Years ago (1980) when the Hunt brothers were driving up the price of silver I had a heyday selling all the silver I owned and buying things I felt I needed at the time, camping equipment, a canoe, fishing equipment, a thirty pound thrust electric trolling motor, a bike, two rifles and a shotgun,---- and, a very pretty dress for wifie------Have you ever been put in your place? Wow, bad move on my part. Wifie wanted to spend half-- a pretty dress didn't hack it, I was informed that I bought the dress only because I wanted to see her in it-- which was--kinda true, actually I preferred her in somethi------ but uh,-- is that a bad thing, seeing my bride in a pretty dress?
However, since I was spending, she wanted her share. The old stanza "what's mine is mine, what's yours is ours" didn't work. So I gave her half---she promptly spent it all on the kids----typical woman!
I was feeling a bit selfish and attempted to explain; Dearie, I said-- my reasons for buying everything I bought was for the “family,” so we could go camping-- my explanation was met with a cold stare--- had to think faster-- I quickly called my boss, took a week off "citing family problems" and we left for the lake!
Whew, sometimes you just gotta think fast. I pondered what my fast thinking had accomplished as I sit on the shore of Hidden Lake tending our baby, while Jo and the older kids paddled by in my-- our-- canoe, going around and around the little lake.
JoAnn and the older kids had a great time, the kids still talk about that camping trip, after all this time I'm finally able to manage a forced smile! Oh the fish I coulda caught---- the pain---
I started this missive with silver. How “I” got that silver.-- Some of it, as coin of the realm!-- JoAnn liked to have a couple of rolls of quarters to reward the kids for jobs well done. Several years before the camping trip (Jo always called it the spending fling) while on a yard sale-ing junket with my Mother and aunt, Jo figured she must have got the silver when she had stopped into a bank in a mall and bought three rolls of quarters, that she later placed in a metal can she kept in her drawer. She had bought the quarters to throw onto the lawn for our annual family Easter egg hunt we had for the kids. But it had rained and the hunt was called off. There were also several rolls of quarters in her can that she had rolled up from our coin bottle, the bottle we threw our change into when we come home from work or shopping. When she started handing out coins from one of those silver rolls, I “noticed” immediately that the kids were being given real silver coins, so I checked all the rolls in her can and found three rolls were all silver, every coin! I made a quick trip to our credit union, bought three more rolls of quarters and “slyly” replaced the silver coins with the funny money., then I traded the kids, two funny money shiny new coins for their dirty old silver coins.
It was a total of six silver coins, and what the heck, they weren’t going to save them, quarters were meant for spending!---- but,--- when the kids got older Jo spilled the beans, and, I haven’t heard the end of it since! The grief I have been forced to endure because of a buck fifty--- no man should ----
So last Christmas I give all my kids, of course now adults, a shiny silver dollar, each in great condition, and all over one hundred years old.--- I was promptly accused of attempting to “buy” them off! It wouldn’t work I was told, the stories, by this time heavily embellished in my opinion, would continue!--- And they have.--Dang brats!
I had collected several hundred dollars (face value) of silver coins in my drawer, much of it I had found with my Whites metal detector, silver coins, gold rings, jewelry of different types. But through the years after they quit stamping coins out of silver, I had managed to collect a lot of silver in coins. When the silver price went up past $50 dollars an ounce and gold well over $350 dollars, I decided to sell. Only those six silver coins had cost us anything more then face value, A lot we got free, if you don’t count the cost of the metal detector. Almost all of the gold we had, I found with the metal detector.
Really, It was a fun shopping trip for Jo years ago, and Jo later admitted that all the fun camping trips had been worth it also. Do I wish I had all that silver back, no! What we did with it was worth every penny of it. I did feel a tiny bit bad for the people who bought it from us, just a bit, for a few seconds! The price dropped way back down where it was a few days after I sold it. But hey, they took their chances just like I did. Sometime ago I bought 10,000 shares of a gold mine at .39 cents a share, today it’s worth 13 cents, and I could have sold at .95 cents, but I didn’t!
The thing is, years ago, had I taken all that silver to the bank, all I would have received is face value. That’s why Jo was given rolls of silver quarters, they didn’t care. When you try to pay your house payment with gold coins, are the PTB’s going to give you credit for what gold is worth as sold by the ounce, or are you going to get just face value, $20 bucks for a twenty dollar gold piece, the same you’d get with a twenty dollar bill? And if they won’t give you what you think is gold value, who will? And, if everything has gone to hell, how are you even going to make a payment with your gold, mail it in?
Hunt, a conservative friend?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Bunker_Hunt
Bob
