If the dollar tanks - silver coins at the gas pump?
Posted by LJinBrooklyn@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 26 comments
So, if the dollar tanks, especially with brics and the major reserve currency switching away from the US dollar, I bet silver coins - mostly easily recognizable coins like the American Eagle, Canadian Maple leaf, and “junk silver” will be used at the gas pump, groceries, etc. “Junk silver” is even more easier to recognize- pre 1964 quarters and dimes and harder to counterfeit. Silver and gold bars would take too long to authenticate, so I would stay away from them - also “collector series” coins are hard to authenticate. Gold coins will hold too much value to be used in small trade being that even 1/10th of an ounce is a few hundred bucks, and a coin that small is very easy to lose. If SHTF, gold could even be way to high for small trade.
Any thoughts on this?
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
|I bet silver coins - mostly easily recognizable coins like the American Eagle, Canadian Maple leaf, and “junk silver” will be used at the gas pump, groceries, etc
I bet they won't. Too easy to counterfeit. Silver is just too simple. A friend of mine did a mix of lead and tin and I couldn't tell the difference without a chemistry set. I'm no expert, but neither are most people. And lead and tin are cheap.
You know what's hard to counterfeit? Dollars. So people will continue to use them for local trade even if there's no government behind them because for local trade no one cares if there's a government behind them now; they just represent a measure of worth. 12 eggs, 4$. The US government isn't involved in that deal and the deal would still work if the government was gone.
Never use a currency that's easy to counterfeit. Paper money was invented for a reason.
Routine_Umpire_3071@reddit
Silver will never realistically be used as currency.
The problem is, when there is no money... there is no need for silver, so the value plummets.
In addition, people will already be trading in their silver while they can, so silver will flood the market, making the value even less.
Enigma_xplorer@reddit
Likely not and you can see this by looking in parts of the world where this has happened. Ultimately the problem is people need money and gold/silver does not equal money. Part of the problem stems from the fact to control rapid inflation governments like to put on currency controls exactly to prevent you from dumping your cash and making the problem worse. For example think like withdrawal limits from your bank. If you cannot get cash from your bank they are creating an artificial shortage of physical paper money. How does your local coin shop operate if they do not have a functional banking system to buy and sell precious metals? Premiums would go wild meaning it wouldn't even be economical. At the end of the day paper money, even inflated junk money, will still be in demand due to the artificial scarcity the government creates. Foreign money would probably be a smarter bet than gold/silver but seeing as how they are somewhat related and interconnected bad news for the USD would probably mean bad news for a lot of currencies.
holmesksp1@reddit
I might suggest going and touching some grass. There's a very narrow scenario in which the economy is so bad that the dollar is worthless, but there is enough trust for precious metals to be traded. I don't feel like you understand even trading precious metals is still Fiat, You generally need entities certifying a piece of metal to be the quality it is claimed to be, since general consumers do not have the ability to assess purity to a sufficient degree.
War_Hymn@reddit
Basically, good if your country or region is collapsing but the rest of the world is still fine. Not so good if the global economy has tanked.
holmesksp1@reddit
Not really. Like I just explained, You need a trustable entity, (that can be communicated with) to certify the value of the silver. In the case of a regional collapse, some kind of secondary currency will take root based on the authority of whoever fills the power vacuum. The authority who fills the vacuum we'll be the one deciding what the medium of exchange is.
War_Hymn@reddit
I meant in terms of helping you leave the country when the local currency at hand has gone bad or defunct.
ProvincialPrisoner@reddit
I'm trying not to laugh. Don't prescribe to the narrative that gold and silver coins are going to be the relatable currency in the event of a collapse. In the event of the collapse of currency, people are going to barter. They're going to trade items that are readily available. The truth be told most people don't have gold or silver on hand. And determining how the worth of the currency for gold and silver coin. It's not common knowledge to somebody who's running a marketplace/business .This isn't medieval times. People are going to barter for alcohol and tobacco and work that is relatable. Like if you happen to be a good Smith or leather worker or woodworker. People are going to want those wares. But the US dollar is never going to depreciate so much that people are going to turn to silver and gold coins. If you take an example of the Vietnamese dong (0.000039 to the US Dollar) or the Korean won (0.00072), these currencies still exist on the international market and have not reduced themselves to using gold or silver as their tender.
Holiday_Albatross441@reddit
From what I remember of the news stories at the time, when the USSR collapsed, a lot of businesses and individuals had to barter. That was a huge pain for them because they had to find people who had the things they needed and needed the things they had. So while barter works for a while, sooner or later people will want to have a form of money that they can trade for instead.
The US dollar is effectively a promise from the US state that if you accept it today you'll be able to trade it for other things later on. So while I suspect you're right, that only applies so long as people believe that promise.
If the global trade system still exists they may switch to foreign currencies instead. People in the USSR who had US dollars did better during its collapse than those who only had Rubles.
NorthernPrepz@reddit
BRICS aren’t going to do anything, they are too diffuse geographically with too many disparate interests. The US has very little debt not demarcated in dollars. Hyperinflation is super unlikely. Further the US is a net exporter of staple goods including energy. It is very unlikely (though not impossible) that we will pay for gas in silver.
Unlike the Euro dollar system, no one is conducting trade in Yuan unless it is WITH china. On the other hand many countries established contracts in dollars, without the US asking them to. Even if that were to go away, trade with the US would still be conducted in dollars probably. For his historical analog look at what happened to the British pound over the course of history didn’t go to zero when GB stopped being the global hegemon, people still paid gas for it even though it was no longer the main global currency.
less_butter@reddit
Why do you believe this? Currencies fail all the time around the world and the citizens don't immediately shift to using precious metals to buy groceries. In fact... they use the US Dollar.
If the dollar collapses, people will use a different currency, not carry around bags of silver coins like in the Bible. I'm guessing that a dollar collapse is what would convince the US government to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and people will happily switch to that.
qbg@reddit
More likely that you'd be using your BRICS payment card at the pump.
Potato_Specialist_85@reddit
Yeah... so if the dollar tanks, you have bigger problems than currency. The things you think you will be buying will be in very short supply. You are better off hoarding useful goods than silver if that is your worry. Holding silver is to preserve the value of the money you currently have to use at a later time to buy back more of that currency. No one is going to go back to carrying around doubloons.
Big_Ed214@reddit
Black markets run most large purchases. They will take your coins at a discount or even trade cash at a cut rate vs. government or official money sources. They will also ask for high demand items, if you can buy those with silver in large volumes of guns, gas, alcohol or cigarettes then the black market will take that instead of your coinage…
Someone who has food, water & power will take the coins or swap for ammo, medicines & power (batteries, solar or generators)
SebWilms2002@reddit
You think society will just hot-swap to a physical currency based economy? The infrastructure doesn't even exist anymore to handle cash like that. You think word will come down from corporate to minimum wage gas station attendants to start accepting silver? Do they count or weight? What about counterfeit? You think the oil and gas producers will take payment in silver? You think the truck drivers that drive the trucks to fill up the gas station tanks will accept silver? You think grocery stores will start paying their staff in silver coins?
It's absolutely insane. Society will not be propped up on silver coins. If that ever seems like an option, then society is already gone.
Achsin@reddit
If things get bad enough fast enough that you aren’t able to use standard currency without a new currency taking over, you’ll probably have a harder time finding gas to buy than silver to buy it with.
Ruar35@reddit
I feel like this is something people don't grasp. If the money system tanks, then all shipping will stop and at that point it's scavenger and barter for the few weeks before everything gets bad. No one is going to care about gold or silver when there's no food or power to be had.
frogmuffins@reddit
I stack silver and agree 100%.
I feel like many people that buy silver(and gold) think there is a post shtf world where they are now king.
It all becomes instantly worthless when the masses are starving.
NotAnotherRedditAcc2@reddit
I love silver, too, but the silverbugs will not inherit the earth.
Onaru@reddit
Do you really think companies are gonna be taking alternate currency? If it's that bad, companies aren't gonna be around.
gilbert2gilbert@reddit
OP, how much silver do you have? Be honest.
That-Attention2037@reddit
I’m going with Ricky’s hash coin system.
No_Cucumber5771@reddit
Some of us have been on that system for years
featurekreep@reddit
maaaaybe if the owner of said gas station is present, and is confident in his ability to judge silver. Do you think Joe Minimum Wage is going to have the ability, desire, or permission to accept silver?
ARG3X@reddit
Only 13 US states recognize gold & silver as legal tender.
sanitation123@reddit
How does the attendant know how much gas one can get for however much silver? How much silver do you have to move around with you just to drive? How do gas tankers travel to fill up gas stations if only people with silver can get gas? Tankers seem like a fine target for looting if people are concerned about gas.