Recently instead of saving money I have been investing it into silver. The reason I’ve been investing 10% of my income into precious metals rather than saving it in the bank is because of inflation. Pre 1964 all us dimes and quarters were minted onto a 90% silver planchette, meaning not only did they have their face value, but they held intrinsic value as their precious metals content equaled it’s face value (a quarter contained 25 cents worth of silver, a dime contained 10 cents worth of silver etc) at that time 25 cents could buy you a gallon of gas, fast forward to today and our money (us fed money) has lost 98% of its purchasing power, meaning a gallon of gas today would cost you around $2.50, however till this day a pre 1964 quarter can buy you a gallon of gas not because of its face value of 25 cents but because of the intrinsic value of the 90% silver content. Therefore I’ve been investing 10% of my income into precious metals because I do not know how I am going to invest it for capital gain at the moment and the longer I wait the more my money loses value if I’m saving via paper currency due to inflation. Now I choose silver of all the precious metals for two reasons, 1. It’s affordable 2. Unlike gold, silver is an industrial metal, specifically in renewable energy (all solar panels contain silver) which is were our world is heading to, so in my opinion, silver will be used at such a high rate that it in time will no longer be affordable or available. What are your guys thoughts am I crazy for not having faith in Uncle Sam? Do you think small junk silver is the better investment for liquidity purposes or kg’s for the lower premiums?

Investing for "intrinsic value" is to misunderstand economics at a pretty fundamental level.

Investing because the demand for a metal is expected to rise may be a good idea if youve done your homework.

Trusting uncle sam doesnt factor into the equation.

In my opinion money should only be invested into tangible assets that holds both a face value and intrinsic value (such as real estate and precious metals) where as investing into stocks and bonds and etfs / mutual funds etc only hold a face value, meaning the only thing holding its value is our faith that it it’s worth what we say it is, not what it actually is. I’m curious why you would advise against investing into something for its intrinsic value? What in your opinion would be a smart asset to invest in

Nothing has intrinsic value unfortunately.

Stocks are ownership of a company with assets and income, not just a piece of paper.

Id advise against investing in something with intrinsic value because nothing has intrinsic value. A lake of gold in the desert sand is less than a cool fresh spring, and to one list sheep a shepherd boy is greater than the richest king.

Smartest thing to invest in is a low cost index fund.

How does land and gold not hold intrinsic value? It was on earth before humans, and will be here long after. The stronger the dollar gets, the cheaper gold and land gets, and vise versa. If the US wasn’t a trillion of dollars in debt and our dollar hadn’t lost 98% of its purchasing power I would maybe have more faith in fiat money and would invest it in other ways. However every year our dollar loses more and more value due to more and more being printed and put into circulation. So I feel the best way for me to store my money is by investing it into silver. And I say investing rather that converting because silver is still roughly %80 undervalued .

I have been looking into precious metal extraction and refinement and I agree that these kinds of elements and alloys always hold their "value" if in pure form (99+ purity) because their application potential with never change

After that it's simply supply and demand and I would imagine working with basic commodities would be less headache and less prone to virtual adjustments to the overall price

On the flip side I know absolutely nothing about investing because I have never had a successful investment or even invested


My interest is in the chemistry and at a small scale I would most certainly lose money acquiring the desired base metals, none the less it could be profitable at larger scale (and correct chemistry) due to our "throw away society"

Land and gold do not have intrinsic value because nothing has intrinsic economic value. It's only ever worth what somebody else will pay for it, and that's subject to the other people's opinion of the value of your item. In a world where food is short gold is worthless. In a world where somebody invents a cheap alternative to gold wiring used in electronics gold loses a lot of value.

Inflation is not some accident that the government lets go uncontrolled either by incompetent or for nefarious reasons. It's there by design to encourage investment over saving.

If you have reasons, I mean good reasons, to invest in metals then by all means, do so. However, look at the number of people who have been looking at investing in metals and really reflect on if you see something others don't. You aren't looking at obscure investments getting ready for a big break, you're looking at what is likely the most commonly advertised alternative to stocks (silver and gold). That alone would be enough to shake my confidence, honestly.

History shows that a low cost index fund is the safest way to maximize returns on investment.



Lots of companies work to recover metals from things like circuit boards. It's usually not economical to scale. For the really expensive metals like platinum and rhodium it's worth it, but for the more common precious metals unfortunately it's cheaper to just mine more of it.

Only so much Gold and Silver, and land on the planet.

Smart investment in my opinion. When the dollar goes under completely you'll thank yourself for investing in precious metals.

I guess it's good idea if shit hits the fan. But in anarchy scenario I think its more probable you get killed than you succesfully use your universal currency xD

I think you should start stocking dried peas and get yourself a well in a remote area

Ever since I started investing into silver I’ve been looking into reasons not too. As Kevin O’Leary says “If everyone’s telling you to buy something, you should probably be selling it” and while there are pros and cons to it like anything else, I found I have a passion for collecting bullion silver and I plan on accumulating it over my lifetime and pass it down my heirs. But I still don’t agree with “nothing” holds intrinsic value, I’m not basing it of what will occur in my lifetime, I’m basing it of the availability in my heirs lifetime due to it being an industrial metal, and our earth leaning towards renewable energy, I do believe there will be less silver available in their lifetime and the silver:gold ratio will be far closer than it is today. Thus in 75-100+ years from now what will have been my physical savings account, could potentially be an investment for the heirs inheriting it.