Anyone else look at an old US coin and think . . .

[Usc96]

Anyone else look at an old US coin and think that it is crazy that we will never be able to experience receiving real MONEY the way people did prior to 1934.

Or that it is crazy that we once valued this amount of gold at $2.5*?

• Or a different denomination depending on the gold coin you are admiring?

 

[EO 11110]

i often think about the coin's journey. from the mint to the merchant to the employee to under the mattress to the horse trader.......to my hand

 

[bulloncoins]

$2.50 had a lot of purchasing power in the 1930s. That is what you have to compare...not dollar amount.

 

[Casey Jones]

$2.50 had a lot of purchasing power in the 1930s. That is what you have to compare...not dollar amount.

Exactly. A $20 gold coin, back then, would be a $2000 coin today.

Imagine, a circulating $2000 unit of currency. And how few would have it, in our current state.

One (false) argument for abolishing a PM standard for the dollar was, there "wasn't enough" gold or silver to go around.

Well, now we have paper money - plenty to go around; and digital can be created at zero cost.

And people still don't have any money.

Maybe the problem isn't the currency; and maybe the hard limit on precious metals isn't a flaw but a feature.

 

[EO 11110]

Maybe the problem isn't the currency; and maybe the hard limit on precious metals isn't a flaw but a feature.

exactly

 

[hammerhead]

i often think about the coin's journey. from the mint to the merchant to the employee to under the mattress to the horse trader.......to my hand

If Iron's cantankerous fishing find has anything to do with it, it will go from your hand to smooths real quick. I hear Bunga Britches is trying to pay off some misused funding through a credit card or two.

 

[Buck]

Imagine, a circulating $2000 unit of currency. And how few would have it, in our current state

let's see...

Oligarchs would have a vault full, Drug Cartels would have a vault full, many governments would have a vault full, central banks would have a vault full, and the people who could only afford a half of a vault full would be enormous...that wouldn't leave much for the rest of us...


if gold were a currency today, there wouldn't be much for us to circulate


just like that almighty USD...some here have vaults full of it, while Main Street can't earn it fast enough to keep up with consumer pricing, energy pricing...it's been Inflated into the stratosphere, as far as total numbers go, but, it's still relatively hard to get, being taxed before you receive what you've earned, and even harder to hold on to today...

 

[Casey Jones]

let's see...

Oligarchs would have a vault full, Drug Cartels would have a vault full, many governments would have a vault full, central banks would have a vault full, and the people who could only afford a half of a vault full would be enormous...that wouldn't leave much for the rest of us...


if gold were a currency today, there wouldn't be much for us to circulate


just like that almighty USD...some here have vaults full of it, while Main Street can't earn it fast enough to keep up with consumer pricing, energy pricing...it's been Inflated into the stratosphere, as far as total numbers go, but, it's still relatively hard to get, being taxed before you receive what you've earned, and even harder to hold on to today...

There would be no oligarchs.

Oligarchy is a second-order effect of Central Bankers and seignorage - the printing up of fiat by the King or Political Elites.

Money gravitates to the connected. It is handed them, in some cases - in other cases, foolish spending of helicopter money leads it to gravitate there.

No Central Bank debasement, would return market interest rates, which would motivate savers, which would be an alternative source of capital - limiting the powers of the wealthy.

 

[Buck]

Oligarchy is a second-order effect of Central Bankers and seignorage

one would naturally want to believe this way but there are greedy people who are spend-thrifts and will pass onto others, when they die, what they gathered along the way

put two of those people together, the recipients, and soon we have a new cabal in the making

there's much more to say about the human condition then there is to say about the fiat specie itself...

 

[SongSungAU]

Just think of the hands that coin has gone through and all the stories it could tell. I find that amazing to ponder.
I've never had that thought about a dollar bill. LOL!

 

[slackercruster]

Anyone else look at an old US coin and think that it is crazy that we will never be able to experience receiving real MONEY the way people did prior to 1934.

Or that it is crazy that we once valued this amount of gold at $2.5*?

• Or a different denomination depending on the gold coin you are admiring?

Yes, all the time when I look at gold. And I wonder how it would be if the gov adopted real money as gold foil notes.

I can tell you I'd be a lot more careful squandering them as opposed to the common greenback. In the old days, the money had to go through your hands, be deposited in the bank, etc. Now it is just keyboard strokes or a chip reader.

 

[Rollie Free]

Anyone else look at an old US coin and think that it is crazy that we will never be able to experience receiving real MONEY the way people did prior to 1934.

Or that it is crazy that we once valued this amount of gold at $2.5*?

• Or a different denomination depending on the gold coin you are admiring?

Actually in today's dollars $2.50 equals 40 bucks.
A 20 dollar gold coin would be $325.00.

Calculate the Value of $1.00 in 1930. How much is it worth today?

www.dollartimes.com

 

[Casey Jones]

Unless you melted it down.

Then it would be worth $2000.

One more way our fiat is fictional.

 

[Rollie Free]

My understanding is that gold coins were not used at face value for transactions just as they aren't today. Then, as now, they were worth more at melt than their denomination.
There really weren't that many gold coins minted that people kept pocketfuls.
You very rarely see worn down gold like you do silver quarters.

 

[arminius]

You very rarely see worn down gold like you do silver quarters.

Silver quarters, and silver coins were in circulation for many years. Gold coins were, are hoarded and have never been in active circulation.

 

[Mujahideen]

One (false) argument for abolishing a PM standard for the dollar was, there "wasn't enough" gold or silver to go around.

The standard would have collapsed at some point due to fractional reserve lending.

Or

If they would have truly kept to the standard, economic growth would have been severely stunted.

 

[wastrel]

I wonder sometimes about the journey some of my Mercury dimes have taken on their way to me. Perhaps this one was used to pay a paperboy for his delivery. That one to tip a milkman. This one might have paid for the awkward first date of a boy and a girl who later married and lived a long good life together. Maybe this one paid for a "dime a dance" night that ended badly.

We'll never know, of course. These are archeological remnants of a long gone civilization, that we know some things about, some of the big historical things. But the little moments of people's lives, that we don't know, or can never really understand, not really. We can only hold the coins in our hands, and wonder about the people who really used them.

 

[dacrunch]

Lead the crowds to the money lenders in the temple...