How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It - James Wesley Rawles [104]
The quick way to gauge the value of a $1,000 bag versus the spot price of silver on any given day is simply to multiply the spot price by 715. Thus, at a spot silver price of $13.85 per ounce, a $1,000 bag of dimes is worth $9,902.75 (or just think of it as 9.9 times face value).
2. Your second portion of silver should be your designated investment-silver stockpile. The best way to buy this—with the lowest dealer premium per ounce—is serial-number-stamped one-hundred-ounce bars from a well-known maker such as Engelhard, A-Mark, or Johnson Matthey. The big, one-thousand-ounce industrial bars almost always require assay for resale, which is expensive and time-consuming—not to mention that they are a pain to transport.
This stockpile is designed as a time machine to protect your wealth from one side of a currency crisis to the other. You buy it in current-day dollars. After a currency collapse has come and gone, when a new, stable currency (hopefully backed by something other than hot air) is issued, then you can convert part or all of your investment-silver stockpile into the new currency. Odds are that most if not all of your original purchasing power will be preserved by this method. Leaving your money in dollar-denominated investments—and I mean any dollar-denominated investments—for the next thirty years will be disastrous. This is because the currency unit itself represents the biggest risk. In the long run, as with all other unbacked fiat currencies, the U.S. dollar will end up like the Zimbabwean dollar—inflated away to nothing.
Silver dollars—even those in poor condition—sell for about 20 to 30 percent more than the equivalent in silver dimes or quarters, both because of their slightly higher silver content (per dollar) and because even cruddy-looking silver dollars still have some numismatic value. So for barter you are probably better off with dimes and quarters. However, it is noteworthy that U.S. silver dollars will be even more recognizable and trusted than the smaller-denomination coins, so if you presently own any silver dollars, save those for transactions with your most reluctant barter customers.
Firearms Magazines
Other than silver and productive rural land that could be used as a survival retreat, my personal favorite tangible investment is full-capacity magazines. I’m talking about the kind that hold cartridges for firearms—not Architectural Digest magazine. Not only will these shelter you from further declines in the dollar, but they are also likely to zoom up in price if and when another federal magazine ban is enacted. During the last federal ban, which ran for ten years before thankfully expiring (due to a “sunset clause” in 2004), the price of a Glock pistol magazine jumped from fifteen dollars to seventy-five dollars. Even relative “commodity” magazines like U.S. Government Issue alloy M16 magazines doubled or tripled in value. Magazines would also, of course, be very desirable barter items WTSHTF. I expect that if and when a new federal ban is enacted it will have no sunset clause. Thus, it will have the same effect as the civilian transferable machine-gun freeze enacted in 1986. With no end to that ban in sight, prices have skyrocketed.
Keep in mind that several states and localities have enacted high-capacity-magazine bans, so research your laws before purchasing.
My guidance on full-capacity-magazine purchasing is:
1. Buy only magazines that are either original military contract or from original factory makers (no aftermarket junk). Beware of marketing terms such as “GI Type” and “top quality.” If it isn’t original, then don’t buy it, or you will be buying grief. Not only will it have poor feeding reliability, but it will also have only marginal resale value.
2. Initially, buy extra magazines for the guns that you already own.
3. Next, buy extra magazines for the guns that you definitely plan to buy. If a ban is enacted, then all semiautos may end up like