I'm not sure I understand your logic here. If, tomorrow, civilization effectively ends for whatever reason, why would you (who, let's say, has the forsight to stock a few hundred cans of tuna) give me some tuna in exchange for gold coins? What are you going to do with gold coins exactly? Even if there's some surviving nation elsewhere who might be using gold as currency, you (or I) couldn't get to it anyway. Besides, wouldn't it be more logically for me to stab you and thus have both the tuna (food) and gold? In the final analysis, isn't gold only a store of value (much like clam shells and other store of value items) only if there's civilization that keeps the above scenario somewhat in check? "Always have always will" isn't much of a rational reason is it?
http://yafeu.com/99101839.jpg see the red button on the keyboard? teargas i have since upgraded this picture was in the 90's. happiness is a belt fed weapon, mb
haha, quote of the week. /agree ps: Bad feeling, i wasnt talking about you but just the theme of this discussion. If you want to buy some gold coins or what not to masterb...err look at, that's a different story.
Now that your minds are already mulling over the possibility and implications of a potential Mad-Max style societal collapse, allow me to recommend an awesome DVD rental: Check out Jericho- The First (and only, as yet) season. 108 customer reviews on Amazon, with a <b>five star average rating!</b>. That's all you really need to know. You've probably never even heard of the show, but Jericho has the potential to become the next Heroes/24/Prison Break/etc. IMO, Jericho's vision of a U.S.A. gone Mad-Max, is pretty spot on. In their version of our 'day after', precious metals are actually of miniscule worth in comparison to food, weapons & ammo, generators & windmills, gasoline & diesel, and analgesics/other medicines. In reality, would simple <i>salt</i> become one of the very hottest doomsday commodities around, as Jericho's storyline suggests? I kind of doubt it, considering the seawater factor and all. Hopefully we'll never find out. Anyways, www.inhousepharmacy.com is a great place to acquire your antibiotics stash. Get some potassium iodate while you're at it. Laugh all you want, but I already have mine...
If I am understanding this correctly, I infer from the posts by sjfan and newguy05 that if the US experiences hyperinflation, then (1) there will be extreme violence in the US and therefore (2) it would be more worthwhile to have guns, ammunition, canned food and bottled water. sjfan / newguy, do you think it is possible that there could be severe inflation / hyperinflation in the US without extreme violence, such as that seen in Russia in 1998? As a more recent example, Zimbabwe Dollars are close to useless for transactional purposes, and if it were not for the relative strength of other paper currencies (such as the US Dollar), then it is likely that gold would be useful for transactional purposes.
I have bought a similar amount of coins the past few years from Hannes Tulving at www.tulving.com. I would recommend him highly.
I've also recommended Tulving in the past on this site, and will go as far as saying that Hannes's competitors are all laughably inferior. These competitors (CNI, and much worse- AJPM) provide the illusion of a 'better' selection of inventory than Tulving by selling bullion they haven't even acquired yet. If you like paying about the same prices as Tulving, but waiting 1-2 months instead of one day, by all means deal with bullion merchants not named Tulving.
Gold would be useful for exchange in the doomsday scenario. How are you going to haul around a bunch of cans of tuna - and try to convince someone who doesn't want tuna to trade with you? I think guns and ammo might be the first priority - then at least enough gold that you could smuggle yourself out of the country if necessary. My guess is that you want a sufficient amount in so-called 'smuggler's bars' or similar size that are small enough to slip from the palm of your hand into another's.. I don't think any of this has to be overboard (like getting a bunch of assult rifles). I think a little .38 could be a big help. Do you need $100k in gold? not likely - I think the doomsday scenario is mainly about making it through a transition - travel to safety or getting what you need to make it through.
again you are missing the point, if it's just hyperinflation without the breakdown of the government, then dollar would still be accepted, yes it may cost $100 to buy an apple but paper dollar would still be the currency of the country. So you are talking about hedging against inflation using gold in a lockbox method once more. If the dollar is not accepted in the USA, that means the ENTIRE economy/society has collapsed completely, so yes at that point it is very likely a mad max style future, maybe not as chaotic or violent but having gold/silver wont mean much either. A much better example is during the cultural revolution in china around 1960, due to the government breakdown (in short, they let farm kids run the country for political maneuvers) where rampant starvation was common, the government was broken down. And guess what? noone cared about gold/silver, former rich landlords etc..would bring boxes of gold/diamond jewelry in exchange for some food and noone would take them. So gold/silver were worth about as much as the useless currency. Of course eventually the government recovered and gained control of the situation, and things became normal again.