One simple question about buying gold and silver

[JH1951]

Funny, a pop-up ad at the top of the page was for "Learn to Invest in Silver"!
I saw the humor.....

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I recognize that the circumstances were quite different then and the past rationale does not directly apply, but let us not forget that at one time in the U.S.A., U.S. citizens and foreigners were subject to arrest, seizure of their gold, and potential jail time if caught with a stash of gold that exceeded a limit imposed by the federal government. IIRC 1934 was the year. Many of us assume things like this can never happen again, but the ways of the world are quite unpredictable, aren't they?

Before that terrible law was repealed, I was in the rear work shop of a Bangkok Jewelry shop.
The Thais love gold!
The have suffered a lot of economic turmoil over the years.
They have learned the hard way that paper money comes, paper money goes. Gold is here to stay.
So I ask the jeweler what does the gold look when he gets it, usually from Hong Kong.
He showed me a bar about as large as bar of soap.
The end was hacked off at an angle.
Then he grinned and said, your Gov won't allow you to own this. Mine will.
I say yes, but we can own 'art', and such.
Have you ever made any of that for an American?
He said yes. He had made gold frogs, turtles and such for the good guys.
He made matching gold rings with my name and wife's name in English and Thai for us.

 

[Old TexMex]

Value of gold

.This quote came from "Treasure of the Sierra Madres" on why gold is worth so much...

"A thousand men, say, go searchin' for gold. After six months, one of them's lucky: one out of a thousand. His find represents not only his own labor, but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's six thousand months, five hundred years, scramblin' over a mountain, goin' hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the findin' and the gettin' of it."