Gold, Silver... and Ammo
I recently watched an interview with Robert Kiyosaki on Kitco News where he said he believed we’re headed for a large financial crash in October. If you watch the video, he is mostly trying to promote his latest book, but he did make a statement that stuck in my mind (at 21min 06sec if you want skip ahead): “Gold is for saving, silver is for spending, and ammo is for protection.” In the current world of trillion dollar deficits, and totalitarian policies, this really struck a chord with me.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I decided to buy some physical gold and silver: a 1oz gold Canadian Maple Leaf and a 1oz silver Canadian Maple Leaf. The gold coin was $1858 and the silver coin was around $28 - so it was a significant purchase. What amazed me, coming from a world of paper money and plastic cards, was how compact gold is. This little 1 oz coin, just over an inch in diameter, was worth over $1850! At the prices I paid, it takes 66 ounces of silver to equal 1 ounce of gold! (The gold coin is smaller than the silver coin too, which surprised me but makes sense because gold is denser than silver.)
While that was my first ever physical gold purchase, I actually already own a little bit of gold, but I’ve never held it… because it is all online.
When we were first getting AmmoSquared off the ground in 2016, a customer mentioned that our model was similar to what another company called OwnX does for gold and silver. At that time, in order to learn more, I signed up and bought a small amount of gold to test out the platform and get ideas for AmmoSquared. It was indeed similar to what we do for ammunition. I forgot about that purchase until a few months ago, when I logged in again to get ideas for our platform. My little purchase of gold had appreciated about 48% from when I bought it (or said another way, the dollar had depreciated 48% against gold in that time)!
So heeding Robert Kiyosaki’s advice, my plan is to buy gold in addition to buying ammo through AmmoSquared (btw I actually do… like the old HairClub for Men commercial says: “I’m not only the President of HairClub for Men, I’m also a client.”). I can also sock away a little bit of my paycheck into gold and silver through OwnX and another company I found called Vaulted. This will be my offsite, secure storage of precious metals until I want to exchange it for fiat currency or receive delivery in physical form. This way I should have all of my bases covered: gold, silver, and of course ammunition.
Apparently, this concept of offsite storage is not new in the precious metals industry. Kitco, who has been around since 1977, also has a program called Kitco Pool, where your precious metal purchases are “pooled” with the metal from other buyers until you want it delivered.
Here is how they describe their program:
Kitco Pool - Metal Accounts
Kitco Pool - Metal Accounts are unallocated accounts of precious metal deposits in which you do not have direct title to specific allocated bullion bars or coins. As a Kitco Pool - Metal Account holder, you own a portion of a pool of precious metals held by Kitco on your behalf.
In exchange for your Kitco Pool - Metal Account holdings, you can request and receive any physical precious metal bullion product available in our online store upon full payment of all applicable fabrication, shipping, and insurance charges.
Kitco Pool - Metal Accounts may consist of precious metals in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to bars, coins, and scrap metal. Precious metal pool accounts are available for gold, silver, platinum, palladium , and rhodium.
These precious metal assets, while not segregated by individual ownership, belong entirely to Kitco’s customers who are Pool Account holders and are available to those customers at any time.
This is exactly what AmmoSquared does with ammunition. Your ammo is stored in bulk until you request delivery. Once you request it, we pick it from the ammo available at that time and ship it out. So just like these other companies do with gold and silver, you can do with ammunition and know that your holdings are backed up by physical ammunition and deliverable on demand.
If you got this far, hopefully you too see the storm clouds on the horizon and you’re making adequate preparations. While nobody knows exactly how the next few years will play out, we can see that things aren’t quite right in the world… I may not have a crystal ball, but I do have a history book.
“You have a choice between trusting the natural stability of gold or the honesty and intelligence of members of the government. And with all due respect to these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, vote for gold.”
- George Bernard Shaw