No. of Recommendations: 6
I don't consider gold as an investment in the traditional sense, but it does form a tranche of my overall net worth.
Various miners do form a reasonable chunk of my equity portfolio.
Today:
Gold at $4,534 per troy oz
Silver at $72.48 per troy oz
While US pennies nickels and dimes ain't worth squat, those old silver quarters are approaching a $20 bill in just their metallic content.
Back when I was a kid, some US banknotes were "Federal Reserve Notes" and some were "Silver Certificates" which could be exchanged for .77+ oz of silver per dollar. As the practice was coming to an end, in 1968, I took 22 one dollar bills to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (a subway ride from my high school) and ended up with a plastic bag full of about 17 ounces of silver. It's in some drawer, somewhere, but is now worth $1,228 or an increase of 55X.
That said, I picked up a US $20 gold piece (about .97 troy oz of gold) in Amsterdam in 1973 for about $75 (it was still technically illegal to own one in the US). That has appreciated about 59X
Not quite apples to apples, but both seem to have performed pretty well compared to inflation.
Jeff
