LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME

Last week, an 1804 Adams-Carter Silver dollar sold at auction for a whopping $2.3 million.  That’s a pretty good amount for  1 ounce of silver worth about $12! There are only 15 such coins known to exist and they’re quite popular.

The buyer was New Jersey dealer John Albanese, who said that the price was “basically a half-million down from last year because of the recession. It was a good opportunity. These don’t come around all the time.” The coin, the finest Class III 1804 dollar outside museums and available to collectors, had been expected to fetch $2 million.

The varieties of 1804 silver dollars are known as Class I, Class II, and Class III. The Class I pieces are sometimes called Originals, although that name is inaccurate, since they were struck in 1834 rather than 1804. The Class II and Class III pieces are sometimes called Restrikes, also an inaccurate name since there were technically no Originals.

Here’s an excellent video starring Peter Schiff.  He predicts that the US Dollar will be the next bubble to burst. As a corrollary, I think gold will be the next bubble. The dollar collapse seems unlikely, you say? Well he did predict the collapse of the housing market 4 years ago and was met with wide-spread ridicule.

Like I’ve been saying for ages, make sure you buy some gold coins.  Silver coins aren’t bad either.

As a follow-up to my previous 2 posts on gold, here’s a news article about the Australian Perth Mint suspending orders for gold bullion until January. Apparently having it’s workers slog 7 days a week isn’t enough to meet demand!

FEARS of the unknown long-term effects from the global financial crisis have sparked a new gold rush.

With retail and wholesale clients around the world stocking up on the precious metal, the Perth Mint has been forced to suspend orders.

As the World Gold Council reported that the dollar demand for gold reached a quarterly record of $US32 billion ($50.73 billion) in the third quarter, industry insiders said the race to secure physical gold had reached an intensity that had never been witnessed before.

Perth Mint sales and marketing director Ron Currie said the unprecedented demand had forced the Mint to cease orders until January, with staff working seven days a week, 24-hour days, over three shifts to meet orders.

Gold and silver are global commodities with spot prices being the same all over the world (assuming you live in an open society). The only differences are the premiums that dealers charge buyers. One of the surprising things has been the large increase in premiums on gold and silver coins. Even though the prices for both metals have dropped from their highs, the cost of buying gold or silver coins hasn’t dropped proportionately. In fact, there’s been reported shortages of these coins by the US Mint and the Australian Perth Mint, not to mention individual retailers. This seems to defy common wisdom; prices drop when demand decreases. Even though spot prices have increased, the demand seems to have increased and thus gold and silver coins aren’t as cheap as they should be.

I’ve been an avid collector of gold and silver coins and have been following the prices for a years.

Gold is supposed to have a negative correlation with the stock market. This year has proved otherwise. Of course, as we’ve seen repeatedly in the past, all asset classes correlate to the downside.

Gold which peaked at $1030/oz earlier this year, has been trading in the $700 range for a few months. There has been a flight to safety, which for most people means buying US Treasuries. Indeed, the flight has been so large that it has pushed the yields down to absurdly low levels. The yield on the 3-month Treasury was almost zero at 0.4% and the 10 year is 3.52%. (The yield on the S&P500 was 3.55% this week, higher than the 10 year Treasuries rate for the first time since 1958).

Last Friday, gold dropped to $680/ounce before rebounding to $740/ounce. Like every other asset, gold has been hammered this year. However, this may be partially due to a strengthening of the dollar. In terms of other currencies, it’s still close to its all time highs.

I think this is a good time to buy some gold if you don’t already own some. (and if you do, then it’s a good time to add more!). People often ask what’s the best way to invest in gold.

I tell them to buy a little bit of everything. Here’s an excerpt of an email I got recently.

“I believe the gold juniors offer the best value for your paper dollar going forward,” says Ed Bugos of the violently beaten-down junior mining sector. The Canadian Venture Index, the bellwether of juniors, is down a nauseating 70% from its 2007 high.

China just released a 10 Kilo Gold Coin to commemorate the 2008 Olympics that are currently being held in Beijing. 10 kilos of .9999 Fine gold is a staggering 321 ounces, more than 22 pounds and its more than a half foot in diameter! Not only is it the largest gold coin, it’s the rarest as well: Only 29 have been struck for the entire world and all have been sold.

This spectacular museum piece is housed in an exotic African Blackwood presentation case, which is crowned with a 35 pound carved stone dragon. The coin is legal tender with a face value of 100,000 Yuan and is Proof struck, which means it has an ultra-high relief, frosted design set against a flawless mirror background.

I recently mentioned that I made $500 dollars last month from online advertising. Rather than use that money to expand or improve my lifestyle (also knows as “buying crap”), I decided to invest it in something that has intrinsic value.

The US Dollar has losing value over the past 2 years. Just today the Dollar index dropped to its lowest recorded value of 77 and I think its going to keep on dropping. Typically precious metals like Gold, Silver and Platinum do well in times of a weak currecny.

Why do I think the Dollar will continue to weaken?
Because the economy sucks and is being manipulated in wierd ways. To quote someone quoting the late Dr. Richebacher, a smart and wealthy economist,

In part as a marketing exercise, The Royal Canadian Mint has produced a $1 million face value coin containing 100kg of .99999 pure gold.

With gold currently trading at $660 per ounce and each kilogram containing 31.1 ounces, the actual cost of the gold in the coin is worth just over $2.5 million USD!

It seems to be part of a marketing exercise to promote its .99999 pure gold Maple Leaf bullion coin. Current Maple Leaf gold coins are .9999 pure. In contrast, South African Krugerrands, while containing a full ounce of fine gold, are only .9167 percent pure with the balance made up with copper, so they actually weigh more than an ounce.

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As most of you know, I’ve been buying a lot of Gold and Silver coins on Ebay. I recently won a bid for a British half-sovereign. Don’t know why, but I didn’t realize that it was a half-sovereign until AFTER I had paid for it via Paypal.

I like to collect the regular sovereigns which are quite small to begain with [around the size of a nickel] so the half-sovereigns must be really tiny. Anyway, I sent the seller a email requesting him to cancel the sale and refund my money. Surprizingly he agreed and he didn’t even take me up on my offer to rebate him the listing fees [since it was my mistake].

So far my experience of buying coins on ebay has been extremely positive. But as usual, you need to be careful and make sure you don’t over pay for sometime. It nearly happened to me last week, where I overbid for something. Luckily someone else beat my bid later on and saved me!!!! [It wasn't a big amount, but why overpay when you can get a deal?]

I got my first Morgan Silver Dollar today. Morgans are beautiful, large and allegedly the most popular collectible coin in the US today. This particular specimen was minted in 1896 making around a 110 years old. Its in pretty good condition for a coin of that age. Considering I only paid $21 for it, I’d say its a great deal too!

It has the liberty face on one side and an eagle on the other. Because of the eagles’ somewhat scrawny appearance, they used to be called buzzards! Its called the Morgan after the dude who designed the coin.

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Gold has retreated quite a bit since its high of $730 on May 11th 2006. Its currently trading around $630/oz. I see this as a good buying opportunity. While I’m against dollar cost averaging, I think gold is in the beginning of a bull cycle and this justifies buying on dips.

I recently bought another Australian Lunar Series coin. This time I got the Dog. Also got it in the Silver coin and surprizing the species of dog is different on both of them.

Anyway, I also bought some gold British Sovereigns [around 100+ years old], some French and Swiss francs and an 1873 Danish “Mermaid” Coin.

I also bought a 200 yr old gold coin of Napolean Boneparte! [Ok maybe I'm going nuts with this gold coin stuff, but its hard to stop buying those damn things now!] Better stop now before the wife gets upset!

Robert Kiyosaki has a column on why he’s buying in gold. I don’t know why it has tomorrow’s date on it, but its pretty interesting nonetheless.

Bet on Gold, Not on Funny Money
by Robert KiyosakiTuesday, July 25, 2006

Gold recently dropped more than $100, or 14 percent, after hitting a 26-year high of $730 in mid-May. With that drop in price, I became a buyer of gold once again.

Can the price of gold go lower? Absolutely. If it drops to $500 an ounce, I’ll buy more. Let me tell you why.

But first, to give you some background, I’ve been in the gold market since 1971, when then-President Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard. Back then, gold was pegged at $35 an ounce, and ran to a high of $850 an ounce by January 1980. In the same period, silver hit approximately $40 an ounce.

Regular readers will know that I’ve been investing in gold since gold was in $500/Oz. I advised some readers not to jump in at $720 but wait for a pull-back. Well it pulled back from $720 to around $570 and then jumped up a bit. Today it settled around $620 and I bought a little bit more. As I previously mentioned, I like the perth mint Lunar series for the 1 Oz Gold as well as the 1 Oz Silver coins.

This time however, I bought the US mint $50 1 Oz Buffalo Coins. Its the first time the US Mint has made 99.99% pure 24K 1 Oz gold coins. I bought them already certified by PCGS as “First Strike MS-69″.

Bought a 1 ounce silver dragon coin on Ebay. Its a beautiful coin, minted by the Perth Mint in Australia. [As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm a big fan of the Perth Mint's Golden Lunar Series.]

Don’t know why I bought it. Maybe its because I like shiny things. I think silver prices might jump 50% over the next 3 years but the 1 ounce silver is current worth about $9.25 and the coin was just under $20 with shipping and insurance. I definitely won’t make my fortune with a $20 coin. But I guess its better than blowing money a DVD. Or is it??

Anyone else out there who likes collecting coins?

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As I’ve mentioned before I think the US is going to enter a period of inflation and recession brought on by the trade & budget deficit and precipitated by the devaluing dollar.

Both Oil and Gold have been in a slow and quiet bull market for the past few years. Historically both of them have been rising & falling in tandem and I believe that both of them have quite a bit further to go. I know that people [Iran's oil minister, a few economists and the all-knowing Steve Forbes] have been bearish on the price of oil for the past year now but it keeps going up. I think both oil and gold have a lot of room for further appreciation especially if the US Dollar devalues. It may be showing current strength, but I think thats just a short-term spike.