Hoarding Silver In 1964 Was An Awesome Investment...kinda

13,017.2%
1.84^8=131.3840315232157696

About a year ago, Chipotle's had gone from $35-140. It's now $350.

Captain Kurt, you have one glaring error, by my reckoning. You couold not buy $1000 worth of silver coins ten years ago for $1000. The $1000 worth of quarters in the box would have been clad ones. That would be worth somewhat less than $1000 today in real terms. A very poor investment. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

Indeed. GM has been an especially egregious example of corporate incompetence. For years and years GM caved in to almost every demand that the auto workers made. Not saying that some of them were not justified but both the company and the unions forgot that car BUYERS are the ones who decide how much their cars are worth, not the company and not the unions. When GM cut corners to make their cars cheaper, LOTS of buyers fled to other brands. A 1981 Pontiac station wagon was the most expensive car I ever owned. It was truly something. After all was said and done with it, I would have been better off buying a new luxury car of some kind rather than that 2 year old Pontiac. Anyway, that soured me on GM products and it was almost 20 years before I bought another one. It's a 1999 El Dorado and it is a very nice car.

As to company stock, it ALL depends on the company. The company where I worked had a nice 401K plan and we could choose a 3% match in cash OR a 6% match in company stock. We only had to hold the stock for 9 months before we could sell it, so I took the bigger match. Our stock was also cyclical, moving in price between about $20 and $40 a share. By picking the times to buy additional shares in my own investing account and selling my company match shares, I did real well with it. The company was strong financially, so I thought this worth the risk. With a weaker company, I might have gone with the 3% cash match.

The same, former McTaco's.

I like so many toppings, they usually need a second flapjack to close it.

More expensive than Toxic Bell, and worth every cent.

I think he meant $1000 face for $3,616.80

SilverEye... your statements are true a lot of the time but there are other times when they are not. Example: anyone who bought gold 11 years ago has gained over 500% on their investment since then. Yes, they have to sell in order to realize the gains but they are there, ready to be harvested. None of the stock averages came anywhere near that, although a few individual stocks did really well too.

As to volatility, PMs have plenty of that too. Gold prices over the last 3-4 months have been at least as volatile as the US stock market, if not more so.

Personally, I never see PMs vs. stocks as an either / or question. For me, both are part of a well-diversified portfolio. I also like other asset classes, such as real estate, commodities other than PMs, and some utilities.

Ed_B - What I am talking about is wealth preservation. As in, work an hour today and do your best to make sure the value of that work is preserved across time, not making nor losing value. If you buy silver/gold with your paycheck today, it will buy your roughly the same number of meals now as fifty years from now, or the same amount of housing, or clothing or etc. as it does now. See the Big Mac Index for what I mean. Short term it will vary. Long term it equals out.

As I tried to explain to my wife, imagine if one of your great grandmothers 100 years ago set aside a stack of 10 silver dimes for you so you could buy 10 loaves of bread when you needed them as a young mother. And another great grandmother put aside one dollar bill into a cookie jar. That dollar bill would be worth one dollar and get you half a loaf of bread, but that stack of silver dines you could sell and still buy ten loaves of bread.

Don't dump all your money into precious metals, but do buy some.

Yes, I am aware of that and also what it means. My comment was directed at the fact that there are times when wealth is not merely preserved via PMs but expanded. I believe that we are now living in one of those times and have been since about year 2000. Last year, gold was up about 15%. This is better than inflation, so anyone who bought gold at the beginning of year 2011 didn't just preserve their wealth but actually gained some wealth. Hopefully, this trend will continue for a time.