Its just real nice to go to your storage place, wherever that may be, and look at your physical gold and silver! All that beauty and wealth, and it’s all yours, with no strings attached, nothing owed on it, no deeds, titles, mortgages, or other encumbrances. Just pure beauty, and historic wealth. Nothing beats it!
When comparing precious metals stocks to physical ownership, I’ll take physical anytime. Why? Because a stocks’ profits or increases are dependent on so many things. First of all is management. I once had a few metals stocks, and when it was discovered that all the so-called ore yet to be mined was a fiction, and that the president of the outfit was lying through his teeth, I got out. “Ore reserves” are like a crystal ball, since they are dependent on core drills, which are half dollar size drills which are sunk into the ground. If they come up with some ore on them, predicting the size of the ore body is impossible, other than by sheer lies and public relations nonsense. Getting that ore out of the ground, even if it is there, is a very, very expensive undertaking, involving elevators and huge amounts of machinery, air compressors, running utility and water lines to the site, track, ore cars, explosives, drills, locomotives or expensive rubber tired vehicles, insurance, etc.
Mining ore, and producing physical gold bars and coins, are a million miles apart. After the ore is mined and brought to the surface, (most mines are deep underground), the ore must be milled, which means separating the gold and silver from the rock. Milling is a very expensive process and requires mills with huge rotating balls, heavy steel rollers, large amounts of chemicals, separators, foamers, and machinery that would blow your mind. The ore must be first ground into face powder consistency, then treated with centrifuges, chemicals, etc. After milling, what is left is “sponge,” which must then be smelted to make it pure and useable. Unfortunately, thanks to the EPA, no more smelters are allowed in America, so the milled ore must be sent overseas for smelting, and returned. Very expensive! For coins, “blanks” must be produced first, and then the coins must be stamped with expensive dies. Bars must be cast, stamped and polished.
Then there are the unions, machinery, disposal of the mill tailings, which are huge piles of power like rock. Disposal of used chemicals, mine safety and inspections by bureaucrats, excavation, exploration, capital raising (stock selling), and of course approval and licensing by a whole string of bureaucrats and agencies. And that is why, as far as I know, there but two large gold and silver mining operations in America, which are ’grandfathered in,’ they have been there so long. One in Colorado, and one in Nevada. Others may exist in microcosm, but it is doubtful that a profit is made other than from hoopla, stock promotions, and outright lies. When I had three hotels in Silverton Colorado, during the mining boom of the 1970’s, we used to say that the only mining being done was of the investors. I’ll never forget the “Buffalo Boy” and “Buffalo Girl.” She was an ex TV star who had left her husband, and he had left his wife. They had bought the “Buffalo Boy” mine, and were going to make a killing. Not a red cent was ever made, and the “Buffalo Boy” remains are with us today, high in the Rockies, and worthless. I have often wondered what happened to the Buffalo Boy and Buffalo Girl, those close to 40 years ago.
When you buy physical, all the nonsense, expenses, licenses, lies, bureaucrats, milling, smelting, stamping, machinery, exploration, capital raising, and the like are not there. What you are investing in is the finished product, in all its beauty, free from everything but your dollar investment, and from us a very small commission, which even includes shipping to you by registered, insured mail. Risk buying stocks? Not me. I’d rather just have the finished product. Buying mine stocks is buying a wheat farm stock in hopes of getting bread, a dairy farm stock to get ice cream. or a forest stock to get writing paper. What the forest produces is paper to make paper money and paper stocks. The money has the “value” of the ’full faith and credit of the U.S. Government’, and the stock of the ’full faith, credit, promises, ability, capital, machinery, ore, hoopla, public relations, and honesty, of the “Jim Dandy Precious Metals Exploration and Production” stock, which may be as honest as the paper money produced by the D.C. Gang. You decide, but protect yourself.