argent_pur wrote:Where is the after-market for these? These are novelties, not investments. I would say save up some money and buy some gold or silver that is more recognizable and has a better secondary market. I agree that it's a fun concept, but this is your hard-earned money, and there are much better ways buy PM's. My opinion...
Good Morning!
I just found this forum, and figured I should pitch in to the conversation.
You are correct that the Shire Silver cards are not investments. They are intended to be used in everyday trade, unlike standard bullion coins. Only a very few, those of us that understand and care about our monetary system, are going to ever use coins again. The general population is now too used to the easy convenience of credit cards, debit cards, and paper notes - they may temporarily switch over to using bullion in a SHTF scenario, but all it will take is some politician dangling the convenience of paper to get them to switch back. They just don't care enough, and they never will.
That is why I invented the cards. They allow people to use real precious metals in a form that is basically as convenient as paper and credit cards. In addition, I have put the idea in the public domain so that anyone can make their own. By making it simple enough and with very little capital equipment needed, "mints" can appear all over the place; making any attempt by government to shut them down (like they did to the Liberty Dollar) impossible.
I do say that you should probably have most of your precious metal holdings in traditional bullion, and only a small portion in Shire Silver. After all, you don't carry around your entire life savings all the time, only enough cash to get you through your day.
But we are just starting out. We introduced the cards less than a year ago, and we don't have a large budget. I am hopeful that with time it will grow.
I have had one person suggest larger units of gold, but a one gram gold card would be in the $60-70 range, which is on the high end of the "daily usage" range. I'm considering it, but I'm working on an idea for lower cost copper cards as well, and have limited time.
And somehow the USPS screwed up the shipping calculator. I'm still working on figuring out what their problem is, but did switch on a cheaper alternative.
BTW, we initially were looking at stamping out our own "coins", but the overhead is so damn expensive that it could never work on a small scale. You really need to be minting in batches of 10s of thousands before it becomes economically feasible. That led us to consider alternatives, with the card form being the result.