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Time to once again consult the great hive mind that is my fellow FReepers... I am a relatively new (about 6 months) silver stacker (and gold, when I can afford it). One thing I've been hearing for a long time is "Silver is undervalued."I know silver is used for a zillion industrial uses -- solar, electronics, medical, etc. I know there is a huge deficit between "paper" silver and actual physical silver to back that paper. I know demand has been through the roof for many months -- not just in the U.S. but around the world -- and not...

Thinking of buying precious metals for SHTF (economic collapse)scenario. In a SHTF scenario would one ounce of silver be worth more or less if it were an American Silver Eagle (coin), a one ounce silver round, or a one ounce silver bar? Same goes for gold. Also, in an American SHTF scenario , would a silver coin minted in Canada or Australia be worth more or less provided their economies had not collapsed. As far as I know the US mint only mints Silver Eagles and Gold Eagles. Why are some other rounds called coins. I understand that in order...

Silver remains below its all-time high while gold is trading near its record levels. If the gold/silver ratio drops below 78, it could give silver a sustainable bullish trend and potentially push it towards multi-year highs.-Silver gained strong upside momentum in recent months but remains cheap compared to gold. -Demand for precious metals is rising as traders search for safe-haven assets amid a banking crisis in the U.S. -If gold/silver ratio settles below the 78 level, silver may gain strong upside momentum. Unlike Gold, Silver Settled Well Below Its All-Time High Levels Silver enjoyed strong support in recent months...

The first-quarter dip never happened. Some observers say that’s a problem. Credit-card balances hit $986 billion in the fourth quarter, but remain largely unchanged in the first quarter of the year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in its most recent quarterly report on household debt. It looks increasingly likely that credit-card debt is on track to hit the $1 trillion mark this year, and experts say that this number could be an indicator of a looming economic downturn.

When Prof. Markus Scholz, who teaches archaeology and the history of Roman provinces at Goethe University, returned to Bad Ems toward the end of the excavation work, he was astonished: After all, all the photos sent by his colleague Frederic Auth showed but a few pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, Scholz was ill-prepared for what he saw next: a wooden defense construction consisting of sharpened wooden stakes, designed to prevent the enemy’s approach. The martial-looking structure was intended to deter enemies from attacking the camp. Such installations – comparable, if you will, to modern barbed wire – are referenced to...

"This is the third coin of this type found in excavations in Jerusalem, and one of the few ever found in archeological excavations," said the researchers.During the Great Revolt against Rome, the Jews in Jerusalem minted bronze and silver coins. Most of the silver coins featured a goblet on one side, with ancient Hebrew script above it noting the year of the Revolt. Depending on its denomination, the coins also included an inscription around the border noting either, "Israel Shekel," "Half-Shekel," or "Quarter-Shekel." The other side of these coins showcased a branch with three pomegranates, surrounded by an inscription in...

Italian archaeologists have unearthed 24 beautifully preserved bronze statues in Tuscany believed to date back to ancient Roman times. The statues were discovered under the muddy ruins of an ancient bathhouse in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the Siena province, about 160km (100 miles) north of the capital Rome. Depicting Hygieia, Apollo and other Greco-Roman gods, the figures are said to be around 2,300 years old. One expert said the find could "rewrite history". Most of the statues - which were found submerged beneath the baths alongside around 6,000 bronze, silver and gold coins - date to...

Three metal detector fans have discovered a Roman hoard worth tens of thousands of pounds while spending the weekend camping in south-west England.The group were staying in a field near the ancient village of Pewsey, in Wiltshire, when they found the treasure trove a mere six paces from where they had pitched their tent.Robert Abbott, 53, switched on his device after breakfast one morning and very quickly found something.At first the computer shop owner from Essex, near London, uncovered only discarded metal tent pegs. But he dug a little deeper and hidden below was a valuable silver Roman coin called...

The quarter shekel coin, dated to 69 AD, is one of only four of its kind known to exist It took nearly 20 years of dogged detective work and a trail which crossed continents before the case of the missing $1m relic could be closed. "A cherished piece of history [is] finally going home," said a US official at a ceremony marking the occasion. That piece of history is a small silver coin rich in symbolism, minted during a Jewish revolt nearly 2,000 years ago. Looted in Israel in 2002, it was eventually tracked down, seized and is being returned...

Daniel Lüdin... swept his metal detector across the ground, a “strong signal” suddenly emitted from the machine... he was shocked by what he found: a clay pot filled with 1,290 coins.In accordance with proper archaeological protocol, Lüdin reburied the pot and contacted local experts, who dated the cache of coins to the fourth century... At the time, Switzerland was part of the Roman Empire.Based on the coins’ composition—copper alloy and traces of silver... was simply a large stack of “small change,” equal to about two months of earnings for a soldier, per the statement. Collectively, the coins amounted to as...

Archaeologists working on an excavation at Grange Farm, near Gillingham, discovered 15 kilograms of litharge—a material associated with the extraction of silver from other metals. This is the largest amount ever found on a British Roman site and greatly exceeds the amount that archaeologists would normally expect to find on a rural settlement such as that at Grange Farm, suggesting that the refining of silver was taking place on an industrial scale.However, the excavation team did not unearth any signs of the infrastructure that could have supported the size of operation required to produce this amount of material...The team was...

Historical artifacts were discovered in eight tombs dating back to the fourth century in present-day northern Turkey, officials announced on Friday.The tombs were uncovered during roadway expansion efforts in the Kurtulus district of Ordu, a province on Turkey's Black Sea coast, with teams from the local museums directorate launching excavations for the artifacts' urgent recovery.Officials added that many human and animal remains, including skeletons, were found in the tombs, along with pieces of jewelry made of gold, sardine stone, silver, glass, and bronze.Pieces of a glass bottle and beads were also found in one of the tombs, they said.The findings...

More than 5,500 silver coins buried by a river about 1,800 years ago are now in the hands of archaeologists, following the hoard's discovery in Augsburg, Germany.At the time of the coins' burial, the Roman Empire was in full swing, with its coinage reaching all corners of its territory and beyond.These coins "are denarii, the standard silver denomination during the 1st-early 3rd century [A.D.]," Stefan Krmnicek, a professor of ancient numismatics (the study of coins) at the University of Tübingen in Germany, told Live Science in an email.Archaeologists found the hoard earlier this year in an old riverbed. But though...

Antimicrobial-resistant infections are a leading cause of global death, killing nearly 1.3 million people yearly and outpacing malaria and HIV, according to a 2022 study published in The Lancet. In January 2023, a study published in Frontiers in Microbiology confirmed mounting evidence that adding silver nanoparticles to certain antibiotics boosts their ability to kill resistant bacteria.Knowledge of silver’s antimicrobial value has been around since ancient times. Silver nanoparticles (AgNP), however, with their tiny spheres interacting at the cellular level, signify a new frontier in fighting bacteria, gaining more attention over the past two decades.This new study adds to mounting evidence...

All together now. The Fed has been printing too much money for too long and Biden restricts fossil fuel production. Ad in rampant Federal spending and we have INFLATION. Inflation led to The Fed to raise rates. And with rate increases and down go the banks. Of course, The Fed and Biden Administration will overeact (e.g. offering deposit insurance on ALL deposits above $250,000 creating moral hazard risk). As such, we are seeing gold prices soar by 2% this AM. In adddition to gold rising 2%, natural gas futures are up 6%

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul discusses President Trump’s latest phone call with Vladimir Putin Watch TV shows, movies and more on Yahoo View

...not everyone agrees that this is a new finding, with some experts noting that other research has already found that silver currency was being used during the Middle Bronze Age in this region...Eshel and her colleagues also attempted to determine the origins of the silver in the hoards by studying their chemical impurities and isotopes — variations in the number of neutrons in the nuclei of particular elements, which change over time at known rates due to radiation.The analysis revealed signs of a widespread transition between sources in about 1200 B.C., possibly from silver mined in Anatolia — now Turkey...

TOKYO — One of the worst-kept secrets in global central banking is the extent to which Chinese officials are swapping dollars for gold. Governor Yi Gang’s team at the People’s Bank of China isn’t admitting as much. The PBOC doesn’t have to, though, given the clear policy trajectory Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pursued in recent years: internationalizing of the yuan as the top rival to the dollar. Xi’s position hasn’t changed so much as other governments are catching on that trust is waning in the global reserve currency and an alternative to the dollar is badly needed. Particularly as...

The ornate object was covered in dirt but well preserved, inspiring the farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, to send photos to archaeologists at the nearby Silesian Museum in Opava. Jiří Juchelka(opens in new tab), head of the Silesian Museum's archaeology department, told Radio Prague International(opens in new tab) (RPI) that the 20-inch-long (51 centimeters) object — made out of gold with inclusions of silver, copper and iron — was likely the front of a leather belt. "It is decorated with raised concentric circles and topped with rose-shaped clasps at the end," Based on the style of the decoration, she...

The global debt market is orders of magnitude larger than the stock market, and debt instruments across the globe have nearly reached the breaking point due to the Fed’s steady increase in interest rates this year (combined with seemingly endless money printing and other disastrous fiscal policies). Because bond values have an inverse relationship with interest rates, as interest rates go up, the value of bonds and other debt instruments already issued goes down. With each Fed rate increase, bond values are cratering, leaving debt investors holding substantial losses and leading to a collapse in the number of potential buyers...