brief blip in 1919.

 

(To put it in perspective, the US silver half dollar has contained, since 1873, .36 of an ounce of silver. In 1902, at 48 cents an ounce, that half dollar contained 17 cents worth of silver: Effective Fiat Currency, in metallic form! )

 

The rest of the time, from 1875 to 1934, silver traded at roughly 30:1 to 40:1 ratios with gold, until 1934, and the Crime of '34 (the gold recall) occurred. Overnight, the Feds took our $20 gold coins, gave us $20 in paper money in exchange, then required anyone who was legally allowed to buy gold (jewelry, watches, collector coins) now pay $35 for that previously $20 worth of gold.

 

It was one of the greatest swindles in US history.

 

Since then, the gold standard was dropped, nation by nation, until the last vestiges of it, the linking of the US Dollar to the value of gold (a US Dollar was officially worth 1/35th of an ounce of gold) in 1971, removed all trace of any metallic backed monetary system, at least in the First World.

 

From 1934 to 1971, silver floated at between 40-100:1 against gold, wild swings due to world events, and the removal of the gold standard and gold backed currency. After Nixon removed the last link in 1971, the value of both gold and silver against the US dollar, not surprisingly, soared.

 

Interestingly, in January of 1980, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market, the ratio between gold and silver came tantalizingly close to the magic 16:1 ratio...with silver at $50, and gold at $800, we were at 20:1. That's the closest it's been since the 1910's up to now.

 

As gold moves away from silver, at a current ratio of 62:1 at the moment, gold looks to be overvalued, and silver under. Is it simply a function of the availability of both gold and silver, that gold really is 60 times more sought after than silver? It's certainly not 60 times more common. Did the world really have something with its centuries old 16:1 ratio? Why has the ratio been completely illogical since the Civil War, and even the Gold Rush?

 

How do you value gold? How do you value silver? Obviously, comparing it to paper money is a frustrating exercise, at best. Comparing them to each other is what the world has done forever. But...comparing them to static goods and services, goods which use roughly the same materials, made in the same manner, and using roughly the same methods, over time, is also a good indicator of the "true" worth of gold and/or silver.

 

For instance: in 1946, a gallon of gas cost 21 cents, or essentially 2.1 brand new silver dimes.

 

In 2013, the cost of a gallon of gas was $3.65, and the value of silver was $23.79....2.1 silver dimes contains .154 ounces of silver, at a value of...$3.66.