Gold and Silver Market Information

Another source for up to date information on precious metals and solid analysis specifically on the Gold and Silver markets is Private Bullion.

This site, ran by Scott Hage, provides easy to understand links between Gold and Silver and how the National Debt, Stock Market and other economic factors influence each other.

UrbanSurvivalSkills has long said that the smart Survival planner understands that Preparing for the Collapse or SHTF if you prefer, involves much more than stocking guns and ammunition. Surviving anything be it a bad blind date or SHTF requires planning and preparation,.....understanding the threat,...keeping on top of indicators for the collapse and taking the correct measures to ensure you are not caught flat footed.

Private Bullion is also a discreet source for precious metals: Gold, Silver, Platinum or Palladium as well as coins or a numismatic value or for melt value. We have long held that the complete Survival Preparer should have a quantity of at least Silver coins, both bullion and coins for silver melt value, in order to be completed covered for the many and diverse catalysts of collapse that all lead to American's struggling for food and security.

Add the Silver Bullion blog (link at top) to your bookmarks and spend a few minutes visiting their site every couple days or so to stay informed in the economic realm especially as it pertains to previous metals.

Survival Planning - Gold and Silver Investment

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following comment on a prevous post about Gold and Silver procurement for Survival Planning: Anonymous said...." I bought silver dollars in 1974 for $5 apiece. In 1979-80 when silver peaked at $50/oz I held onto my silver for the long run. I began buying gold coins in 1984, a few each month. The lowest I paid was $230/oz and the most I paid was about $330/oz. I had over 100 ozs of gold goins. I again bought silver for a few years beginning in 1992, over 1500 ozs of rounds. I held these for years and years with no profit while the stock market doubled every other year. I finally had the chance to sell recently when gold and silver finally took off. Yes I finally made a nice profit but I could have made twice as much perhaps four times as much if I had not invested in PM's.

My feeling about PM is if you have lots of time OR if you are buying it for "insurance" then go for it. But it is not really an investment it is a "bet". You are betting that the economy will crash so you can finally make a profit. When it finally happens you will pat yourself on the back and remind yourself how smart you are but if you do the math there are far better investments both in good economies and bad. But here is the important thing to know; at some point in this "bubble" the price of PMs will be two or three times it's value the day/week after the PM market crashes. Your $2000 gold will be worth $1000 and the following week worth $500. Your $50 silver will be worth $25 or $15 or who knows. It will happen quickly and will/may not return to those stratospheric values for another 20 years or so. Now I HOPE this happens because it will mean that the economy is coming back. I know all the theories; we may never have full employment again or we might have a long depression, yada, yada, yada. Well! It's gonna do what It's gonna do and eventually it will come back. I would prefer jobs for our people and fiscal sanity by our government over expensive PMs. I can't predict the future, no one can. But just like the real estate bubble burst so will the PM bubble. So buy some if you want, buy a lot if you like to gamble, but recognize it for what it is."

UrbanMan's response: Great advice in what you write. However, I'm not interested in patting my self on the back nor getting "rich". My interest in PM's, really only silver, is to have a way to purchase or barter for something I need IF it comes to that.

I too, hope for a better economy if those clowns in Wash D.C. can ever get it right. I hope to pass on my silver to my grandchildren. I hope I never have to kill another human being again, or even fire a shot in anger. But I have learned to prepare for the worst.

Just as there are people basing their survival plan around firearms and only firearms,...I am sure there are people leveraging everything just to procure PM's. I think the resonable strategy is ensure all contingencies are planned for,.....the most likely as well as the most dangerous to your survival.

Again, great advice and I like the analogy to a "bet". Nope, I'm buying for insurance and I don't go without other things just to ensure I have a little silver. I only started buying small amounts recently after a 20+ year hiatus. Some months I buy 3 or 4 Silver Eagles or Maple Leafs and some months I buy 10 or 12. Again, I would much prefer to leave all my PM's to my grandchildren, rather than to be able to say "I told you so."

Thanks for your comment. I hope others will read it.

Reader Question on the Case for the Coming Collapse

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a reader comment on the post titled The Case for the Coming Collapse,…...."Anonymous said... So what are you suggesting I do? Take out my money from the bank and empty out my 401K and sit on my money at my house? I do not understand what you are trying to get me (us) to do."

UrbanMan replies: The article I drew from was by Dr Craig Roberts and was not meant as a “how to” or “what to do”, although I can see how it is implied that you should do something since the momentum for a collapse is practically unstoppable.

What you do is up to you. A prudent man would listen to a lot of sources, collect information across the board and develop a plan that is feasible for him and his family. Feasible means doable….within your capability.

That plan also needs to be Complete,…considering all possible events and circumstances. From these events and circumstances, that same man and his family could develop a list of Survival Gear, Equipment and Material that would be necessary to support the plan.

Your preparation for the plan and the execution of this plan needs to be Suitable for your goals. This list for procurement and preparation will be long and most certainly will be expensive, therefore the list will need to be prioritized.

The plan also needs to be Acceptable,…..meaning the risks on not doing the plan or the financial risks of executing the preparation plan are acceptable.

Those words,....Complete (covering all major planning areas); Feasible (within the your capabilities); Suitable (meets your needs); and, Acceptable (within accepted risks) are straight out military operational planning when determining possible course of actions to accomplish a given mission.

Now as far as financial planning goes, I am not suggesting you pull out all your money from the banks and sit on it. Think about this….you have $4,000 in cash in your gun safe – worth about $4,000 of goods today and probably tomorrow. If and when hyper-inflation hits that money will loose value. That same $4,000 will then buy less and less. Nor am I suggesting you spend all your money all Survival Gear, Equipment and Material. And I am also not suggesting you trade your paycheck every two weeks for an equal value of gold or silver. What ever you do has to meet those operational requirements for you and your family.

I would however suggest that possible things you can do, is ensure you have a minimum amount of Survival Gear, Equipment and Material which for you may or may not include firearms, equipment, and stored foods; think about keeping some cash on hand for immediate procurement/purchasing needs;....think about having some amount of gold and silver; and, above all keep yourself situational aware of indicators for the coming collapse, be it a over night major event or a gradual slide into a economic depression and chaos. You should have a plan on where to go (that is safe) in the event where you are at is no longer viable for survival.

Good luck to you and remember my first suggestion,...collect information, listen to diverse sources, determine what is valid for you, your family and your plan and get to preparing.

Urban Survival Planning – Too Late to Buy Gold or Silver?

We had a recent conversation with a man in his early 50’s. He is currently working as truck driver and is an Army veteran. He, like us, are concerned with the direction the country is heading, and accordingly to him, has long thought about trying to be prepared for a TSHTF Urban Survival type scenario. His current Survival Preparation is centered around having a few firearms and sufficient ammunition and other Survival Gear and Equipment like Sleeping Bags, Cold Weather Clothing, etc.

Our talk turned to financial planning and inevitably to gold and silver. He thought that it is too late to buy Gold and Silver and also rationalized that commodities will be worth more in a barter type environment that Gold or Silver.

He is wrong on one count and half right on the other.

We cannot envision an environment where it is too late to start buying Gold or Silver. Obviously the idea is to buy it at the lowest possible prices, but today’s high prices may be tomorrow’s low prices. As we write this, Gold closed at $1,118 an ounce, Silver at $16.31 an ounce. A pre-’65 Washington Quarter on Feb 8th, 2010 was worth $2.74 at Silver melt prices and a Morgan Silver Dollar at $11.71 Silver melt prices. On Feb 19th, 2010 those same coins were worth $2.88 and $12.34 respectively.

Now we’re not saying Gold and Silver are going up and will never come down. What we are saying is that you cannot predict the market and you cannot afford to wait until prices are where you want them to buy Gold or Silver. Buy what you can, when you can. If your budget only allows the purchase of a roll of pre-’65 Roosevelt Dimes – well, that’s better that not having any Silver at all.

Our friend was half correct when he said commodities or what we call barter items will be much more valuable in a TSHTF Urban Survival type scenario. We think there will be three phases of “Survival purchasing power” following a catastrophic event that plunges everyone into a Survival mode.

The first phase of Survival purchasing power will be paper cash. It will help to have cash on hand as some people will undoubtedly not accept credit or checks but will believe the situation will come back to normal before too long and these people will seek to profit from the situation by charging exorbitantly. So have some cash on hand. We can’t tell you how much,….maybe a starting point would be $1,000 in $5, $10 and $20 bills.

The second phase of Survival purchasing will Gold or Silver. People who will not take paper cash will most probably take Gold or Silver in exchange for commodities or services. They may not know the closing value of Gold or Silver but nonetheless history shows us that Gold and Silver has long been an acceptable world wide currency.

The third phase of Survival purchasing will be barter based on commodities. We will do a post, in the near future, devoted solely to the acquisition and storage of barter items. Some people may still take Gold and Silver but commodities that cannot be acquired anymore will have an exceptionally high value.

We cannot even begin to estimate the duration of these three phases of Survival purchasing. The cash phase may last one day or it may last 2 weeks. The Gold and Silver phase may last one month, maybe three months or continue forever. So, the bottom line is that it is not too late to buy Gold or Silver, just buy it in amounts you can afford – some is much better than none, and, to be prepared for all phases of Survival purchasing - cash, Gold - Silver and Barter items.

Urban Survival Planning – Financial Survival

Today we are going to talk about another form Survival Planning; Financial Survival. Worthy of much more than a single posting, Financial Survival is important enough to have a dedicated blog. However, in the interests of time and space we are going to just touch on a few basics.

There are several schools of thought regarding finances and financial planning for SHTF scenarios or an economic collapse, the one we subscribe to and promote is based on Austrian economic principles.

We do not buy into the “buy everything on credit because everything is going to collapse anyway” or “buy everything on credit and use your cash to buy survival related supplies” theories. The fallacy with these ways of thinking is very obvious if you just take a step back and look from afar.

Financial Survival Planning is basically insurance. Insurance is to replace something, or to make whole again, in the event of some sort of loss. This is saying IF something bad happens, I’m covered.

Well the word IF implies there is a possibility of something happening. If there was a certainty of something happening, and you knew about it, you would not need insurance; you could move before a fire or flood, get out of town with all your belongings before an earthquake or tornado. You could also do the same financially, you could move all of your financial assets out of a particular instrument before it bottomed out.

If there is a possibility of a financial collapse, there is also the possibility of there not being a financial collapse. Therefore we believe in the theory you should live a principled financial existence; no one can tell the future. If you live a principled life, you’ll be covered on all fronts, whether there is a collapse or not.

So what do we subscribe to you might ask? Live debt free and pay cash for as much as possible; budget your monies every month right down to the dollar; and diversify your holdings between cash in hand and precious metals (PM’s), gold silver and lead!

Now the first step is to get out of debt as fast as you can. Pick up Dave Ramsey’s book Total Money Makeover. IT WORKS! Now if you are already out of debt and want to take some steps to protect the wealth you already have in the event of a financial collapse of some sort, consider some of the following:

Hold PM’s, mainly gold and silver. Why, you might ask, should you hold gold and silver? Gold and silver have historically always been measures of value. From Roman days through today, gold is gold and silver is silver; societies have always placed a high value on both. In the even of an economic collapse or hyperinflation scenario, these precious metals will probably hold their value much more readily than any fiat, paper currency. Additionally, both are recognized world wide as a compact and portable form of wealth. For instance, during World War II, Jews were able to both buy their way out of Nazi occupied areas, as well as take their wealth with them; carrying nothing more than the clothes on their backs and some gold coins in their pockets. Through the coins they snuck out with them, they were able to start a comfortable new life where ever they ended up. We also believe that without a means to protect your assets, you may find yourself without them.

Now other than sneaking out of an area with a lot of your wealth in the form of PM’s on your body, what other scenarios might involve the use of PM’s? Well if there is a collapse of our dollar or our economic system overall, eventually you will have to start bartering with other survivors for goods and services. Dollars might be useful only in the near term, and in the long term probably only as a portable form of fire-starting material, or some other non-bartering task such as toilet paper. How will you trade with others? What will you have to trade with?

Perhaps, canned food for rent or passage; ammunition for a mule or donkey; or something similar along those lines in which someone really wants what you have to trade. Well the problem with the above is, 1) why trade food, ammunition for anything unless you have which will help keep you alive unless you have an over abundant supply of it? 2) Will you be able to carry enough supplies with you in order to both survive as well as enough to trade with? While we believe in having barter items, we are going to discuss them in a later post.

By owning an amount of gold and silver, you give yourself countless opportunities and possibilities that others who do not own any will never have. You have a form of insurance in case things go really bad in your own lifetime. However, since none of us can tell the future, say you buy PM’s and no collapse or hyper inflation event does happens, what do you do with your PM’s? Well you could either sell them, and probably be able to buy the same items with the money you receive as you could have bought with the amount of the money you paid for the PM’s, or you could always pass them on to your children or grandchildren without anyone knowing about the transaction. You have a means to transfer wealth anonymously to anyone you may wish.

Now lets say you are still with us, and you want to start looking for places to purchase some gold & silver coins to hold IN YOUR HOME (Not in a safety deposit box in a bank as the boxes & their contents are not in your physical control and may be seized by the banks). Where can you actually buy some from and how much should you hold? The how much part is totally dependant on your finances. Again, get out of debt first, build your survival preps to an acceptable level, then start accumulating your PM’s. As a guide $1,000.00 face value of pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and half-dollars per person of your group is a place to start. We also think you would be wise to have cash on hand, maybe another $1,000 as this currency is light enough to carry and would probably be of use, especially in the early days, maybe weeks, of an emergency, albeit at inflated rates.

As for the where to buy gold and silver part of the question, the following are a list of companies we have purchased from; we do not have any financial interest in the companies nor the sales of their products to you. We have just used these companies ourselves with nothing but outstanding service and quality products.

http://golddealer.com/
http://www.apmex.com/
http://bullion.nwtmint.com/


We hope you will consider this type of survival insurance for you own family. A lot of people tend to go overboard on a particular aspect of survival preparations and completely neglect other equally important aspects. We feel PM’s play a part in any survival plan. Do your own homework and decide if they play a part in your preparations.