Everyone wants to be rich! There are thousands of web sites, advertisements, and other come-ons by con artists, who for a fee, (of course), will divulge to you the means they used to corner the market on stuff, open a sure fire business, work from home and take it easy as the moola flows in, etc. The best one I can think of lately, is to get a few thousand blank, quarter size, coins, get a neat slogan and name, then go to Google and click on ‘how coins are made,’ and there are lots of outfits who will press them out for you. Claim that like Bitcoin, you can tell the fools who will fall for anything stupid, and there are plenty around as Bitcoin proves, that your coin is free from government surveillance, and get in now at $5 each, because they’ll soon to go several thousand bucks, and you can retire. Wow!
Less than ten years ago, a lucky entrepreneur, decided to make a coin that would be small, (bit) and declare that you can now be free of government nosing around your finances. As I remember, they went for $5 or similar. Then it caught on and went to well over $19,000, if you can believe a small piece of worthless metal went for close to $20,000, and now at half that, if also you can believe it. There’s even a futures contract for Bitcoin. You can buy, I have heard anyway, a dollar’s worth of Bitcoin, and like stocks, one never even get the physical coin. Just a computer entry and a code number so you can access your account. If you forget your account number, there is no way to ever access your account, and just forget your investment. It has happened already, many times!
Cryptic is the word, meaning hidden. There are quite a few who have copied Bitcoin with their own frauds, and you can find them on the internet. Isn’t that great? May I ask please, what is a ‘Bitcoin?’ It’s a small coin that is kind of pretty, and it is a fad which has caught on like hoola hoops and pet rocks maybe. Perhaps Cabbage Patch dolls? What can you buy with a $10,000 Bitcoin? Nothing. Is it made of valuable materials such as gold, palladium, platinum, or silver? Nope. Is Bitcoin a historic, valuable item? No, it’s less than ten years old. Can someone create an exact die and produce Bitcoins in their garage? Of course. Will it crash like the Edsel? Who knows? History is rife with crashes of fad-of-the-minute items which became instant successes, and soon it was discovered that they had nothing to offer, other than pie in the sky.
Let’s talk about non-cryptic things which have had true value for a hundred years or more, and things that can be enjoyed, collected, lived in, driven, used, and owned with no surveilance. My wife and I live in an 1887 brick Victorian home, filled with lots of valuable antiques and surrounded by hundred year old trees. We live in it and enjoy it immensely. Paid $150,000 for it 26 years ago, and now I have no idea of what it would sell for, but a local real estate broker frantically wants it for himself for half million, and it isn’t for sale. It becomes more valuable each year. Stocks, which represent a teensy portion of a huge corporation, mostly produce dividends as a reward for your investment. Antiques of all kinds, from stamps, cars, trucks, furniture, books, photos, and art works, give huge satisfaction and pleasure. Watch “Antiques Roadshow” every Monday evening on PBS, if you want to see what these items are worth. “Wow,” is invariably the first word spoken by the owner of the item after they have had it appraised on the show. My 76 year old truck sold for $400 new, I gave $235 for it 46 years ago, spent $2,000 and a lot of enjoyable work son David and I did restoring it then, and now I have a standing offer from a local of $26,000, if I ever want to sell it, and I don’t. Fun to drive and haul stuff! It is a tangible item; like all antiques, which have value in themselves, and are not a balloon which can pop at any time, leaving the owner impecunious, and outraged or disappointed.
Signatures of deceased, famous people, will increase in value, the older they become. Old stock certificates, metal Lionel electric trains, baseballs with Babe Ruth’s signature on them, and beautiful antique clocks, are simply wonderful. 18 years ago, I gave a man $20 for an 1898 dollar bill with not only George Washington’s picture on it, but also Martha Washington’s. It’s worth in the hundreds now I am certain. Guns, new or old, will protect you and hold their value. New guns will become more valuable as they age. I won a Colt 45, 40 years ago, and it has never been fired and it’s in the original box. I got it free, but had I bought it, it would have done well, I am sure. Even old video games are bringing in a hefty price, and they give pleasure and are not nocturnal airline (fly-by-night) things. My first TV set in 1948, a 7” screen Halicrafters, would be worth a lot today, had I kept it, which I didn’t.
When I was in high school, the wood shop and machine shop boys used to take delight in sending a new student out for a ‘plywood stretcher,’ a ‘left handed pipe wrench,’ or a ‘bag of compressed air.’ Sound funny? It was then, and Bitcoin is equally funny today, in my opinion anyway, for what that’s worth. I am continually amazed at the gullibility of the general, non-reading, non-thinking, non logical public. As Rex Harrison said in “My Fair Lady,” “Why is thinking never even tried? Straightening up their hair is all they ever do. Why don’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?” As I have said over and over again, and I am certain you are tired of hearing it, gold and silver are true, historic money, redeemable in any currency, in any land on earth. Their value is not only in their beauty, but because they require hefty amounts of exploration, mining, milling, smelting, refining, and manufacturing, before they can be turned into coins, bars, and jewelry. The prices of gold and silver, are reflected in their cost to produce, transport and distribute, as is true in all new or old tangible items, whereas the price of a Bitcoin or similar frauds, is virtually zero, or a few cents at most. If a corporation needs money, they can print and sell more stocks, which decreases the price of each extant stock, but no one has been able to originate an antique dresser or car. Duplications aren’t valuable. No one has yet been able to make gold and silver prices sell below their cost to produce, transport and distribute. Colorado Gold distributes them to our customers for 1% over our cost, and shipping them is included. True, governments don’t know who has the Bitcoins, but they don’t know who has the rest of the above mentioned items either, and a computer entry saying I own a fraction of a mythic Bitcoin, simply doesn’t give satisfaction or security. – Don Stott – 1-888-786-8822