bullion
The Famous Bullion Coin Made of Precious Metal
There are 33 well-known bullions produced from all over the world, but the Krugerrand seems to be the most popular of all. It all started when the South African Mint Company produced the Krugerrand to make it as currency and circulated it all over the country. At that time, the coin has a legal tender status and due to that South Africa decided to market it to global audience. After 13 years of being traded on the global platform, the coin managed to dominate 90% of the global market for gold coins.
The Krugerrand can be found in 4 different versions:
1. Smallest one weighs 0.11 troy ounce, is 1.35 mm thick and has a diameter of 16.55 mm.
2. Second smallest weighs 0.27 troy ounce, is 1.89 mm thick and has a diameter of 22.06 mm.
3. ½ ounce Krugerrand weighs 0.55 troy ounce, is 2.22 mm thick and has a diameter of 27.07 mm.
4. Biggest one weighs 1.09 troy ounce, is 2.84 thick and has a diameter of 32.77 mm.
All four Krugerrand versions of coins are made to be 22K. They contain approximately 91% of pure gold and 8% of copper. The addition of copper is necessary to ensure that the coins are not too soft in order to resist rigorous handling and effects of wear and tear. After all, these coins are meant for circulation, so they must be very sturdy.
At the front piece of the Krugerrand coin the display is the image of Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, the 5th South African Republic’s president. When observed closer it can be seen that Kruger’s surname and the currency of South Africa, Rand, were combined in order to come up with the name of the coin that is still used until today. The English and Afrikaans terms for ‘South Africa’ were also found on display with both of them printed in capital letters.
At the back side of the Krugerrand coin a springbok image is to be found. Springbok is the national symbol of South Africa. Above the image, the print of the coin’s name can be found in capital letters. Below it, the actual gold content of the coin is being mentioned both in English and Afrikaans. There are some samples of the Krugerrand coins whereby these limited editions are also offered for sale to interested collectors. Due to their limited production, these coins are way more expensive than the regular bullion coins. These two coins are distinguishable by looking at their serrations whereby the samples have 220 and the bullions have forty serrations less than the sample versions.
Since 1979, a number of countries especially the United States, Australia and Canada were seen to produce bullion coins of their own. One of the reasons why these countries decided to produce their own bullions is because they were most probably become inspired by the production of Krugerrand coins.
Buy Silver Bullion New Zealand
From the time of the share buying rage of the 1920’s, seeking financial security has been top priority for most Americans. Even though we have come a long way since then, investing can still be daunting if you don’t know what to invest, or how to make it pay in the future. So why not buy silver bullion as a good investment alternative? Purchasing silver is a trend that is on the rise! Millions of American Silver Eagle coins are bought every year as investments and with silver coins having a high legal tender value, it is easy to see why. Having silver on hand is a sure asset against hard economic times.
Buying Silver bullion is an investment that pretty much anyone can afford because you can purchase by the ounce. The first thing to do is to find the “spot price” (going rate) of silver and buy as near to that as possible. The most opportune time to buy silver bullion is on “the dip”; this is when the price for silver drops low. The easiest and fastest way to buy silver bullion is through a silver dealer. This cuts shipping prices and waiting for product arrival. The downside of this is that there is limited inventory to view and you are less likely to obtain brand new coins.
The main thing to decide is whether you want to buy silver bullion to resell, or keep as a collector’s item. If you’re buying to resell, you must be aware of who will purchase at a higher premium (premium is a percentage less than the spot price) than what you bought the bullion for. Major mints like Johnson Matthey or Engelhard, and even eBay, buy silver bullion at very high premiums. For which ever seller you decide to go with, be careful when you sell; a quick rise in cost can be temporary, and holding out a little longer may bring better sales opportunities in the future.
The best type of silver to purchase is authentic, hand poured bars and rounds. These bring in the highest premiums. Art bars and rounds are a little more difficult to deal with when it comes to sales or purchase negotiations because they require guide books to determine the value. Coins are a good investment as well and, if on hand, can be used as legal tender in place of paper money. If any kind of investment sounds like too big a monetary step to take, but you are still tempted to try your hand, then buy silver bullion; it is your best option.
Cost Of Gold Has A Big Impact
The rise in the price of gold is likely to be part of a general trend in which the bullion is returning to the bull market after the rapid fall in the first half of 201I June, The value of the precious metal fell down to 1200 $ per ounce, a price close to 1000$ per ounce, the actual average production cost of gold.
As the prices get close to this level, gold mining becomes unprofitable and global supply of gold becomes difficult to maintain. The consequences of low gold prices are seen in the gold mining industry of South Africa for instance, which is bracing for strikes expected to start on Tuesday Sept. 3rd. This strike may affect two thirds of gold miners in the number four top gold producer country, giving a boost to the metal’s value.
By the end of 1913, the classical gold standard was at its peak but World War I caused many countries to suspend or abandon it. According to Lawrence Officer the main cause of the gold standard’s failure to resume its previous position after World War 1 was “the Bank of England’s precarious liquidity position and the gold-exchange standard.” A run on sterling caused Britain to impose exchange controls that fatally weakened the standard; convertibility was not legally suspended, but gold prices no longer played the role that they did before. In financing the war and abandoning gold, many of the belligerents suffered drastic inflations. Price levels doubled in the US and Britain, tripled in France and quadrupled in Italy.
Exchange rates change less, even though European inflations were more severe than America’s. This meant that the costs of American goods decreased relative to those in Europe. Between August 1914 and spring of 1915, the dollar value of US exports tripled and its trade surplus exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Because inflation levels varied between states, when they returned to the gold standard at a higher rice that they determined themselves.
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Not If – Inflation Gets Out of Hand
Be honest: will you have enough savings to rely on? What’s your plan?
If price inflation someday takes off – an outcome we honestly see no way around – nobody’s current standard of living can be maintained without an extremely effective plan for keeping up with inflation.
It’s not that people won’t get raises or cost of living adjustments at work, nor that they will all neglect to accumulate savings.
It’s that the value of the dollars those things are in will be losing purchasing power at increasingly rapid rates. It will take more and more currency units to buy the same amount of gas and groceries and tuition. And ice cream.
I’m not talking science fiction here.
When the consequences of runaway debt, out-of-control deficit spending, and money-printing schemes come home to roost, it’s not exactly a stretch to believe that high inflation will result.
We need a way to diffuse the impact this will have on our purchasing power. We need a strategy to protect our standard of living.
How will we accomplish this?
I suspect you know my answer, but here’s a good example. You’ve undoubtedly heard about the drought in the Midwest and how it’s impacted the corn crop. The price of corn has surged 50% in the past two months alone.
Commodity analysts say the price could rise another 20% or more as the drought continues.
While the price of gold constantly fluctuates, you would have experienced, on average, no inflation over the last 30 years if you’d used gold to purchase corn. Actually, right now, it’d be on the cheap side.
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Will NZ Banks Buy Gold?
Gold and Silver Again Above Their 200 Day Moving Averages
Both precious metals continued their rise over the past week although with a much stronger kiwi dollar overnight, local prices are down today on yesterday. Looking at the charts, of note is that both are well above their 200 day moving averages (MA) (the red wiggly line). Silver noticeably for the first time in almost a year.
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The Essential Newbie Guide for Buying Gold & Silver
(1)True gold and silver bulls are NOT permabulls, but many stock bulls are permabulls.
All those that truly understand the gold and silver markets understand that bankers support the global Ponzi fiat currency system by deliberately creating massive volatility in gold and silver paper derivative markets, and thus, the reflected prices in physical markets. Thus, we expect gold and silver to be volatile every year, we expect periods of significant downside volatility due to banker raids in gold and silver futures markets, we expect the bankers’ use of HFT algorithms to deliberately distort prices in gold and silver markets, and we expect various CME regulatory changes designed to force longs to liquidate their positions in futures markets. True gold and silver bulls will never tell their clients to buy gold & silver 24/7, 365 days a year, always attempt to manage volatility every year and never advocate purchases of gold and silver at year highs but do advocate purchases of gold and silver on dips at yearly lows. Just see this article “Fear & Panic are the Banking Cartel’s Weapons V. the Gold & Silver Bull. Patience and Logic are the Best Defense” as an example of how we advocate buying gold and silver assets on huge dips when they happen versus chasing them higher when they go on huge runs.
To the contrary, the global commercial investment industry is perpetually trying to deceive clients with their permabull strategies in terribly performing global stock markets. They will point out the fact that US stock markets have doubled from their lows a few years ago, but simultaneously warn you against ever buying gold and silver stocks because of the huge volatility of this asset class, even though the HUI gold bugs index has nearly tripled from its lows in October 2008 and slaughtered the performance of the S&P 500 when respectively comparing both indexes from their lows in 2008. But no commercial investment advisor will ever tell you this fact, because if daily trading volume picks up in the mining shares, manipulating their share prices becomes much more difficult a task for the bullion banks. Thus, their strategy is to keep people out of the mining stocks, even during times when their valuations are ridiculously low, as they were in October of 2008 and as they were in May of this past year.
While it is true, that mining stocks are wildly volatile at times, if you wanted to take the unwise strategy of buy and hold that commercial investment industry advisers always advocate, one would still have been vastly better off invested in the HUI index versus the S&P 500 index over a long “buy and hold” period. From January 1, 2001 to present day, the HUI gold bugs index has returned a nominal, cumulative yield of 917.30%. The S&P 500? Though a laughable 7.44% return over the past 12 years, advisers at commercial investment firms have been, and are still, telling clients that buy and hold is the best strategy for 12 straight years! PM mining stocks sometimes return the entire 12-year yield of the S&P 500 in two days. If you have never invested in gold and silver assets, it would be unwise to start to do so without the guidance of someone that understands the volatility of these assets and that can guide you into purchasing at the low-risk, high-reward price points that develop every year or to do so without taking the time to truly learn how gold & silver markets operate. Learn the truth about the mechanisms that control gold and silver markets, and the risk of volatility can be greatly mitigated and subdued.
Is There a Best Way to Return to a Gold Standard?
Is There a Best Way to Return to a Gold Standard?
By Terry Coxon, Senior Economist
Many of us see hair-curling rates of price inflation not too far down the road. Today inflation is hardly noticeable. But what’s coming will be so painful and so disruptive that soaring prices will become the voting public’s number-one complaint. How will the politicians respond?
They will be responding to an audience for whom the idea of fiat money (even with a picture of a dead president on every bill) has been discredited. The obvious alternative to fiat money will be a return to a gold standard, and it’s hard to imagine what competing proposals might get in the way. In such an environment, being pro-gold will be politically smart. Championing the idea of re-linking the dollar to gold would serve any politician nicely as an I-dare-you-to-disagree challenge to his competitors. And supporting such a proposal would be a convenient way for politicians to distance themselves from the mistakes of the past.
I believe we are going to hear a lot of talk about a return to “the” gold standard. But none of the talkers will be saying much unless he tells you what kind of gold standard he has in mind. There are different ways to link the dollar to gold. Each of them involves an official price for gold at which the government is committed to transact with any and all comers. But there are important differences.
Symmetric bullion standard. The government sets an official dollar price per ounce of gold. Then (i) it pledges to buy an unlimited amount of gold from the public and pay for it in paper dollars, and (ii) it pledges to sell an unlimited amount of gold to the public and accept payment for the metal in paper dollars.
Buy Gold and Silver Bullion Now 