Here are a few things you need to consider before investing in tangible currencies:

1. Make you you have coins in a full ounce size, for both silver and dollar coins, less than that would be less trustworthy in my opinion because an
ounce is the standard measure

2. Only acquire coins that are 99.9% pure, any less than that and they aren't considered as valuable as others.

3. Hide them very well. Having people steal what you have spent many years
of accumulating can make for very sad times, leading to depression and pain.

4. Have your gold/silver in liquid assets: meaning have your gold and silver
at your home or some place secret that you control. Having your gold and silver in a bank when the financial system goes to heck will not help you at all as you can not be sure some greedy communist might take it and
appropriate it as their own during civil unrest.

5. Don't tell you friends or even family that you have a stash of coins.
When the time comes that you need to use the coins, then let your family know about them, but not before, "loose lips sink ships," so your family will most definitely tell others out of sheer excitement about their mom or dad's stash of cash. Seriously, say nothing to your family until it comes to the time
when explaining this is a good thing.

I hope this guidance serves you well.

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

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warmfuzzy wrote to All <=-

Here are a few things you need to consider before investing in tangible currencies:

1. Make you you have coins in a full ounce size, for both silver and dollar coins, less than that would be less trustworthy in my opinion because an ounce is the standard measure

Fractional ounce coins and junk silver coins are good to keep around for
barter post SHTF; a 1/4 ounce silver coin or pre-1964 dollars and half
dollars might be better than trying to have someone "round up" to an
ounce because you can't "make change".





... ZIMA TASTES BETTER WHEN IT'S ILLEGAL
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On 14 Apr 2023, warmfuzzy said the following...

Here are a few things you need to consider before investing in tangible currencies:

1. Make you you have coins in a full ounce size, for both silver and dollar coins, less than that would be less trustworthy in my opinion because an ounce is the standard measure

The are decades long running debates over the utility of smllaer (and larger) sized bullion.

With the value-density of gold, the 1/2 and 1/10th ounce sizes seem to have reasonable utility.

The "trustworthiness" aspect may be as much about whether the bullion is national coinage or if it is private mintings. There is an implied veneer of additional trust with national coinage for sure.

Half-ounce silvers may have some utility too.

Vintage currency requires knowledge of percentage of silver content, which is an added step in valuation, but largely are steeped in trustworthiness feelings.

--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS

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With the value-density of gold, the 1/2 and 1/10th ounce sizes seem to have reasonable utility.
The "trustworthiness" aspect may be as much about whether the bullion is national coinage or if it is private mintings. There is an implied
veneer of additional trust with national coinage for sure.
Half-ounce silvers may have some utility too.

Yeah, you might be right, but I'd only buy the 1/2 or 1/4 ounce coins directly from the government. Interesting take on this, thanks!

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
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The "trustworthiness" aspect may be as much about whether the bullion is national coinage or if it is private mintings. There is an implied
veneer of additional trust with national coinage for sure.

Great post k9zw .. brings up some general Q's I've had for some time. I admittedly have not purchased precious metals. Always was a stock / crypto guy. However now am wondering within a SHTF situation what the best trade / barter currency would be. Where is the "place to go" locally or otherwise to get the more "trusted" coins?

To your point, the argument I hear regarding any precious metal being able to validate it's legitimacy while also it's percentages. The debate seems to be one group suggesting "lead and cans of food, alcohol, tobacco, coffee" for bater while others insist on Gold or Silver. I'd think a bit of "all of the above." Your thoughts?

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On 15 Apr 2023, The Godfather said the following...

The "trustworthiness" aspect may be as much about whether the bullion national coinage or if it is private mintings. There is an implied veneer of additional trust with national coinage for sure.

Great post k9zw .. brings up some general Q's I've had for some time. I admittedly have not purchased precious metals. Always was a stock / crypto guy. However now am wondering within a SHTF situation what the best trade / barter currency would be. Where is the "place to go"
locally or otherwise to get the more "trusted" coins?

To your point, the argument I hear regarding any precious metal being
able to validate it's legitimacy while also it's percentages. The
debate seems to be one group suggesting "lead and cans of food, alcohol, tobacco, coffee" for bater while others insist on Gold or Silver. I'd think a bit of "all of the above." Your thoughts?

Remembering that very few living have actual experience in these matters in a societal breakdown, a lot of rumminations are guesswork.

And unfortunatley not an area where absolutes are the end all.

First I would like to point you to SurvivalBlog.com whcih I have read for a very long time.

Some additional facts to think about include:

Money spent for long term resouces often is truly "sunk costs" as until things go bad you can't do much with them.

Bulk resources require stewardship, often which includes guarding them.

The saying "Two is One, One is None" may really matter, as if you lose your only & sole resource, you are SOL, but if you have depth (redundancy) you have a second (or more) chance(s).

The absolutely most portable and valuable commodity is said to be knowledge.

Spares are pretty important too.

--

All that said I've bought from Apmex (American Precious Metal Exchange) and a couple of the advertisers at Survival Blog. I'm not very serious about this, as I often buy a bunch of silver 1 ounce Eagles to give as presents to the youngsters in our life.

For myself I am perhaps heavier in tools, soem storage seeds, and knowledge enhancers (mostly in the form of actual books on useful topics).

Yes I've weaseled a way to have an extra 3 months of medicines on hand, am pretty up on what non-presciption substitutes might help family out, and have learned to brew, bake, garden, smoke food, and so on both as pastimes and if they would be needed. I've chemically made about everything we need in the household, have made from scratch everything from rootbeer to worcestershire sauces, and so on.

I know I have wandered pretty wide from your questions, as to properly answer your questions you have a bunch of these things to think about.

--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS

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* Origin: SPOT BBS / k9zw (700:100/69)

To your point, the argument I hear regarding any precious metal being
able to validate it's legitimacy while also it's percentages. The
debate seems to be one group suggesting "lead and cans of food, alcohol, tobacco, coffee" for bater while others insist on Gold or Silver. I'd think a bit of "all of the above." Your thoughts?

Yeah, some of the guys that live at my place are addicted to cigarettes. If you had some tobacco to barter you would have a situation where people would barter no matter what. They smoke every hour or two and would be in great distress if they ran out of smokes. So in this situation bartering smokes would be a good investment...

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
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First I would like to point you to SurvivalBlog.com whcih I have read
for a very long time.

I would also recommend Survivalist Magazine, The Candian Prepper, and the other magazines that focus on survivalism. They are quite exciting reads.

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
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On 15 Apr 2023, The Godfather said the following...

To your point, the argument I hear regarding any precious metal being
able to validate it's legitimacy while also it's percentages. The
debate seems to be one group suggesting "lead and cans of food, alcohol, tobacco, coffee" for bater while others insist on Gold or Silver. I'd think a bit of "all of the above." Your thoughts?

To address you second set of questions.

Precious Metal vailidation - this is somewhat hard to do actually if the fraudsters are clever and technically able.

That said you can do some basics, chemicals, magnetic slides, volume/mass analysis come to mind, but remember the pros (including mints/depositories) get hoodwinked now and then. Coinage from Nations that are well recognized have less of a risk than private mintages from places you do not know.

Commodity Metals - the bulk needed to have significant value has to be considered, as it is harder to deal with, but also hard for someone to steal.

The "Other Lead" (aka ammo) - expected there will be an ongoing demand, predicated on collapse happening before any large scale effective confiscation happens. If people are unarmed, the ammo is not very useful.

There is a lot of suggestion that ammo could be the small-change, which if the ammo wasn't itself fragile, potentially have some danger, and quickly becomes low value if let get wet, corrode, get dented, or heavily pocket-worn, I am thinking any such use will be rather limited.

Alcohol - always an ongoing demand for hooch from beer to wine to spirits. If you know what you are doing you can produce more. Could be useful.

Tobacco - has a shelf life (Korean War C-Rations opened in the 1980s had cigarettes in them that were like dried leaves) but the users are very eager to have their cigarettes. Often traded amoung prisoners in ongoing micro-economies. In many areas you can grown the plants, but the curing is complicated to do, so it may be hard to produce signicant volumes as home grown. Or it might be easy, as I have never seen it grown.

Coffee - Much like tobacco, except you are not going to get more except by imports. Frozen or canned beans are said to be longer term storage.

Some categories beyond your list:

Street Drugs - some writers predict these will be very valuable as people want/need them and usually there are few natural subsitutes. The desire is high enough that security will be an issue. There is also serious moral issues about providing poisons to people.

Medical Drugs - will be very high value, exepting that you have to connect with someone who needs the medicines which is a subset of people, and that many medications had shelf lifes. Some universal basics would be easily bartered though.

Hope this gets you thinking!

--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS

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k9zw wrote to The Godfather <=-

Alcohol - always an ongoing demand for hooch from beer to wine to
spirits. If you know what you are doing you can produce more. Could
be useful.

I have 2 "handles" of cheap vodka in my stash, I figure between needing
a drink, disinfecting wounds and tools or making pasta sauce it might
come in handy. I'd like to find a cheap clear >100 proof alcohol to
replace it with, something less than everclear.

Coffee - Much like tobacco, except you are not going to get more except
by imports.

I have a sealed 5 lb tin in my stash. Hopefully I won't need more.



... ZIMA TASTES BETTER WHEN IT'S ILLEGAL
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Medical Drugs - will be very high value, exepting that you have to
connect with someone who needs the medicines which is a subset of
people, and that many medications had shelf lifes. Some universal
basics would be easily bartered though.
Hope this gets you thinking!

Yeah, lots of great ideas there k9zw. Drugs, booze, smokes, gold, silver, power-bars, etc.

I think one thing that should be mentioned is water filtration. I'd recommend LifeStaws or SteriPens. LifeStaw's are filters that look like big slushy straws where the force from you sucking the water into the straw brings the water through some ceramic filters. They can be used a thousand times or more. As for SteriPens their mode of cleaning is ultra-violet light. You put the apparatus inside a water bottle, zap the water for 90 seconds and the genetic material of the germs is ripped to pieces and cleans the water that way.

Thanks for your contributions to these conversations eveyone!

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
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warmfuzzy wrote to k9zw <=-

I think one thing that should be mentioned is water filtration. I'd recommend LifeStaws or SteriPens.

Lifestraws are good additions to bug-out bags, too - small enough to
bring along anywhere.

I remember seeing a TED talk where the inventor took water from the
Thames, added mud, chemicals, and finally rabbit droppings to the water
and took a drink with a lifestraw. Ballsy.




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On 21 Apr 2023, warmfuzzy said the following...

I think one thing that should be mentioned is water filtration. I'd recommend LifeStaws or SteriPens. LifeStaw's are filters that look like

The ceramic filters that can be used to build a ongoing filtration system for a small group out of food grade plastic pails are inexpensive, specially if you but a bulk pack.

--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS

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