32 million dollar for a 8cm wide porcelain cup

Originally Posted by Oberon

Speculate to accumulate. Can't see the antiquities market going down any time soon. Probably a safer bet than the gold standard!

It depends.
A few years back some porcelain was making great prices because it was clearly a limited supply, even slightly damaged pieces were selling well due to its scarcity.
Then someone discovers a dutch east-Indiaman with its Chinese cargo intact, many thousands of pieces in pristine condition come onto the market and the price tanks.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

This is the only one in China.

Oh my God - 36 million for an ensemble that is not even complete...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Betonov

That's why I'm keeping my Austria Hungary silver coins.
My father wants me to sell them ASAP, but I'll take the risk that prices might go up

Counting on collector's value for coins is for luxurious times only. Once the stuff hits the fan, its all just the material value you get when bartering gold or silver coins, since preferences by collectors then are no currency anymore that anyone bartering for existential goods would accept as long as he is not stinking rich still (and then would be able to drop your price). Collectors' values by experience then play little or no role anymore.

But you could be right for a different reason, since silver, compared to gold, is massively underrated in price.

If they are right and the stock indices go into a dive this year, the gold price will sharply rise. Silver as well, I would think. A crisis in paper moeny is good fior gold and silver, but comes at the growing risk of a gold prohibition. Maybe better invest in porcelain cups indeed.

[Oberon]

If TSHTF then Gold and Silver will probably be worth less than that China cup, at least you can use the cup to drink from, what can you do with Gold and Silver without the infrastructure to support an economic system?

Tribesman makes a good point on recovered items, it is all about the scarcity of the object after all. So that being said, an even better investment than Gold, Silver or Chinese tea cups would probably be alcohol, most specifically whiskey or wine. Both increase in price the older they get, and both can still be used for bartering if TSHTF.

There's my tip, buy booze.



I'll take my payment for financial advice in Glenfiddich.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So that being said, an even better investment than Gold, Silver or Chinese tea cups would probably be alcohol, most specifically whiskey or wine. Both increase in price the older they get, and both can still be used for bartering if TSHTF.

We have been there, and also had tobacco, salt, and many more obscure things (even spam). For some reasons humans left that behind and favoured certain metals. Maybe because it proved to be more practical in everyday life? Or do you want to make a getaway escape run from disaster - with a car full of fragile bottles? That you cannot divide to pay something that is of lesser value?

Somebody said stuff is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Not many are willing to pay much for wine and alcohol, or porcelain (or paintings, statues and the like). But since very long time, gold and silver is agreed by overwhelming majorities of mankind to be precious, practical and pragmatic. It seems empirical experience have convinced them.

Some also invest in precious watches. But not only does that - like wine - need very good insider knowledge and competence to separate the expensive junk from the watches that could preserve value for some time indeed, but the worth of the watch is gone when you break it. Can't happen with gold and silver: the value is independent from the form you give to it: necklaces, rings, coins, bars, nuggets: unimportant. The material value attributed to it remains to be the same.

When that Chinaman breaks that cup, its value is gone, for the material of porcelain itself has little value. Eventually the insurance helps out then. Not with gold, of course.

With paper money...

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We have been there, and also had tobacco, salt, and many more obscure things (even spam). For some reasons humans left that behind and favoured certain metals. Maybe because it proved to be more practical in everyday life? Or do you want to make a getaway escape run from disaster - with a car full of fragile bottles? That you cannot divide to pay something that is of lesser value?

Sure, if you're in a car running from disaster then you're not exactly going to take bottles with you, but if you're not running and you're suffering from nicotine withdrawal, who knows just what you'd give for a packet of cigarettes?

Somebody said stuff is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Not many are willing to pay much for wine and alcohol, or porcelain (or paintings, statues and the like).

Um...if that is the case then how did this thread come about?

But since very long time, gold and silver is agreed by overwhelming majorities of mankind to be precious, practical and pragmatic. It seems empirical experience have convinced them.

You can't eat gold, or silver. If TSRHTF and you ran into someone holding you up at gunpoint, and you had a gold coin, a $100 bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes...sure, in the early days when there's hope of the cavalry coming to the rescue and the gold coin being worth something, they might take that from you, but later...it'd be the cigarettes or whiskey...or, much more likely, any food or water you had with you.

Some also invets in precious watches. But not only does that - like wine - need very good insider knowledge and cpometence to separa5te the junk from the watches that could preserve vlaue for saome time, but the worth of the watch is gone when you break it. Can't happen with gold and silver: the value is independent from the form you give to it: necklaces, rings, coins, bars, nuggets: unimportant. The material value attributed to it remains to be the same.

Gold and Silver are only worth what society deems them to be worth, likewise with any ore, in a true SHTF scenario, metals like iron and copper would probably be worth more as they would be useful for melting down and making weaponry.

When that Chinaman breaks that cup, its value is gone. Eventually the insurrance helps out then. Not with gold, of course. With paper money...

Gold is just a metal, like paper is just paper. If anything Gold is pretty useless, it's too soft to be made into anything practical. To be honest, this paper money that you're so dead set against, is merely a progression of the financial system from gold, with the key difference in that it is an infinite resource whereas gold is finite. I can understand why that would make you place your faith more on Gold and silver than paper or electronic money, I understand that, but what I don't understand is how you think that if society was broken that Gold would still be worth something in comparison to consumable life items. Admittedly something like whiskey is a luxury consumable item, likewise cigarettes, but in an agrarian society it would be something that would set you apart from the basic needs, a luxury indeed, something that you can share or keep for yourself, to treat yourself. I can see how Gold would factor in a medieval society, after all, it did in medieval times, but only to a set section of society, traders and the like, to the average person trading was in foodstuffs and agriculture.

Ultimately, if the S did HTF hard enough, then Gold would be as useful as a paper note, because as I said earlier, you can't eat Gold.

EDIT: Furthermore, in support of the previous advice in favour of alcohol, in an emergency it can be used as a cleansing fluid, as a method of dulling pain, it can be burnt, and in the absence of water cleansing equipment it is a lot safer to drink than water. Can the same be said of Gold?

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Platapus

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." Either Publilius Syrus or Leonard Nimoy

You've been playing Civ4, weren't you


On the other hand, if the civilization breaks down and my coins become worthless, silver can still be used as raw material for makeshift electrical machinery

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Betonov

You've been playing Civ4, weren't you


On the other hand, if the civilization breaks down and my coins become worthless, silver can still be used as raw material for makeshift electrical machinery

Which is good, if you can generate the electricity.

The problem with the SHTF scenarios is that there are many different ways in which it can occur and each different scenario impacts the planet and society in different ways. A global EMP for example would make unshielded electronics useless, but a virus would leave them intact. It would really depend on how far back in our progress we are set.

I could see things like Gold and Silver being worth something in the first few years, since the vestiges of pre-collapse life would mean that people would still associate them as having a value. However the necessities of post-collapse life would soon make other items more valuable than Gold and Silver, things like food, clean water, somewhere safe to sleep. If you look back at the Feudal systems of old, the peasants don't generally handle much gold, but without them the Lords would have no-one to work the land and provide materials for him to trade to other Lords. So, he (or she in some societies) provides safe living and access to just enough food and water for survival for the peasants, and in turn they provide materials for the Lord, if either one removed themselves from the picture then trouble would occur, the peasants would find themselves at the mercy of bandits and rival Lords (although depending on the armed forces and ability of the Lord in question they probably would anyway) and the Lord would find himself having to plough his own fields.

Furthermore, if for some reason the S does not HTF, much to the disappointment of many, then there's good enough reason to suspect that in the far future the value of Gold will plummet as mining of our local asteroids and planets commences. Other metals or even gases will become more valuable as time progresses, right now in fact Platinum is worth more than Gold due to its scarcity, but few people advise to buy platinum.
Right now, an ounce of Gold is worth at the most $1313, the same weight of Platinum is worth $1440.

The next big thing? Helium. Right now the prices are relatively low, people can buy it and make party balloons and silly voices with it, but that's only because the US is keeping it low to sell off the reserves it has built up. Once that stops, well, if you'll pardon the pun, the cost of Helium will balloon. Lithium too will likely be a big thing in the future.

But you could be right for a different reason, since silver, compared to gold, is massively underrated in price.

Errrrrr.....no.
Gold compared to silver has been massively overrated in price recently, for the 2nd time in 30 years.
Its a simple process which is easy to understand and benefit from.
When the doomsayers of von misery and the Beckian horde are shouting buy gold buy gold buy gold now, you get ready to sell gold.

[TarJak]

What's more interesting is how a former handbag maker and taxi driver built a fortune in China to gain the ability to buy the cup at that price. http://m.bbc.com/news/business-13752540

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Sure, if you're in a car running from disaster then you're not exactly going to take bottles with you, but if you're not running and you're suffering from nicotine withdrawal, who knows just what you'd give for a packet of cigarettes?

Let'S keep it treasonable. Take TSHTF scenarios as one of these: collapse of fincial and then economic system, or collapse of civilisaitonal order due to for example cosmic disaster like meteor strike, or pendemic global disease. Let'S not focu on the single guy in the woods who would sell his survival for that special edition of volume 1 of Asterix comic.

Um...if that is the case then how did this thread come about?

Becasue very few people assembled and drove the price up, while the majority just shakes the head.

You can't eat gold, or silver. If TSRHTF and you ran into someone holding you up at gunpoint, and you had a gold coin, a $100 bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes...sure, in the early days when there's hope of the cavalry coming to the rescue and the gold coin being worth something, they might take that from you, but later...it'd be the cigarettes or whiskey...or, much more likely, any food or water you had with you.

Which is no contradiction at all. I always said gold became an accepted currency because people voluntarily negotiated its value on a market and came to the voluntary agreement to see its value as relatively high, for many purposes that were so convincing (market saturation but also: being rare, pragmatic handling, non-corrosion,. irrelevance of the form the gold comes in, etc), that almost everybody agreed to it, and agreed to give up early tokens like rare seeds, tobacco, furs, seashells, feathers etc in favour of using gold and silver as trading objects.

You are right, one cannot eat gold, but that is totally irrelevant. The argument I would make here is that in case of a civilisational or economic breakdown, gold will lead you much further and can enable you to barter for much longer time into the disaster, than a cup of porcelain, chewing gum, or whatever. If you do not think so, then you argue against over 3000 years of history filled with breakdowns by wars, empire'S falling, economic disaster, hyperinflations.

I would not accept a precious porcelain cup as a trading good in a TSHTF scenario, becasue if it really were so precious, I could not barter it myself that easily without loosing all my wealth in form of that cup, when just wanting to trade a litre of milk, or book a ferry passage over a river. A grain of gold is worth something after all, a grain of porcelain is dirt.

Gold and Silver are only worth what society deems them to be worth, likewise with any ore, in a true SHTF scenario, metals like iron and copper would probably be worth more as they would be useful for melting down and making weaponry.

Yes, its worth what people agree to see in it, in value. And indeed gold has been bartered for copper and iron ore. That'S becasyue money (based on a commodity) is a trading good just like any other. Hasn't this been repeated by me many many times in the past months? But tell me, the formalization of using a metal as an official currency by minting it into coins or bars - have they recently used gold, or iron for it? And why did they made their choice, what do you think?

Gold is just a metal, like paper is just paper. If anything Gold is pretty useless, it's too soft to be made into anything practical. To be honest, this paper money that you're so dead set against, is merely a progression of the financial system from gold, with the key difference in that it is an infinite resource whereas gold is finite. I can understand why that would make you place your faith more on Gold and silver than paper or electronic money, I understand that, but what I don't understand is how you think that if society was broken that Gold would still be worth something in comparison to consumable life items. Admittedly something like whiskey is a luxury consumable item, likewise cigarettes, but in an agrarian society it would be something that would set you apart from the basic needs, a luxury indeed, something that you can share or keep for yourself, to treat yourself. I can see how Gold would factor in a medieval society, after all, it did in medieval times, but only to a set section of society, traders and the like, to the average person trading was in foodstuffs and agriculture.

I am not certain that you correctly understood where the value of gold lies in a disaster scenario. Maybe it comes to your mind when thinking about whether you would be able to barter longer with paper money, or with gold nuggets, rings or coins. With which of the two would you hold out longer? And if you remove the printing on those bits of paper, what are you left with in bartering value then? Compared to a gold coin you melt into a nugget again?

Ultimately, if the S did HTF hard enough, then Gold would be as useful as a paper note, because as I said earlier, you can't eat Gold.

In a non-economic-only scenario, absolutely. Still, gold would be given up later as an accepted trading good for bartering, then paper notes. And if it is for suviving the crash of a fiscal and economic system and preserve the material values you own in form of stockpiled fiscal buying power (savings for example), then the majhority of people is better served and it is more prgmatic for them to focus on changing their values into gold instead of paintings, or little cups. The wide acceptance of gold as a trading item stands beyond dob t, since millenia. The acceptance of this or that painting, sculpture, or procerlain cup at least is in doubt in the long run. Also, if you ruin the canvas or paint, the value is gone. If you melt the ring or necklace, it still has the value of gold attributed to it. And as said several times now, the pragmatic handling of gold is easier than that of sculptures, bottles or porcelain cups.

Twain wrote that famous story about the million pound note. He could as well have written one about a 36 million dollar porcelain cup. You know how the stroy goes, the hero gets all for free because a one million pound note does serve very badly as a currency token. In reality, that hero would find huge difficulties in finding partners for any deal he wants to do regarding his ordinary life. Most people do not have 35,999,98.01 dollars as exchange when you want to pay 1,99 for your coffee.

EDIT: Furthermore, in support of the previous advice in favour of alcohol, in an emergency it can be used as a cleansing fluid, as a method of dulling pain, it can be burnt, and in the absence of water cleansing equipment it is a lot safer to drink than water. Can the same be said of Gold?

And if you are in free fall, you better have a set of wings.
Let's not take exceptions from general rules as the rule itself. If you think in the coming fiscal breakdown you better serve your interest when buying bottles with alcohol instead of gold in any physical form, do it, and see what you hold in your hands still when the show is over. If you think that in a war scenario where you must flee from a terribly murderous enemy or want to escape from a tyrannic police dictatorship and need to bribe border guards or a forger to give you forged papers or let you pass the border, you are better served with a cup or a bottle of alcohol instead of grains or tiny pieces or copins of gold, prepare for that - but do not complain over the disillusionizing outcome. If you think that in case of a scenario of global civilizational collapse where passenger and goods traffic stops, next communication and media, next relations between neighbouring states, next internal orders within these states and interim dictatorship being brought to fall by looting gangs and replaced with tribal structures, if you think that in that scenario you can barter for as long as with porcelain cups or bottles of alcohol, the prepare for it, and we will thzen see if you hold out as long as I do with my nuggets of gold and silver. Not to mention the pragmatic difficulties you run into, and that I explained above.

You have not understand the reasons why gold has been accepted that wildely as a formalised trading token by man since so long time, Oberon. I never said, never, nowhere, that gold has a given intrinsic value dicatted by a higher rwality, in itself, I never said that! I preach since long time that a gold currency is a commodity or good just like any other, which gets its value attriubuted by people in free negotaitons, and if mankind since so long time sees so much value in it, then that has reasonable and pragmatic reasons!

Copmolare that to an iron cpoin minted by the monopolise dstate, which in effect is nothing else but paper money. That thing has no value in itself that people would barter that easily. Melt that iron copin inbto a nugget, and see what yoiu get for that. That coin has its value not negotiated on then market, but it gets dicated by the state who fixes that value, and then devalues it all time long. That is the reason why collectors coins become precious: they get withdrawqwen, somewhat, fromt he state's infleunce tom dictate their value, instead their value is negotiated on the market by free collectors.

In the end, this topic was just about that stories like that Chinese cup are about leaving reasonable borders of pragmatic life when attributing so much buying power to such an unpragmatic and ugly and fragile object. And I am certain that many see it like I do. And that is the reason why tiny porcelain cups will never find the needed acceptance to serve in the function of a formal currency. State-made money made of paper or iron, is no trading good on the market, it has no value in itself that would be traded on the free market, our whole fiscal system is basing on empty bubbles and illusions. Gold-money has such a value, no matter whether minted into coins, or not. Like these facts, disagree with them, it doe snot matter. Melt that one coin back into an iron nugget, and the other into a gold nugget, and see what of the two you can trade on the market, see how far you get. You must not tell me the result, I already know it.

Read my sig (currently the Baader quote).

[Wolferz]

Do you know why that guy bought that cup, Skybird?

Because he can.

As for the SHTF scenario...
It's likely that a loaf of bread will be worth as much as a bag of gold...
Until there's no more bread.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Do you know why that guy bought that cup, Skybird?

Because he can.

Yes.

And did you know why that depressive guy jumped out of the window? Because he could as well. However, that he could does not mean that he was sane.

P.S. You know what I would do if I would, by chance find in the garden some ancient golden gems and necklaces of archaeological interest? I would keep it secret, buy an equipment and would melt it all into nugget or bars, then sell it. Because if the gold is left in the forms they had given to it two thousand years ago, the monopolised criminal called the state claims possession of it, and must not even pay me a finder's fee. So, I must sell it, so to speak, and will never get the value the gold has for sure. If I take away that shape of ancient coins and rings, then the archaeological "value" is gone, and what is left is the value of gold, in full this time!, and that is the reason why I can take it and sell it anywhere in small portions without being asked questions.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Yes.

And did you know why that depressive guy jumped out of the window? Because he could as well. However, that he could does not mean that he was sane.

Touche'.

Why am I leaking?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Touche'.

Why am I leaking?

You forgot to replace your incintinence pad?