The following, is what happens if instead of saving your surplus wealth in dollars, you save in gold and silver. Two purchases, five years apart, are what $100,000 would have bought in gold and silver, five and ten years ago. Gold and silver prices now, in the middle of February 2026, are what they would be worth, after the two $100,000 purchases of five and ten years ago. I use $100,000 for comparisons, but the same thing would happen if purchases were $10,000 instead of $100,000.
The prices of gold and silver now, as well as ten and five years ago, are the ‘spot’ prices, not the prices of coins and bars. “Spot prices,” are the price per ounce the miners get when they remove the ore from the mine. The raw ore must then be milled, smelted, manufactured, transported, distributed, etc. For a one ounce silver coin, Colorado Gold’s price, is about $2 over spot, and a gold Maple Leaf, one ounce coin, is about $5 over spot. The mentioned prices in this column, are for ‘spot,’ not coin or bar prices. We charge a 1% commission, or half that, for an order of $50,000 or more, which includes delivery to you. For an order of less than 200 ounces of silver, or 7 ounces of gold, there is a $25 ‘small order charge.’ That being said, let’s see what $100,000 would have purchased ten and five years ago, taken from our web site ‘coloradogold.com,’ and clicking on ‘Technical Charts.’
What follows might be a 50 year old, who’s been thinking of retirement in a few years, but he knows he can’t survive on Social Security, and the possibility of his company’s retirement plan might not work either. So, at age 50, he called Colorado Gold and spent $100,000. Five years later, it looked pretty good, so he spent another $100,000, put it in his safe with the other purchase, and forgot all about it. They just sat there. No payments to make, no reporting, or maintenance of any kind. Now, at age 67, he’s going to retire, and he remembered the two purchases he made years ago, which still are still sitting there in his safe. Here’s what he found:
Ten years ago, $100,000, he bought 88.8 ounces of gold, or 8369 ounces of silver.
Five years later, $100,000, he bought 61.6 ounces of gold, or 5618 ounces of silver.
The total of these two purchases, five and ten years ago, would be 150.4 ounces of gold, or 13,987 ounces of silver.
Today, as I write this, the dollar prices of the two purchases, using $5,100 an ounce for gold, and $85 an ounce for silver, would be $767.040 for gold, and $1,188,895 for silver. This is today’s prices for two, $100,000 purchases, a few years ago! Obviously, this doesn’t have to be for retirement. At any age, imagine what a $100,000 purchase would be worth in dollars, many years from now.
Nowhere in history, has any un-backed paper money, which is all of them, including the dollar, failed to reach zero in purchasing power and worthlessness. In the last hundred years, the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power. As the dollar has lost value and purchasing power, the dollar prices of gold and silver, have gone from $1.25 an ounce, to $85, and gold has gone from $20.67 to $5,100 per ounce. All other items purchased with dollars, such as tires, lumber, food, clothes, etc., have also gone up in dollar prices, which is known as inflation. Gold and silver dollar prices have kept up with inflation, and no other insurance policy has done that. Owners of gold and silver, are ‘hedged’ against inflation.
Silver has done a lot better than gold, but silver has two disadvantages. (1) It requires a lot of storage space. (2) If you sell, the shipping costs are more expensive than for gold. Otherwise, they’re both superb, and we deliver them to you for 1% over our cost.
FDR began the welfare state, which has caused the progressive 95% decline of the dollar. Since no nation has ever stopped its currency’s decline to ultimate zero and worthlessness, it’s a virtual impossibility to ever stop the dollar’s decline, so you must save surplus assets, in something other than in declining value dollars, or dollar denominated investments, such as stocks, bonds, IRA’s and the like. When you deal with us, your name, address and phone number, are all we want for delivery. Nothing else, and no one will know you have it. Saving in dollars, is virtually the same as storing water in a leaky bucket. Gold and silver have been real money in all nations, since Biblical times. Saving in dollars is the leaky bucket syndrome.
My three kids are in three various sections of America, but their pictures, phone numbers and whether they’re open or not, depending on their location, are on the web site, along with lots of my previous columns, details as to purchase as well as current prices of all varieties of gold and silver.
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com