Is It Gold Plated
A piece of jewelry can be plated with gold by mechanical plating, electroplating, and other processes. Eventually, the gold plating wears away, depending on how the item is worn and how thick the plating is.
Gold filled, gold overlay, and rolled gold plate describe jewelry that has a layer of at least 10 karat gold mechanically applied to a base metal. A base metal is a common and less expensive metal like nickel. These items should be marked with the karat quality of the gold used and the term or abbreviation for the plating. For example, 14K gold overlay, or 12K RGP.
If the layer of gold is less than 1/20 of the weight of the metal in the entire item, any marking should state the fraction of karat gold. For example, 1/40 14K gold overlay.
Gold electroplate describes jewelry that has a layer of at least 10 karat gold that is at least .175 microns thick applied on a base metal using an electrolytic process.
Vermeil is a special type of gold plated product with a base of sterling silver that is coated or plated with gold.
Best Month Of The Year To Buy Gold
If you missed buying gold in January, when is the next best time to buy?
We broke the historical data down into months, and heres what it shows.
Since 1975, the gold price has tended to drop the most in March. The daily chart above shows April might offer a slightly lower overall price, but history shows March is the month gold falls the most and is thus one of the best times to buy.This trend does not apply to silver.
While the silver price is typically flat in March, the best month to buy is June, followed by October. The wisdom of buying in June is further supported by the daily chart above.
You Should Invest In Silver If
You might prefer silver if youre the kind of investor who wants exposure to safe assets in your portfolio, but you also want the ability to realize larger gains on these assets and are willing to accept a slightly higher level of risk. The best candidates for silver investments:
- Have a Total Portfolio Value of Under $35,000. Silver comes with a much lower price per once and is therefore more accessible than gold. Those just starting out with relatively small investment portfolios will likely be better served choosing silver over gold.
- Want Larger Gains. Although there are times when gold will increase in value faster than silver, theres a strong historical argument that silvers value has room to run in the future. If youre looking for stronger growth in your safer assets, silver is likely the way to go.
- Are Risk Tolerant. Silver is a safer asset than equities, but there are risks involved. Silver is more volatile than other safe assets like gold, Treasury bills, and many bonds. This volatility increases risk.
- Are Willing to Put Time In. Because price swings happen in silver faster than they do in gold, its important that you pay close attention to market movement, economic reports, Federal Reserve statements, and industrial demand for clues as to when to buy and sell.
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Are Precious Metals A Good Investment For You
Precious metals offer unique inflationary protectionthey have intrinsic value, they carry no credit risk, and they cannot be inflated. That means you can’t print more of them. They also offer genuine “upheaval insurance” against financial or political/military upheavals.
From an investment theory standpoint, precious metals also provide a low or negative correlation to other asset classes like stocks and bonds. This means even a small percentage of precious metals in a portfolio will reduce both volatility and risk.
The Best Time Of The Year To Buy Gold & Silver In 2021
Jeff Clark, Senior Analyst, GoldSilver
Cant decide if you should buy gold now or wait?
Even though physical gold and silver have long-lasting qualities most other investments dont, we all want the best price we can get. Its only natural, and any good consumer will consider the timing of their buying decisions. Its a question almost every investor asks before executing: Even if I get a good price now, will I be able to get a better price later?
Well, history has an empirical answer for you.
I looked at the historical data to see if I could identify the best time of the year to buy. I suspected January would be best, but what I found was interesting.
We calculated the average gain and loss for every day of the year since 1975 and put it in a chart. Heres what it shows.
You can see that on average, gold tends to surge during the first couple months of the year. The price cools down through the spring and summer, then takes off again in the fall.
This means that on a historical basis, the best times to buy gold are early January, March and early April, or from mid-June to early July.
We ran the same data for silver and heres what we found.
Its easy to see silvers higher volatility. What also sticks out is that historically, silver doesnt revisit its January low. The only other best times to buy, on average, is in March or late June.
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Silver Coins Are Typically Legal Tender In Their Nation
Governments have a monopoly on violence and also not coincidentally they too determine what is legal tender.
And only governments can issue legal tender face values on their silver coins.
Citizens who sometimes test these facts, typically end up in prison or worse.
Silver coins usually have explicit legal tender values and carry a stamped legal tender face value on the coin and currency itself.
Do not get confused here. Most modern silver bullion coins have low legal tender face values, which have little to almost nothing to do with their real market price for silver bullion content.
Learn more about why governments almost always give bullion coins low legal tender face values it has to do with Gresham’s Law.
Take, for example, a 5 oz America The Beautiful silver coin . It contains five troy ounces of .999 fine silver bullion yet it also has a low legal tender face value of a quarter dollar or 25¢ in fiat Federal Reserve note value.
No one in their right mind is trading 5 oz of highly collectible silver bullion issued by the US Mint for a smaller legal tender cupronickel quarter .
Such is life when living under full fiat money rather than bullion based specie monetary standard.
So silver coins are to typically going to have low legal tender face values stamped on them.
Silver coins also typically yield higher more fiat currency per troy oz, both when you buy and sell them vs silver bars.
Let’s move on.
Sharing Nuggets Of Wisdom
I gave this advice in the gold article and its relevant when discussing silver and inflation as well.
Speak to your advisor about other strategies that can help protect your investment portfolio and financial plan from inflation.
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Difference #: Silver Requires Much More Storage Space
All those affordability advantages we just outlined come with a catch: it takes a LOT more space to store silver than gold.
At current prices, the same dollar investment will get you roughly 80 more ounces of silver than gold. On top of that, most silver is a lot less dense than goldpure silver is 84% larger in volume than pure gold. This means silver takes up as much as 128 times more space than gold for the same dollar value!
Here are some practical examples of that difference. At current prices
- You can hold $50,000 worth of gold in one handbut it would take about 10 large shoe boxes to hold the same dollar amount of silver.
- $50,000 worth of gold weighs about 2.6 poundsbut the same value of silver weighs about 189 pounds!
- You can store roughly $170,000 of gold in a small safe deposit box, but that same space will only hold about $2,300 of silver.
Its relatively easy to hide some gold coins in a sock drawer or cookie jar, but those same hiding places are impractical for the same investment in silver. Whether you buy coins or bars, youll need a lot more space to store silver than gold.
And because it requires more space, the fees for professional storage are higher with most depositories.
This difference applies to transporting physical silver as well: it may be more difficult, expensive, and cumbersome.
- Investor Implication: Gold takes up much less storage space than silver, is cheaper to store, is lighter and less cumbersome to transport, and doesnt tarnish.
Dollar Supply And Demand
We think it means that the Feds massive asset-buying program has had its intended effect . The Fed has bought about $2.5 trillion worth of bonds, which has grown its balance sheet by 60%. This is the stuff of madness. See the graph of the Feds assets below.
The change is greater than the Feds then-crazy buying frenzy in the wake of the last crisis, though smaller as a percentage of growth.
The intended effect is to take the pressure off the banks. Reduced contractionary pressures on bank balance sheets frees up the banks for profit-making and risk-free activities such as carrying gold.
The Fed will be able to get away with this for so long as gold bids on the dollar. And the high basis is proof that this bid is very strong for now.
We can think of two primary gold bidders on the dollar. One, likely short-lived, is the leveraged player who buys dollars in order to meet margin calls. Each drop in asset prices, whether in stocks, real estate, or elsewhere, forces some of them to liquidate whatever they can to raise dollar cashwhich is often gold. The other, is a much larger group of people worldwide who are forced by economic circumstances to sell gold to buy food.
So long as these dynamics continue, there will be a robust gold bid on the dollar.
NB: This is not to say that the price of gold need go down, the dynamics we described could occur with a dramatically rising gold price reaching new record highs over many years.
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Silver Bars For More Ounces Overall: Lower Silver Premiums
Private silver mints most often produce private silver bars.
Although there are a few exceptions most silver bars are struck by private mints.
If your highest priority is to get the most silver bullion weight for your fiat currency. Silver bars and silver rounds are going to be a better general option over silver coins.
You will yield less if you ever decide to sell come versus silver coins.
But too, the bid-ask spread between silver bars should be slightly tighter than government silver bullion coins.
Is selling privacy on 1,000 oz or more of silver bullion bars vital to you?
Today’s current IRS silver tax facts are essential to learning.
Scroll to the second half of this IRS Silver Selling privacy page for further information.
If privacy on large silver bullion bars sales to bullion dealers is vital to you perhaps buy silver coins over silver bars .
Silver coins are just more private when sold within the USA.
Any silver capital gains or losses you might have, you will have to rectify with a tax professional regardless. Were merely making silver bullion privacy points here.
White Gold Vs Silver: What You Need To Know
At first glance, it’s hard for the untrained eye to tell the difference between white gold and sterling silver. They’re both silver in color, but the two metals are quite different beyond their initial appearances.
Here’s what you need to know when you’re on the hunt for silver-hued jewelry.
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Still Not Sure What Your Skin Tone Is
If you have a mixture of the above traits you could be neutral skin-toned. You, lucky people, look good in both white metals and yellow metals, so you are free to mix and match gold and silver jewellery.
Most people fall somewhere between warm and cool. The skin tone rule is really just a guideline your personality and style are the most important factors.
If you enjoyed learning about your skin tone and want to hear about the newest articles join the Selkie Crafts VIP email group. Youll also get a code for 15% off your first order. Join the club here!
Gold And Silver Investment Options
Whether you invest in a gold IRA or a silver IRA, the options available to you are numerous. While there are restrictions on investing in certain coins or bars, experts like those at Goldco can help you navigate the investment process and inform you of your options when it comes to investing in physical gold or silver coins or bars.
The process of starting a gold or silver IRA isnt difficult at all, and you can even roll over existing retirement savings into a new precious metals IRA. By investing in precious metals you gain the confidence of knowing that your wealth is protected in the form of physical assets that have stood the test of time and safeguarded investors for centuries.
If youre mid-career and looking to hedge a portion of your investment portfolio, or nearing retirement and looking to get most of your retirement assets into safe havens, the experts at Goldco can give you all the advice you need to get started in precious metals investing. Their experience in helping investors just like you get started in investing in gold and silver will give you the edge you need to achieve your investment goals.
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Which Tequila Is Better For Margaritas Gold Or Silver
People go crazy over margaritas. Whether or not you know much about tequila or even enjoy drinking it, chances are youve ordered a at some point in your life.
Theyre a go-to drink to make in batches for parties and days spent at the pool, but they can also be very high-end, as some tequilas costing a few hundred dollars per bottle, and upwards of thousands of dollars for the rarest and most expensive ones.
Typically, margaritas are made from silver or white tequila, with Patrón as a very popular, mid-priced choice. It has also become very popular with celebrities, with some even starting their own brand .
Many people are now declaring tequila is their drink of choice, given the fact its one of the healthiest of all types of alcohol. This is because its the lowest in sugar and has the cleanest process for how its made.
That brings us back to margaritas, which can range from being sugary and cheap to simple and expensive. This might leave you wondering, is gold tequila or silver tequila better for margaritas? Read on to find out.
Commodity Prices Less Than Zero
We wrote about negative crude oil prices recently. Now, we have read that, due to closures at meat packing plants, companies like Tyson are slowing or stopping their buying. Farmers may be forced to destroy their animals.
Think about that. Alive, an animal incurs costs due to feed and labor. With no buyer, it is better to kill the mature animals than to keep them alive. If there were a market to express prices, the price of such animals would be below zero.
The virus lockdown may not have provided the magic to make pigs fly. But it can cause something unprecedented: commodity prices below zero
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Shopping For Platinum Gold And Silver Jewelry
Its good to make some decisions before you start shopping for jewelry, like deciding how much youre going to spend. But its also good to know where youre likely to get the best jewelry for the best price. Here are three things to do when youre looking to buy jewelry from a store or online:
Also get to know the common phrases and markings used to describe the type of jewelry youre looking for. That will make it easier for you to decide whether a piece of jewelry is worth the price.
