I wish I'd never bought these gold coins

Eco_Miser

Malthusian wrote: »

It's simply a commodity, like bushels of wheat

Gold has one advantage over wheat, and just about every other commodity - it doesn't change. You can bury an ounce of gold, and when your descendants dig it up in a thousand years time it will still be an ounce of gold.
Whether anyone will be willing to buy it, and if so whether it will buy more or less food than it will now are two other questions of course.

bigfreddiel

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Very well, it's survived unchanged for 4.5 billion years, whereas had you invested in Uranium back then, you'd only have half the amount now

But only if you picked uranium-238!

Other forms you would have much less left after 4.5bn years

fj

grey_gym_sock

who are these people who want to bury gold in the ground, and care about their distant descendants being richer than other people in the future?

to quote david mitchell, that seems a bit bonkers to me: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/14/david-mitchell-who-duke-westminster-cares-about-9bn-estate

Eco_Miser

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

who are these people who want to bury gold in the ground, and care about their distant descendants being richer than other people in the future?

Maybe the same sort of people who want their immediate descendants to be richer than other people.
Maybe people who buried the gold to keep their wealth safe from taxmen and burglars, intending to retrieve it later when they needed money, but didn't.

The point I was making is that gold does preserve your wealth, at least in terms of grams of gold, which bushels of wheat don't.
That said, my entire gold holding is my late grandfather's gold ring.

expansion

pavane wrote: »

Shake my head...

The price of gold has risen "since we voted to leave Europe" because GBP has collapsed against USD due to loss of confidence in the UK.

Anyway, you were conned by the marketing of what is a supposed collector's item which targets the older/sentimental types. The price you paid was not fair value. "Investing" in gold is not done by buying "limited edition" pieces off QVC.

Lesson learned hopefully. Gold is valid alternative tool, but this is not the way to do it. "Limited editio" off QVC :rotfl:

Bazofts_Revenge

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Gold has one advantage over wheat, and just about every other commodity - it doesn't change. You can bury an ounce of gold, and when your descendants dig it up in a thousand years time it will still be an ounce of gold.
Whether anyone will be willing to buy it, and if so whether it will buy more or less food than it will now are two other questions of course.

How ever had you re sown the wheat each year the growth over the years could outweigh the value of the gold if had been found and fed your descendants!

AnotherJoe

bigfreddiel wrote: »

But only if you picked uranium-238!

Other forms you would have much less left after 4.5bn years

fj

Yes,you need to look carefully at the "half life" date. I once picked up some Beryllium 11 at Tescos and when I got to the counter they charged me for Lithium and then to add insult to injury it caught fire.

Eco_Miser

Bazofts_Revenge wrote: »

How ever had you re sown the wheat each year the growth over the years could outweigh the value of the gold if had been found and fed your descendants!

That's not commodity investment, that's farming.

Malthusian

Eco_Miser wrote: »

That's not commodity investment, that's farming.

Reinvesting the yield of an asset year on year for capital growth is the very definition of investment.

What you are thinking of, i.e. betting on the price movement of an asset with little interest in its yield, is commodity speculation.

bigadaj

Eco_Miser wrote: »

That's not commodity investment, that's farming.

Commodities trading started with agricultural products and output.