Good luck...

http://www.marketminder.com/GoogleSearch...

Yes, definitely! Offer value to others, and you'll get value in return. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Printed money is horrible for storing value because it was not even designed to hold value; it's designed to be a medium of exchange that *loses* value over the course of years.

Commodities like gold are nice because 10lbs go gold bought a good house in ancient times and today. But someone not concerned with storing value but rather creating and growing value can trade Mexican Pesos or whatever medium of exchange. If they serve customers and inspire employees, they'll grow wealth at a fast rate, regardless of whether they're using Mexican Pesos, USD, Euros, or American Silver Eagles. The only reason any of those have any value is someone is willing to serve people's needs in exchange for them.

Zach, congratulations. Gold is a symbol as well as valuable. The other advice here about diversifying is excellent. I'll add that, in general, the smaller the amount purchased, the more expensive per ounce it is. I think it has to do with economies of scale.
Another fun thing to do [I probably read this here] is to watch the silver auctions on Ebay as they end and bid on anything that's a deal or even a reasonable price. You have to figure out the true price silver coins [pre-1965] are 90% silver; multiply the weight of the coin by .9 to get the actual amount or silver in the coin, and then multiply by the current price. A lot of the lots on Ebay go for 2X the real value, but some are fairly priced.
again, congrats for thinking ahead. It's becoming a lost art in the U.S.

A friend's gun store would always take gold - my friend would get the daily spot price, and an exchange would be made.
Sometimes you just have to ask.

http://www.storyleak.com/how-to-buy-silv...

I use Provident Metals. They advertise their cost and mark up, and their buy back, and they have fractional silver 1/10, 1/4, and 1/2oz.

I agree with TerryCan, Gold is good for large purchases, or movie large sums of cash to something you can carry. Silver is better for small transactions. Get a mix.

Try purchasing old jewelry at auction or rummage/estate sales. A bit cheaper ...and decorative to boot!

Great point. Gold is certainly a unit of exchange. But I think it's a much better way to store one's value than printed money, which is subject to heavy inflation and likely to crash at some point. If we get to that point where a wheelbarrow full of dollars will buy a loaf of bread, hopefully gold will retain some value. But perhaps food and the necessities of life will be even more valuable then.

Can you (or anyone) recommend a good source to buy from? Thank you!

Silver is $19.33/oz today. That is about the recent bottom. This is a good day to buy.

Congratulations. It is yours, you earned it, and it's worth was likely stolen from you (I just read that part in the book yesterday),
Ragnar. :)

Fivedollargold heartily approves.

My Congratulations! So nice of you to share your pride, news and joy. I myself do not believe in gold as high currency, not even diamonds for that matter. Again, I state that the highest currency on earth is blood, meaning that heritage is both sacred and vile. Yet I too have attainned my very own "gold mine", and it´s the domain of my very own calendar. Right now I´m merely skimming the surface, and planning where to "blast" off the mountains and rock. But I am partically self employed, I work where I chose and how I chose due to my knowledge, despite being employed as consultant in Urban Planning and Architecture. Therefore, I work sixty hours a week as a registered, tax paying citizen in both Sciences I just mentioned and as a Physics teacher in high school. I also work twenty hours a week independantly, and then some. Music Conservatory as a Pianist and Lyric Singer and a post graduate student in Territorial Sciences. I too want to share this with all of you, for I am full of pride to manage my time. I also practice swimming, soccer, martial arts and cycling.

Consider 1oz silver rounds. Today they cost about $20/oz. If the dollar collapses silver is a good way to do daily transactions. For example buying loaves of bread and tanks of gasoline. Gold is better for large purchases.

it is an excellent buying opportunity right now

yes

yes

Zach enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Good for you. I mine it; we have a large amount in the ridge. Our ground runs 3x better than the ground on the TV show Gold Rush Alaska. Everyone should own some in case the buck goes pop.

Yes they can find out. If the normal automatic collections and correlations don't do it across multiple sources they have the means to go after it directly if they care enough. They don't have to crack encryptions because they can track IP addresses, hack into application programs and a lot more, and have the means to intercept and reroute connections. How much resources they dedicate to it depends on how much they want it, but they are routinely doing a lot more, and can do more, at a level of scope and intensity that is staggering and which is more than most people can imagine.

EWV;

Do you suppose the watchers know, or can find out Zach055's real identity? I suppose the NSA could crack The Gulch's database and get Zach005's email address, then crack that email provider's database and find out enough to track the poor guy down. So I guess we're really only anonymous to each other; Uncle Security and his friends know who we are.

This tracking isn't normally done by people scanning posts and saving the content as a single item. It's done by automatic systems using algorithms to classify and link information together in patterns.

The marketeers are tracking everything they can and aren't likely to notice the significance of an amount mentioned in one post, or care. It marks him in the database as a potential or actual gold buyer, along with whatever else is of interest to their algorithms combining it with other data from other posts and other sources.

Government surveillance combines that with what they think of as "terrorist" politics, "anti-government", and "tax protestors".

@wiggys...small businesses that have good business sense will take it...just check out this guy in WI taking silver coins: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/...