Author: liquidman

As I have mentioned many times, gold and silver each serve a specific purpose. Gold is for preserving wealth, and silver is for barter. Probably the most common question I am asked about precious metals is how could a person use them in the event of a currency collapse. People ask me, “How can I use my gold coins for barter when the time comes? Do I see off an edge of the coin and use it that way? How will people know the value of gold and silver? The answers to these questions are relatively simple. No one knows exactly how things are going to unfold, but we could pose a very possible scenario.

When the dollar fails, and many financially knowledgeable individuals are saying that the dollar with collapse this year in 2010, what will happen to gold and silver? Gold and silver will go out of sight as far as value at that point, and that is when you want to have the bulk of your wealth in gold coins in your possession. Gold analysts and experts are now saying, as I mentioned before, that because of the severe shortage of above-ground gold and silver, gold could easily climb between $5,000 and $20,000 an ounce, and silver could get between $100 and $600 per ounce.

Now to answer the question about how you could use your gold and silver for barter. First of all, gold is not for barter but for preserving wealth. Gold will simply be too valuable per ounce to use for barter. You can’t take a one-ounce gold piece, which could be worth $5,000 an ounce, down to the grocery store to buy groceries or get a tank of gas with it. It is not practical. Gold is something that you hold and store as your core of wealth. Later on, if things finally settle down, you can either convert your gold to currency if the government prints another currency, or you could use it to buy bigger things like a house or a car, or a piece of land.

As an interesting piece of history, in 1929, when the stock market crashed, land values plummeted from 75% to 95%, and people with money were able to buy houses or land for pennies on the dollar. The same thing will happen this time when our dollar fails and the market crashes. The only thing different this time is that the dollar will be worthless, and with gold coins in your possession, you can purchase whatever you want. With gold in your possession, you have a chance to survive what is coming to this country.

That is why gold and silver are so important. Physical gold stands by itself as a sentry outside the fiat money system, guarding all of your assets. Gold has a 5,000-year track record of being the world’s only real money. Gold is tangible and real. Gold is universal and international. A person can take his or her gold anywhere in the world and exchange it for currency, goods, or services. Gold is the only financial security in the world. Gold maintains its purchasing power. You have probably heard the adage, that in the year 1900, an ounce of gold would buy a good suit of men’s clothes, and in 2010, an ounce of gold will buy a good suit of men’s clothes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18c3bPj7Ayw

Another thing to watch out for is a coin company that will hold your gold for you in safety deposit boxes or elsewhere. Never buy from a coin company that does that. That defeats the whole purpose of owning gold. You want it there with you when an economic crisis arrives. During the chaos, what are your chances of getting your gold if it is stored at a company halfway across the country, or even in safety deposit boxes in a bank across town?
A viable alternative that affords better legal protection for your gold compared with the protection of banks and other financial institutions is an asset protection trust. With this kind of trust you still hold your gold in your possession while having powerful legal protection from a variety of financial predators.

So, once you own gold and silver coins, where do you store them? It sounds kind of crude, but most of my clients bury them. Here is a possible plan. First, get a 6” diameter PVC tube like the plumbers use and cut it into 12” to 18” sections. The amount of gold and silver you own will dictate the number of sections you need to cut. Next, get a couple of plastic drain ends like the plumbers use and some waterproof silicone. The gold coins come in plastic flips, so put as many gold coins as you can in a Ziploc bag and zip the bag shut. The Ziploc bag provides double water protection.

If you have silver coins, wrap them up in like manner. If you have a lot of silver, you will need more than one section of 6” PVC pipe. Once you have your coins in the pipe, then put some crumpled-up newspaper in the pipe for packing and water absorption, and seal the plastic drain ends in place with waterproof silicone. Now you are ready for the next stage, burying or hiding.

If you live in the country or on a farm, burying is relatively simple. If you have outbuildings or a wooded area, just pick a spot that you can remember easily and is easily accessible. There is no specific rule about how deep to bury the pipe, but you want to make it shallow enough so it is easy to dig it up if you need to leave in a hurry, but deep enough to deter a quick in-and-out coin grabber.

If you live in town and have a yard, then you need to pick a spot, preferably as far away from the house as possible, so it would be harder for a would-be robber to find it. If you live in an apartment, then the choices are more limited. I asked one very astute old gentleman who was living in an apartment where he stored his gold. Without hesitating, he retorted, “My ceiling beams are sagging.”

Other clients store their gold in hidden safes behind false walls, cement them in basement walls, hide them under a three-season porch or tuck them away carefully in a crawl space. Let your imagination be your guide. The next thing to do is to tell someone you can trust where you hid the coins, preferably the person who will be getting them when you pass on.

The final step, as one old-timer suggested, is to develop a ruse, a scheme to deter or fool a would-be robber. To do that, put a few dimes or half-dollars or silver dollars in a real secret place in your house. Meanwhile, 99.8% of your coins are somewhere else, out of harm’s way. That way, if someone comes to rob you, and if they threaten you with bodily harm, with great reluctance you can take them to that secret place and show them the silver coins, and you tell them, of course, that that’s all you have. At least that way they will be happy to get something of value, and they will probably leave in a hurry without harming you. Most people who come to rob you are in a hurry, and they don’t come with a shovel in one hand and a metal detector in the other.

One last thing not to do is to store your gold and silver in safety deposit boxes in a bank. Why? Look at what Roosevelt did in 1933 when he confiscated gold. He declared a banking holiday and raided everyone’s safety deposit boxes.

I have talked to five or six people in the last 10 years who have had things missing from their safety deposit boxes. I also personally have talked to one old-timer who lived through the 1933 confiscation, and he told me a true story about a wealthy friend of his who had a lot of valuables in his safety deposit boxes.

After Roosevelt declared a two-day banking holiday, the man went to his bank about a week later to check on his valuables. When he opened his safety deposit boxes, which had contained $1.4 million worth of diamonds, precious stones, jewelry, and gold coins, it was empty. He asked the bank president what had happened to his valuables. The man played dumb and said that he didn’t know. The man walked out the door, went home, and committed suicide.

What are the Gold and Silver secrets? They’re nothing magical or mystical. The gold and silver secrets have to do with the remarkable value of these precious metals as investment vessels. The gold and silver secrets let you diversify your investment portfolio in such a way that you can always have your investments’ value going up and up no matter what the wider economy is doing. In today’s economic climate, you need to be aware of the existence of the gold and silver secrets that have been used by money-making investors and the wealthy for centuries.

One of the gold and silver secrets known to those who have a lot of money is that both of them (both gold and silver) are important to own. Silver sits in gold’s shadow in the general investing public’s mind, but that is part of the reason why it should be held. Silver is often undervalued, meaning that you can get into it for a much, much lower cost than you can get into gold but often see far greater percentage gains. People who can’t afford to buy gold buy silver, pushing up its value. When gold’s market price rises to a certain point, it shuts out a lot of people, who then turn to invest in silver, which then drives up silver’s market value. This is very, very good for you if you are invested in silver.

By understanding gold and silver secrets, you can place yourself in a position to profit from a rise in gold’s price, a rise in silver’s price, and the opposite: a fall in their prices, which nearly always means that paper currencies and stocks and bonds are on the rise. A diversified portfolio should hold all of these things. A diversified portfolio means holding opposite investment assets so that you’re nearly always on the winning side. In today’s world, you must hold gold and silver because the major fiat currency of the world, the United States Dollar, is in jeopardy. All fiat currencies (that is, minted and printed money that is simply worth what its national central bank says it’s worth and which is based on debt obligations rather than backed by gold) are in trouble these days and, as a result, central banks around the world have been hoarding gold bullion (pure gold in the form of bars, not minted into coins). This makes gold more scarce in the marketplace and drives up its value. But with gold hard to come by, the market price of silver is also driven up as people hoard more of it.

The key to the gold and silver secrets is this: gold and silver always have value. They are valuable in and of themselves. They are useful in jewelry, electronics, and other ways. But when fiat currencies are losing value, gold and silver can be used as money. They can be held as assets that will always become more valuable the worse it gets for fiat currencies. The gold and silver secrets known to the wealthy include the fact that the precious metals have a history of holding their value throughout the ages-again, because they always have intrinsic value, unlike fiat currencies.

Today’s savvy investors know another one of the gold and silver secrets: that the most affordable way to get into precious metals investing is to buy junk silver coins. These are 90% US silver coins that were circulated and minted before 1965. A junk silver coin ($1000 face) contains about 715 ounces of silver and generally tracks the spot price of silver. If silver’s market value rises by just ten cents, a bag of US junk silver coins rises by about $70, although these bags at times lag sharp silver spot price changes.

It’s important to understand that if you own E-minis or ETFs for gold or silver you don’t really own any gold or silver bullion or coins; you instead have a derivative instrument that has its value based on gold or silver. But, these are highly affordable ways of getting into gold and silver investing and they are among the most important gold and silver secrets.

When the cost of living increases, the prices of gold and silver tend to rise, too. So, another one of the gold and silver secrets is that these precious metals should be held as a hedge against inflation. Inflation means the value of a fiat currency is becoming less so that a dollar (or whatever national currency) buys less than it used to. But this means that you need more dollars to buy the same thing. If gold and silver are now worth more dollars, you can get those additional dollars that you need to maintain your purchasing power in times of inflation by selling some of your gold and silver assets. So among the greatest of gold and silver secrets is understanding that when inflation looms it’s time to buy the precious metals.

There isn’t just one perfect red wine serving temperature. Each kind of red wine, from your driest Cabernet Sauvignon to your sweetest fortified wine has different requirements.

Here are a few tips:

Don’t drink red wine at room temperature

Room temperature (about 70ºF) is way too warm for red wine. No wine tastes good at that temperature, not even full-bodied wines. At that temperature, you only tasted the alcohol, which burns.

Instead, put the bottle in the refrigerator for about a half-hour to cool it down a little bit. If you decide to leave it in for longer, even for a few hours, that’s perfectly fine on metal wine racking.

When you take the bottle out, the red wine will slowly warm up to good drinking temperature. With a little practice, you will know what a good temperature is for a particular red wine.

Learn how to store wine in the optimal conditions, so you enjoy your wine at its best.

If you don’t have that much time, you have two other options available to you. You can put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. But if you decide to do that, I recommend you use a timer so you don’t forget about the bottle. Your other option is to dunk the bottle in a bucket of ice water for about 10 minutes.

A good rule of thumb for serving temperature

Full-bodied wines like Cabernet Sauvignon, Brunello di Montalcino and Syrah can be enjoyed between 62º-68ºF (17º-20ºC).
Merlot, Pinot Noir, fruity Syrah are better at a cooler temperature, between 59º-62ºF (15º-17ºC).

Fruitier wines like Beaujolais and some fortified wines like Port are ready to be enjoyed when cooled to around 54º-61ºF (12º-17ºC).

If you are very discerning, you may want to purchase a small thermometer to place in your wine bottle to check the red wine serving temperature. There are other models that can be wrapped around the side of the bottle and provide a reading as well. Usually, I just gauge how long the wine should be cooled according to its style. If its too cold, I let it warm in room temperature for a while. If too warm, it goes back into the refrigerator.

Bottom line: Wine should be cool enough to be refreshing, while not losing its flavor.

Certain health benefits of red wine have been attributed to this delicious nectar ever since wine was invented in ancient times. The ancient Greeks drank wine as it was safer than drinking water. It also was used as an antiseptic and mixed with medicines.

It was used as medicine for certain ailments. This is actually how the Penfold’s winery in Australia was started. Their wines were given to patients with anemia.

Modern Findings Of Red Wine And Health

Red Wine and Heart Health

One major health benefit of red wine is that it reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. It acts as an anticoagulant, which allows blood to flow easier. Therefore, it helps to reduce clogged arteries and blood clots.

Red Wine and Cholesterol

Another health benefit of red wine is that it raises “good” cholesterol (HDL) and lowers “bad” (LDL). It actually helps to remove the fat deposits in arteries.

Red Wine Antioxidants

There are some powerful antioxidants in red wine. They are what help to reduce the fat in our arteries.

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is one of the antioxidants found in red wine. It has anti-inflammatory effects, (you lose weight), it reduces the risk of cancer and it helps your heart. More research findings continue to come out on this antioxidant in red wine.

Quercetin

Like Resveratrol, Quercetin is found in red grapes. This red wine antioxidant also has anti-inflammatory properties and it may reduce risk for cancer.

French Paradox

The French Paradox is the health expert’s nightmare. They eat a high-fat diet, they don’t exercise and yet have a low heart disease rate.

Why is this? Well, it probably has to do with the red wine they consume. In moderate amounts, red wine can reduce heart disease risk.

Calories in Red Wine

How many calories in red wine? According to the United States dietary guidelines, there are about 100 calories in a 5-ounce glass of red wine.

If you are counting calories, you should know also that red wine is fat-free and has no cholesterol. Yippee!

Red Wine and Headaches

Red wine headaches are certainly not a health benefit of red wine, however, they do affect many people. A lot of research has gone into this topic, and there are some answers so sufferers can also enjoy the health benefits of red wine.

How much red wine?

So — how much red wine should you consume in order to experience all the health benefits of red wine? Dr. Sears, in his best selling book, Enter The Zone, says to have one glass of red wine per day. Higher amounts, he says, could result in a reversal of all the health benefits you want to achieve.

You should talk to your doctor for the best advice for you.

Cabernet Sauvignon is considered to be the most important variety because it is so easy to grow. Most dry red wines are made with this grape.

As long as it is in a warm climate, wine can be made from this variety. It is originally from Bordeaux in France, but grows nicely in Italy, Spain, California, Australia, Chile, South Africa and more.

One California winery that is famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon is the Silver Oak Winery. This is a wine that can age for about 15 years.

Taste. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes make medium to full-bodied types of red wines. They are high in tannin, which is a natural preservative that comes from the skin, stems and seeds of the grape and the oak wood in which the wine is aged. A good description of what tannins taste like is “astringent.” It is the same taste that you have when drinking a cup of tea.

Studies have been done to find out whether tannins cause red wine headaches. Find out more about red wine and headaches here.

Because of the tannin in Cabernet Sauvignon, vintners tend to mix this grape with at least one other to reduce the “astringency.” Usually a Cabernet Sauvignon blend is made with merlot, as it is not as tannic and brings a nice fruity flavor to the wine.

Another great characteristic about Cabernet is that it is naturally low in sulfites.

Merlot

Merlot is a much fruitier wine than Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a nice flavor, reminiscent of black currant. Merlot has a beautiful dark color, is full-bodied and is high in alcohol content. Merlot is also the most planted grape in Bordeaux and is very popular in California, Italy, Chile and other regions where Cabernet is grown.

If you like Dry Red Wines,

You Can’t Pass These Up!

Nebbiolo

Nebbiolo grapes grow in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. Barolo and Barbaresco wines are made from this grape. Barolo wine is more complex and fuller-bodied than Barbaresco that requires aging.

Barbaresco wine is a more refined, elegant Nebbiolo wine.

Sangiovese

Sangiovese is grown in Tuscany, particularly in Chianti. Of all the types of red wine that come from Italy, Sangiovese makes Italy’s most famous red wine.

Chianti wine has some tannin, but gets nicely rounded out by fruit flavors.

Sangiovese also makes dry, tannic wines like Brunello di Monalcino and Vino Nobile de Montepulciano. They are considered to be some of the top wines from Italy and should be aged before enjoying. Look up some principles on storing red wine.

Zinfandel

Zinfandel is a very popular variety in California. It is one of the oldest varieties grown in that region, which is probably why you can find so many different styles of this red wine type.

Tastes of Zinfandel can range from being intense with high tannins, to a lighter, fruitier type of red wine. It can have the flavor of blackberries and smell like raspberries, cherries, chocolate, coffee or oak.

Even Sweeter, Fruitier Wines:

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir has a lighter color than Cabernet or Merlot. It has less tannins and tastes like summer fruit. It has nice aromas, too. When exploring Pinot Noir, make sure to try Acacia Winery’s Pinot Noir. This winery has perfected the art of Pinot Noir through their vineyard specific wines.

California and Oregon are the best areas for Pinot Noir. Vintners in Napa, Sonoma, and the Willamette Valley of Oregon make excellent Pinot Noir wines.

Not sure which Pinot Noir to try first? Take a look at these Pinot Noir wine clubs. Let the experts send the perfect bottle to your door.

Syrah

Syrah has been a very popular grape variety. It makes a very dark, full-bodied wine with a robust flavor. Australia’s Syrah (called Shiraz) has a wide range of flavors ranging from light and fruity to robust and spicy.
One question I’ve been asked a lot is: At what temperature do you serve sweet red wine? Find out what the proper serving temperature is for all red wines here.

As you can see from this shortlist, many types of red wines can be made from just a few kinds of grapes.

One way that wine professionals organize all these different types of red wines is by a red wine rating system. It is important to understand something about these ratings, but they should not stop you from trying every kind of wine that is within your price range.

That brings us to the best part:
Your enjoyment!

Now that you know what to expect from different kinds of grapes, go ahead on your journey of exploration and treat yourself to new flavors in red wines.

There is an adventure and the thrill of discovery waiting for you in every glass.