Goldtent TA Paradise

A Blast From the Past

1. silverboom says:

   August 17, 2019 - 11:05 am at 11:05 am

   Ha. I remember this one. Was going to write something but got sidetracked. If you don’t act on these things “in the moment” they get away from you forever.

   Soooo…my dad got me on the gold train way back in 1970. Young punk out of college who thought everything happened instantly. Turned my life upside down, but forgot the part about investing. Finally got my feet on the ground around 1973 and put a plan in place to be rich. Back then, you could buy a Kruggerand one oz gold coin for around $40 or so. Part of my plan was to buy one Kruggerand a month, and invest in gold and silver mining stocks.

   I moved out of my expensive shared apartment and moved into a small basement apartment at half the price. Sold my motorcycle and $1500 stereo system, and started working my plan. I read voraciously, trying to learn how to become rich.

   Then I met my future wife. Everything went out the window and I became a spendthrift idiot once again.

   Did not get back on the gold train until the early 1980s, once again because of my dad. Made some quick money but then the kids, work, etc…an ugly story looking back on opportunities missed.

   We inherited a wad of dough in 1992, but by 1997 I had been unemployed for over two years and had blown through that inheritance and was up to my eyeballs in debt. Good money management, eh? Smart as a whip, I was.

   I finally ended up in Dallas working for a business strategy consulting firm. I made a ton of dough and had a very good 401K. I was invested in the markets during that big tech bubble. In December 1969 I got nervous as all get out, people talking about how much they were making in the markets, and no one was selling. I told one guy that since you have tripled your money, why not sell half? He didn’t and down he went. Anyway, I sold everything and went to cash.

   Then I transferred the funds to a self-directed IRA. From that little nest egg in 2001, I got back into the gold market once again. Thanks to that old guy, my dad. Little did I know I was going to ride the bull market from heaven. Almost tripled my money by 2011. Those glory years were astounding. month after month after month going UP. Sinclair was THE guru back then. Then I reverted to the young punk stupid guy who knew it all. Despite Rambus’ repeated warnings on this site, I sat on those gold/silver stocks all.the.way.down. This while I was unemployed once again for two years. Finally gave up the work search and I was just old enough to collect SS.

   We had a few grand left that I simply put into cash and let it sit. Didn’t know what to do. Then along came Spock. I was astonished at the comrades from the past that I bumped into on Spock’s newsletter. Made a quick hit thinking back to the glory days. Never sold a thing until it was hardly worth selling. Watched all those profits go up in smoke. Seems the stupid gene is hard to overcome.

   Anyway, licking my wounds and wondering if there would ever be another opportunity, and simply marking time month by month by month…I never stopped reading gold tent and financial stuff, because I love the markets and seeing how they “work.” And then Rambus calls a new gold bull. Well, having watched the general markets make lots of people rich while I sat and watched, I figured this was my last chance. And I jumped in once again.

   TA is a fantastic tool – I understand it, but seem incapable of “doing” it. So when I see charts and lines etc I get it. Enough to know that anyone with a drop of sense ought to be once again in gold and silver.

   So here I am. My meager bucks are split in three accounts, due to inheritance issues. From small to teeny in size. But my last remaining bucks in my original IRA were down to two years of automatic withdrawals left. Now I have 5 years of withdrawals left. This is important!!

   The other two I have slowly begun recovering from my Spock debacle. I’m happily in the double digits gain seats, and being much wiser than in the past. I sell half when I get a double. I sell IMMEDIATELY when anything drops 20%. I sold all of my stupid losers from Spock days. I blended my funds across a couple of solid juniors, the rest split among mid-tier to top-tier producers. I use options to goose my returns, but never let them “sit” – when I see a move down they are GONE. I developed strict rules and I abide by them, with the help of my son, who sits on my shoulder like a conscience and holding me accountable.

   Meanwhile, from that young punk in 1970 who was panic-stricken after reading Brown’s “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World” to sleeping well at night, two married kids with four grandkids – two of whom I caddy for in U.S. Kids Golf tournaments; we live full time in an RV and have been all over North America as wanderers. Still married to that gal who swept me off my feet and my original “get rich” plan. And have come to understand that getting rich ain’t that important – but having some extra money makes life more enjoyable. Our plan now is to make enough profits in the next two to three years to buy a park home in a Florida community where we can settle down as we get to the age where we can’t to the RV thing anymore.

   And my son and son-in-law are fully invested in gold and silver stocks, planning to benefit from my decades of how NOT to do it.

   And that is my abbreviated story.

   • Fullgoldcrown says:

     August 17, 2019 - 3:09 pm at 3:09 pm

     Wow Boomer

     YOU are a Lifer !

     Great story.

     You live life on the edge.

     More power to you and your portfolio

     3 generations of gold lovers…that’s amazing.

     This time will be different …you will make it and keep it

     Thanks for sharing

     best

     Fully

     • Karl says:

       August 17, 2019 - 4:35 pm at 4:35 pm

       It would be interesting to know about grandparents or great grandparents. (I’m getting a bit old, my parents had kids late in life, and they were born when their fathers were relatively old–so my grandparents might have been around when others’ great-grandparents or even great-great grandparents were around.)

       In any case, my grandparents were not gold-bugs, but they liked their gold. They could not stand FDR to begin with. However they always apparently liked to go out of their way to abide by the law so, blood boiling, they turned over their gold coins during the confiscation. Though I only knew 1 of my grandparents, I heard about the confiscation over and over again–mainly from one of my aunts. It was not forgiven or forgotten, even though I don’t think it was a particularly large sum. It was the principle of the thing. It was a huge deal in family memory, even with those who otherwise were uninterested in gold. Some collateral relatives remained obsessed with gold to the current decade, possibly still partially provoked by the family memory of the confiscation. (My grandparents apparently did own gold stocks among other stocks to the extent they could afford to invest but it was apparently not an obsession–a gold stock or two would be considered to be a prudent investment along with, I don’t know, a few shares of maybe Texaco, GE, AT&T, or Union Pacific if you could afford them.)

       • Fullgoldcrown says:

         August 18, 2019 - 12:19 am at 12:19 am

         Ha….First hand confiscation story. Wow

         Thanks for sharing Karl.

         • Karl says:

           August 18, 2019 - 4:59 pm at 4:59 pm

           Actually 1 of my grandparents had already died by the time of the confiscation and the one grandparent I knew never talked to me about it although I knew her well. I did know about it from her various descendants (less though a touch from the other side of the family).

           One of the things that really infuriated them was the people who did NOT hand over their gold. The families loathed FDR and democrats in general. My mother, for example, liked to tell the story that as a small child she was heard admonishing the dog when it had done something naughty, “You dirty Democrat!” Nevertheless, as I noted, they took pride–both sides of the family–in being proper and going even to extremes to be law-abiding even when other people weren’t. Therefore they were just about as furious at the people who did not comply with the order to turn over the gold as with FDR I think. My mother–not at all a gold-bug–was life-long livid at the way people held on to gold coins that went up in value as “collector’s items.”

           I think but do not know for a fact that what they had in their safe deposit boxes and reluctantly turned over was stuff in the order of gold coins that had been given to them as children on birthdays, graduations, etc, making compliance with the order all the more infuriating.

           Earlier in this decade a cousin made a killing with a rather and (as he told me, grinning) irresponsible, insane gamble long gold securities shortly before dying, leaving his family financially comfortable in a way they hadn’t been. I was the last person to speak with him while he was with-it in the hospice about to bleed out. He did not tell me, but I suspect that one of his secondary pleasures was delayed familial revenge against FDR.

           His mother had been quite the bug. Big penny stock and futures gambler. Also planted Au on the nano-sized farm and put the location in code or not at all supposedly. Problematic after her death.

           Years ago I gave my story here so I won’t repeat it. Some of the familial story instead. Hereditary disorder.

2. Homer says:

   August 17, 2019 - 9:44 pm at 9:44 pm

   I can honestly say that gold and silver have been in my genes since before I was born.

   In the first decade of the twentieth century, my paternal grandfather emigrated from eastern Europe to the U. S. so he could work at the Treadwell Gold Mine on Douglas Island in the Alaskan Territories. He joined his cousin who was already working there as a hoist operator. At that time, it was the largest hard rock gold mine in the world. Over the life of the mine, it is said to have yielded over 3 million ounces of gold. The gold content was roughly 4 grams per ton of rock. As a child, I had been told that my grandfather had emigrated to Alaska and found gold, but I didn’t know all these details until two months ago.

   At a young and impressionable age, my father’s brother and wife gave me and my siblings each a silver U. S. Peace Dollar as a Christmas gift (from their Silver Dollar Tree). I was wowed and that got me hooked on silver.

   When I was a little older, I started earning some money by doing chores, selling seeds door-to-door, shoveling snow for neighbors, cutting lawns, and delivering newspapers. With this money, I began collecting old coins, including pennies, nickels, silver dimes, and quarters. When I was 16, I couldn’t land a job, so I bought a metal detector for $50 and I started finding some nice old coins and also some jewelry. That turned out to be a profitable investment.

   Before I turned 17, I was offered a job by a friend’s father to work at a savings bank part-time. I worked there for a little more than five years doing various types of work, including being a cashier.

   I also had an interest in rocks and minerals from childhood days. After I bought my first automobile, I began collecting samples from abandoned surface deposits within my state and adjoining states.

   While attending college, I majored in engineering with a minor in metallurgy. A professor invited me to apply for a summer job working for the metallurgy department of a U. S. company that refined precious metals and precious metal alloys. I got the job and it involved monitoring melt room operations for the production of sterling silver bar stock and sheet stock (for quality control purposes). The sterling was made by melting down U. S. coin silver with fine silver bullion to produce sterling silver. While I was there, I handled 1000 troy ounce fine silver ingots. I was also invited me into a vault where I was allowed to hold a platinum bar that weighed 45 pounds.

   Not long after graduating from college, I became quite fearful of banks and I minimized the amount of money I kept in checking/savings accounts. I even kept much cash and old coins in safety deposit boxes (not recommended now). Also, I started investing in U. S. Treasury securities, gold, silver, and gold mining company stocks via mutual funds. Later, I began investing in individual gold mining companies via brokerage accounts.

   The rest of my story is a very long and often mentally painful roller coaster ride with investments in shares of gold, silver, and copper mining companies. I bought shares at rock bottom prices and I held on to these shares thru thick and thin. I only sold when I needed cash, quite often at times when the share prices were down. Several companies that I had very significant investments in eventually went bankrupt. Looking back, I would have done better to focus on buying physical gold/silver when the price was depressed.

   Be advised that all fiat currencies eventually become worthless. Historically, there are no exceptions! For the late stages of the endgame, one should have mostly physical metals in their possession and reduced investments in mining shares. Would you rather have a football field full of nearly worthless paper money or a few ounces of pure gold?

   • Fullgoldcrown says:

     August 18, 2019 - 12:18 am at 12:18 am

     Wow Homer

     That is a fantastic Journey

     Wonderfully presented.

     Thanks for posting

     made my day

     🙂

3. JSKauai says:

   August 18, 2019 - 2:31 pm at 2:31 pm

   Excellent post Fully and great stories! So here is my two cents worth. I was born with an interest in things that made me want to collect them, butterflies, turtles, tropical fish, stamps and coins, etc. I shared this collecting interest with the kid next door who is my lifelong friend. In the late 1950s we would go to the local bank and buy rolls of pennies and search them for our collection. His father was quite entrepreneurial and in the 1950s built an arena nearby where I lived that hosted boat shows, the circus, concerts etc. By the early 1960s I was old enough to work as a vendor. Between shows the vendors would gamble by pitching quarters, closest to the wall won the pot, those were silver quarters. In 1965 when clad coinage came out I was intuitively question the Government’s motives and there at that moment the silver (gold) bug as born in me. Money was hard to come so saving even $100 in silver coins was monumental task. In the late 60’s it was off to college and summer jobs was the only money I had none for hoarding coins. So I watched the silver coins rapidly disappear from circulation and felt left out. My friend’s father became interested in the Bahamas and bought real estate there he would take the family there for vacations and in 1973 I was invited there. At that tome the Bahamas was celebrating it’s independence and issued this coin to the banks for circulation at face value…
   https://www.bullionbypost.com/world-coins/bahamas-coins/bahamas-1973-independence-50-dollar/
   Even though it was still illegal to own these coins in the US we bought these coins. By the late 70’s I owned a profitable little Cafe/Pub that allowed me free time during the week and I revived my old interest of coin roll hunting but this time for most only half dollars. It was a real life treasure hunt that became passionate about. to be continued…

   • Fullgoldcrown says:

     August 18, 2019 - 7:45 pm at 7:45 pm

     Another great story my Hawaiian friend.

     Passion….that’s the recurring theme here for gold and silver lovers

     cheers