Me and some of my relatives are considering turning our excess retirement cash into gold and silver. I have several concerns. securing the metal against theft and counterfeiting. My cousin is opening a trading post and we may share in the cost of buying detection gear. Good for him and good for me. We also have several remotely located well secured safes. not Fort Knox ...but pretty good. We just have no idea what type metal detection gear to buy. help anyone?
Quinton
Kind of bad timing to buy gold, it is at an all time high over 2000$/oz.
Silver is sky high as well.
It could be going up more?
Or not?
Anyway you use different types and strengths of acid to see how it interacts with the gold (or yellow lead)
I think its the same with silver.
If you just buy old US coins no need to test. Other stuff? Storing is another problem. Better not tell anyone you have the stuff. And what do you do with it when you need to sell? I can see why people are losing faith in paper money, when the printing presses are running full speed. But where do you invest? Stock market is near all time high, bonds pay nothing, CD's pay nothing, if you spend your money on land, the county will take it when they get the taxes so high no one can pay, so what do you do?
It takes brass and lead to keep gold and silver secure.
There are a couple of ways to verify gold is not some other metal here:
https://www.wikihow.com/Test-Gold-at-Home (https://www.wikihow.com/Test-Gold-at-Home)
Gold coins are the way to go. Kruggerands, Maple Leaves, Eagles. You will want a very precise scale. A common way of skimming off weight is to file then polish the edges. A couple micrograms here and a couple milligrams there, and you start talking real money. That is even easier to do with bars or strips. Very hard with coins (milled edges).
A good place to watch and learn is Kitco.com. Good info and historical data. Look at the trends of gold and silver prices over time.
All that said, I tried investing this way years ago. Waste of time and money. Gold is a fools investment unless you own a mine. When the price of gold rises, old mines come back into production. Mining more gold adds supply to the market. That pushes the price back down.
By the time you think "I can make money" it's already too late to buy low. Professional investors beat you there. You had to be buying it all along before it went up to make money.
Best of luck to you,
Eric
My cousin is a well tested trader, mainly in guns but also in gold and silver when he can. He recently built and opened a trading post mainly as a place to hold trading days. He has the contacts to easily buy and sell but with my limited knowledge, I need a real good method to insure good metal. Buying from the dealers may be safe but not a good way to make money. If I'm going to spend $1000 on a detector... I have to be sure it works.
I don't know much about getting rich, but when I see expensive TV commercials about how you can learn the secret about buying gold and getting wealthy, well the first thing that comes to mind is the Nigerian scam. I am sure not about to go and spend money to tell the world how to make my flooring, siding, or signature coffee milk we sell, so why are these guys so excited to share their secret with me?
My answer - because they make money off of all the folks who get in behind them. It's buyer beware - especially between now and November the way I see it.