Okay, you just hit the lottery...

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

$100 million dollars (after taxes).

You have one choice. What PM item would you buy? How much? Why? Just physical, no paper contracts or miners.

Me: 90% silver dimes and quarters, as much as I could get. I'd corner the market.

The silver market is relatively small. Why hasn't any modern day billionaire done anything like this yet? If they stick with just physical there's no chance of getting Bunker Hunt'ed.

[68Camaro]

A fun question. 90% dimes not a bad choice. But impossible to corner that market as there are literally barrels of the things in deep storage, waiting for the right time to come out. So you'd be at risk of driving the price up at your expense and the profit of others.

For my one item, I'd stick to new fractional gold. Tenth ounce .999, which I could buy from a mint essentially at spot plus seniorage. At current price, 4 oz per ten thousand, 400 oz per million, 40,000 oz total if my couch math is right. I could transport that in a HD SUV if needed.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

A fun question. 90% dimes not a bad choice. But impossible to corner that market as there are literally barrels of the things in deep storage, waiting for the right time to come out. So you'd be at risk of driving the price up at your expense and the profit of others.

I'd be as quiet, slow and stealthy as possible during my accumulation phase.

I don't know if there are many barrels in storage (seems unlikely to me), but what I do know is they aren't making anymore fractional 90%. A lot of it has been melted since 1970.

[68Camaro]

A fun question. 90% dimes not a bad choice. But impossible to corner that market as there are literally barrels of the things in deep storage, waiting for the right time to come out. So you'd be at risk of driving the price up at your expense and the profit of others.

I'd be as quiet, slow and stealthy as possible during my accumulation phase.

I don't know if there are many barrels in storage (seems unlikely to me), but what I do know is they aren't making anymore fractional 90%. A lot of it has been melted since 1970.

I have no personal knowledge, but I've heard stories from normally reliable folks that there are people that have been storing barrels of silver since the 60s. Maybe apocryphal BS.

Almost 48,000,000 dimes (without premium). That's certainly theoretically achievable. The mint has minted billions of them (less the big melt); almost 1.3 billion in 64 alone. My modest collection is laughably small by comparison. If you were accumulating you wouldn't even bother calling me! LOL

Still, that's 262,691.99 lbs total weight in dimes, plus packaging, pallets, etc. 5 completely full semis?

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

A fun question. 90% dimes not a bad choice. But impossible to corner that market as there are literally barrels of the things in deep storage, waiting for the right time to come out. So you'd be at risk of driving the price up at your expense and the profit of others.

I'd be as quiet, slow and stealthy as possible during my accumulation phase.

I don't know if there are many barrels in storage (seems unlikely to me), but what I do know is they aren't making anymore fractional 90%. A lot of it has been melted since 1970.

I have no personal knowledge, but I've heard stories from normally reliable folks that there are people that have been storing barrels of silver since the 60s. Maybe apocryphal BS.

Almost 48,000,000 dimes (without premium). That's certainly theoretically achievable. The mint has minted billions of them (less the big melt); almost 1.3 billion in 64 alone. My modest collection is laughably small by comparison. If you were accumulating you wouldn't even bother calling me! LOL

Still, that's 262,691.99 lbs total weight in dimes, plus packaging, pallets, etc. 5 completely full semis?

There's been speculation that about 60% of the pre-1965 90% has been melted to date. There was a book I read many years ago that discussed this (can't remember the title of the book). From 1965-1969 it was illegal to melt 90% and the government did their best to cull as much as they could from circulation. Some was hoarded. In 1970 it became legal to melt 90%. Hard to truly know how much 90% is still out there, but my best guess would be somewhere around half of all that was minted no longer exists.

[TXSTARFIRE]

The Big Silver Melt by Henry Merton? Great book!

[Recyclersteve]

The Big Silver Melt by Henry Merton? Great book!

Agreed- great book and I have a copy that won’t sell unless you were to offer truly ridiculous $.

As far as my choice I’d choose 90% (not 40%) halves. Dimes are small enough to get bent fairly easily and older people have a hard time reading the dates with the naked eye. Also, when you do a drop test to hear the silver sound, it is much easier to hear the halves. And there are many fewer coins to count.

Now, if I can deviate a bit and put part of my money in a base metal, I’d choose .999 Canadian nickels in a heartbeat. They’d be more tedious to go through, but I’d be retired and smiling all day, so I’d have plenty of time on my hands.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

The Big Silver Melt by Henry Merton? Great book!

That's it! I still have it somewhere, but it's buried in my storage unit.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

The Big Silver Melt by Henry Merton? Great book!

Agreed- great book and I have a copy that won’t sell unless you were to offer truly ridiculous $.

As far as my choice I’d choose 90% (not 40%) halves. Dimes are small enough to get bent fairly easily and older people have a hard time reading the dates with the naked eye. Also, when you do a drop test to hear the silver sound, it is much easier to hear the halves. And there are many fewer coins to count.

Now, if I can deviate a bit and put part of my money in a base metal, I’d choose .999 Canadian nickels in a heartbeat. They’d be more tedious to go through, but I’d be retired and smiling all day, so I’d have plenty of time on my hands.

This is one of the reasons why Mercs (over Rosys) are my fav. Don't have to ping or read dates to know they're silver.

CA nickels... interesting choice.

[Fred Underwood]

I can speak from personal experience on this subject since I had, in fact, won $102 million fifteen years ago. How do you guys think I've been staying ahead of Johnny Law all this time?

Back when The Yellow was $1400 or so I bought a few dozen 1000 oz. bars, using them as ballast in my Walmart 45' sailrunner. Long story short...I was chased by Somali pirates from Zanzibar to San Francisco Bay, where my seriously overburdened dinghy, "The Lucky Duck", ran aground in shark infested waters. So I lost about 50 mil right there.

I sank another $30 million into cardboard & elastic band recycling because my accountant said cardboard was going to be the next bitcoin. That sorta fizzled. Another $10 mil spent on phony passports and Obamacare premiums and I'm down to scraping by on my last $12 million.

Waiting to buy the dip on aluminum can tabs.

[TXSTARFIRE]

Always fun to see a post from Fred!

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

Always fun to see a post from Fred!

The thread destroyer!

[Morsecode]

Always fun to see a post from Fred!

The thread destroyer!

He seems to reappear with the election cycle.

[etaion_99]

My PM is dirt.

Actually, more specifically, real estate focusing upon 3 bedroom 2 bath middle-middle class rental properties in places like Lubbock, TX... Omaha, NE... Akron, OH...

Places where there's not a real estate bubble but where people still need to rent a home.


THAT is my precious metal.

[Morsecode]

My PM is dirt.

Actually, more specifically, real estate focusing upon 3 bedroom 2 bath middle-middle class rental properties in places like Lubbock, TX... Omaha, NE... Akron, OH...

So you avoid the coasts. Smart.