The 90% Solution

Welcome to the fourth installment of this series examining various types of Silver commercially available for those who have a desire to accumulate a bit of the “Ice Metal”.  As always I, the House Martin, am responsible for all content in this entry.  The owner, and until recently, rarely, operator of this blog invited me to post my ramblings on silver here.  Feel free to enter any questions or comments and I will do my best to answer them.  Photos will follow as soon as possible. 

Sometimes referred to as “Junk”, properly called the “coin of the realm”, many countries once upon a time minted their coinage out of a mixture of 90% Silver, 10% copper.  Today I will examine a couple of these silver options. 

To the coin accumulator the importance of these coins is very simple.  In the event of any catastrophic event which undermines the confidence/value of paper money silver is an obvious and natural replacement to mediate exchanges.  American Silver currency comes in forms that are readily identifiable by all Americans, and of a dependable quality known to most Americans and thus could serve as a medium of exchange in the event of a significant ‘dislocation’ to the economy.  The key thing is having some on hand in the event of the need arising. 

First, I will not be looking at any silver below the 90% level.  While I do own a bit of this true ‘junk’ it is neither my focus, nor all that interesting to collect in my opinion.  Furthermore, I will in no way attempt to chronicle all of the options in the 90% range as too many countries have dabbled in 90% coins for various periods of their history.  The purpose of this treatise is simply to look at those 90% silver coins produced in significant numbers and in some association with the U.S. Mint.  This confines us to basically three countries coinage, and I will be focusing on two of these countries in particular.  The United States Mint coined in 90% silver until 1964.  In addition the Nation of Panama also used the same source of coin blanks thus minting in 90% silver for generally the same time range.  The third country I will only mention is the Philippines which initially minted in 90% silver, but fairly quickly down graded (even before the outbreak of WWI). 

American 90% silver coins came in four varieties: the dollar, the half dollar, the quarter dollar, and the dime or tenth dollar.  The American nickel was only minted in partial silver for a very brief period in WWII (1942 to 1945) and even then was only 35% silver.  I will not go into detail on the American Dollar, Half dollar, Quarter, or Dime as I presume that all of you know what these coins are and have but to generally look at the dates to see if they are from the “Sound Money era”.  Speaking of which, if you come into contact with these silver coins they make a VERY different sound when struck against other coins, thus sparking the term “Sound Money” as you can literally here the difference between the coins.  I include a few pictures of some of the earlier coins in case you are not familiar with them.  In order they are a selection of Half Dollars, and old quarter, and an old dime.  They are all presented Obverse than reverse. 

The other coinage I will speak about is that of Panama.  Panamanian coins are reasonably common in the United States due to our long standing military presence in Panama.  Additionally, vessels traveling through the Panama Canal also have led to Panamanian coins being imported to the U.S.  In either event looking at most coin operations and ebay will quickly show that there are a reasonable number of the coins of Panama available, and often they can be obtained for less than the comparative American coins. 

The coinage of Panama was struck on the same coin blanks as American money.  This means that it is of the same size and quality as our own.  As a further bonus the Panamanians even went so far as to state directly on their coins the weights and purity of their coins.  The only two things to remember are as follows.  Which coins are we talking about?  And when did they stop minting them in 90% silver? 

Generically, the money of Panama is called the Balboa.  Coins that equal a portion of a Balboa are referred to by their proportion of a full Balboa.  So the ‘decima Balboa’ is 1/10^th of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Dime. 

The ‘Quarto Balboa’ is 1/4^t of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Quarter. 

 

The ‘Medio Balboa’ is ½ of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Half dollar. 

And finally a full Balboa is usually referred to as ‘Un Balboa’ and is equal in size to an American Dollar (not pictured). 

In Theory, Panama stopped minting in 90% Silver after 1964 just as the United States did.  However, the Panamanians seem to have had some left over 90% coin blanks and you can find numismatically tested and graded coins that were minted as late as 1968 and are still 90% silver.  However, the accumulator is not looking for oddities as such will always cost a premium and I would recommend sticking with 1964 and prior if you purchase Balboas. 

As a final note, all of these coins were minted to the Avopoidal, or 26 gram, ounce instead of the more talked about “troy” ounce which is a smidge over 31 grams.  The result is that an American Dollar, or a Panamanian Balboa will weight basically 4/5 of a troy ounce.  If you wish to accumulate these by the Troy ounce you need to remember you need 5 quarters to equal one Troy ounce, not the four you might expect. 

Next time, the last installment of this series.  Fun and Games of Ebay, or “You can’t always get what you want”, but you can probably at least see it on Ebay. 

Compromise, Senate style

     Now that the House has finally passed a Debt Ceiling increase the Senate, in a display of clear-headed thoughtfulness, voted it down without a reading. The sallow-faced worm Reid then demanded that the House Republicans stop being obstructionist and make a compromise with with the Senate.

     His only offer was his plan, the one that cuts far-future costs by not paying for things that we aren't doing now, and probably won't do in the future. These magical "cuts in spending" have been shot to pieces by the CBO and Reid's bill actually increases spending and widens the deficit. To Reid this is compromise. A careful and reasoned finding of middle ground in an effort to save the country from the "Armageddon" of default.

     This reminds me of the Bay of Pigs crisis, both sides are playing at brinkmanship, each daring the other to "knock the chip off my shoulder". These pampered idiots are pretending to be bad-ass gunfighters in some Wild West shootout movie, each resting his hand on his revolver while squinting down the sun-blasted street at his opponent. Too bad it will be the credit-rating of the US and the interest rate on T-Bills that will die instead of these morons, and thus we the tax-paupers will suffer further.

     Oh, for the days when these two would have had to square off with dueling pistols. It might not lead to better government, but at least we wouldn't be lead by pasty-faced wussies and it would be a damned sight more entertaining.

     In the mean time the Resident (still without a shred of a plan) stands on the sidelines cheering them on. He is no doubt thrilled that the spotlight is focused on the one thing in D.C. that is less popular than he is. This is probably the biggest display of absentee place-holdership in all of history. "The smartest man in the room" (which is true only when he is dining with his immediate family, the dog stays outside right?) has no ideas, no framework for discussion, NO PLAN AT ALL.

   I am afraid that this will not end well.

Something to think about

While the buffoons in D.C. argue dramatically (but pointlessly) over what .00002% of the deficit to cut out of the mountain of pork that is the U.S. budget (before they enhugeify it once more) somebody has but together this neat graphic so that you can get an understanding of the size of the hole that has been dug for us, the taxpaupers.

I find it frankly terrifying.

Boehner drops the ball.....

     The Republibums seem to be every bit as incompetent as the Demonrats. Boehner brought his Debt Ceiling bill to the floor only to find out that the Reps that had said "No Way!" actually meant it. He seemed baffled at such action by a politician, but then, they are new after all and haven't fully joined the Borg yet. Or, even weirder, they are actually representing their constituents. Such things happen from time to time, it is frowned on in D.C. circles (much like having sex with interns and taking bribes) but can be tolerated in small doses. When these types are present in larger groups the established elites suddenly find themselves confronted with a crack in the paradigm, the ground shifts beneath their feet and they get all woozy and feeling faint.

Amusing

A little video from Andrew Klavan over at Pajamas Media; amusingly told but true in its bones.

The facts of life for liberals.

History is rhyming again..........

This can't be good, an AWOL soldier has just been arrested near Ft. Hood, he was prepping explosives and had made statements about attacking person at the fort. here is the article from MSN.

The Collapse of the Middle

     One of the most striking things about today’s society is that the central space is gone. The polarizing forces in almost every issue have managed to pull and tug at the body politic to the point where all that remains is edge, the center having been torn to shreds. Extremism is the modus operandi of the day. Everyday.

Paper, paper everywhere and not a money in sight.....

OK, that was a terrible paraphrase but it was the best I could manage. Here is a lttle reminder of what has happened in the past when the government tries to solve its problems with a printing press. Anybody thinking that the dollar is some sacred document, free from the rules of reality needs to think again. All of these governemnts thought they could "pull it off".

Epic Fails all.

Great Quote

Sometimes you run into one of those statements that cut right to the heart of the matter, that clears away all of the fog and lets the pure light of reason shine on the subject in question, this is such a statement. I saw it on a post on Zerohedge that dealt with the latest Euro "fix" for the general insolvency of 2/3 of the nations in the Eurozone, Popo is the poster;

"At what point do these imbeciles realize that there is no permutation of reshuffled cards that does not result in someone eating the loss?

Rather than having endless meetings to discuss new permutations,  perhaps a better approach would be to decide (in general) who should eat shit sandwiches in the event that they need to get eaten?

Taxpayers? ... or the banks that made the shit sandwiches?   That's the only question.   Focusing on new complex "solutions" is an obvious ruse to avoid answering the fundamental question: 

Who eats it?"

Fooking brilliant!

A modern Cassandra, Sir James Goldsmith

     How this guy didn't go completely nuts when confronted by the persistent, unwavering idiocy of the the people he was dealing with is beyond me. He clearly saw the coming crash and nobody would listen to him. Proof that being right can be small comfort. This interview is from 1994 and he saw it clearly and predicted it perfectly, the stooge from the Clinton Administration is painfully clueless.

     There are six videos. watch them all.

Surviving TEOTWAWKI Part 3c A Man's Home is his Castle? Try Again

 Having considered the options of staying put or bugging out and made up our mind we now need to look at the next biggest issue; physical security of the home. Take a walk around your home, look at it critically. Think about how easy it would be to gain entry, particularly if you didn't care about breaking windows or kicking in a door. Rather daunting isn't it?

Gold as money

An interesting video covering gold and fiat as money, the shinking value of fiat over time is nicely done. It it the British accent that makes him sound better than the bozos in D.C. or is it that what he is saying makes sense?

Perhaps both.

Another video by Mr. Frisby, rather longer and more serious, well worth a viewing.