Would you accpet payment in the form of a gold or silver coin ?

I wouldn't for the following reasons:

1. I don't follow the exchange rate of gold

2. I wouldn't know the difference between 14 and 24 carat gold, or if there's any gold in the item at all.

3. I wouldn't know if I could get fair market value for the gold

4. I wouldn't know how to buy low value items with gold, like soap, toothpaste, food and such with two gold coins.

I'm not saying gold isn't a good investment or form of payment, it just isn't right for me.

I would if it was an expensive enough item to make the assay on the coin or ingot worth verifying. In Idaho it's legal now to use silver ingots as payment for any gov fees, etc, and the ingots are valued at that day's rate of currency for the silver. It would have to be bar, ingot, or coin, too - for reasons Dave already mentioned. I believe there's an Eastern state that has legalized payment with metal, too, but don't remember which one. I'm thinking Maryland.

Hell yeah I would.

1) China is buying up TONS of hard assets. Why? Because they're betting against and strategically fighting the USD.

2) There are many "bubbles" in the USA: The housing bubble, the debt bubble, the federal reserve bubble, the education bubble, the inflated value of the $USD.

3) When those bubbles explode in unison, the value of the USD will go down, but that money? It has to go somewhere. Where do you think it's going to go? It's going to go into gold.

4) As a result? The value of hard assets is going to be the safest bet when the USA economy tanks and the $USD is eliminated.

5) My hypothesis is that hard assets are actually a "reverse bubble" (due to impart by the hyperinflated value of the $USD). - The only question is how long will it take to cash out? A smart investor realizes that China is very patient.

6) In the event of a true economic collapse, there will be massive death. Sorry to be a playa hata, but did you know that the quantity of money inflation has been (almost exactly) congruent with the population? Since the USA left the gold standard, two things happened. The first, is that the availability of money MASSIVELY exploded as a result of inflated value. The second thing that happened, is that the population EXPLODED as a result of the availability of inflated money. SO, what do you think will happen to the population when the money bubble pops?

Also, when that happens? There's only one true currency. Brute force.

So, invest in ammunition. (If you even want to live in a world such as that. Me? If I can't play Nintendo, order a cheese steak, and take a hot shower, I'm checking off of this planet).



Summary: Hard assets are your best bet. Or maybe the Chinese are wrong and our federal reserve banking system has your best interests at heart?

-troll hat-

Source: Economics, Game Theory, Discrete Mathematics

With gold/silver coins tht are somewhat well known, ******HECK YEAH******! And I would take some for OVER spot! Precious metal coins generally have border effects that are advertised and frustrate clipping. And raw gold is NOT worth that much. SURE, if you get enough and give it to the right people, you MIGHT be able to get close to spot, *****MAYBE*****! SURE, if you sell it to an assayer you could MAYBE get close to spot. Otherwise, NO WAY!

So HOW do the exchanges do it, etc? THEY DON'T! They have hallmarked bars and ingots that have been pre assayed. THEY, however, are now sometimes tampered with.

COINS are harder to copy, and have special measures to prevent tampering.

BTW the protection methods and appearance are well documented, along with metal content, and they often sell for over spot.

Steve