The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I received the two silver 2008 Bald Eagle Commemorative coins that I ordered from the mint a couple of days ago, and I must say they are good-looking coins. At $369, I couldn’t quite swing the gold coin, but I did get both the proof and uncirculated versions of the silver. It’s hard, as a coin-collector (*AHEM* numismatist), to explain the allure of a nice coin to someone who doesn’t collect, but I suppose it’s like that with any hobby. I’ve been collecting so long that it’s hard for me to imagine a person growing-up without a coin collection.

I’m thinking about sending these two coins to NGC for grading, along with five or six really nice Peace Dollars that I’ve cherry-picked out of some junk silver. They’ll probably sit there for six months before I finally get around to it.

The price of spot gold has finally closed above $1000 an ounce. Wow. I knew this was coming (and a lot more is coming also, mark my words), but now that it has actually happened it seems incredible. It infuriates me the way the mainstream media downplays the trouble with our economy, as well as the significance of the major bull-market developing in precious metals. I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but there are some major hard-times coming and people need time to prepare themselves. The media will tell everyone that everything is fine right up until the time that bread runs out on the grocery-store shelves. To anyone reading this—get yourself some hard assets, and quick. Don’t take my word for it, do your due-diligence, find out for yourself.

The stock market is a slow-motion train wreck. The only reason it was doing as well as it was is because of inflation and the crashing dollar. It’s amazing how strong a “rally” can look when the market is priced in a toasted currency. The DOW priced in Euros or gold doesn’t look nearly as attractive; in fact, it looks downright scary (and has for some time). Now the market is falling fast, even when priced in a currency that’s falling fast. Stop and think about that for a second… if that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will.

Next up for me: I think I’m going to buy a hefty basket of gold, silver, and mineral OTC:BB mining and exploration stocks. It’s only a matter of time before the stocks start doing what bullion has been doing, and for a cash-strapped Joe such as myself, it seems like the way to go! More to follow on that…

Cheers!

-Tom