Silver threads amongst...

Every so often I come back to the topic of silver bars. I find it intriguing that gold and silver are still being touted as the best investments around, even in these climate change/global warming days, when you might think the old traditions would have begun to go out the window. But no, our fascination with gold and silver remains a constant, as it has done since the first man (or woman?) discovered a chunk of gold/silver and decided it was special. Precious.

I'm told that since the end of the Second World War, the U.S. Government – which used to be the largest holder of silver anywhere (globally and probably cosmically as well, I suspect!) has successively got rid of its holdings and in the process has managed to depress the world market. Whoever made this decision (probably George Bush, because he needed money to fund his Iraqi war) is anybody's guess, but now the very same Government wants its silver back. Talk about inconsistent. For that reason, silver represents a very good investment opportunity - if you have the money to buy it in the first place. And we're not talking your old silver ring that your grandma gave you either.

Hi Ho Silver!

I can remember the phrase, Hi Ho Silver!, but I’m lucky if I can remember the name of the actors who were in the films. Though I seem to remember that there was another horse called Tonto. Or was that the Indian’s name? Oh, dear.

Once I could quote you the details of umpteen films, naming the actors, directors and probably several other facts you didn’t need to know. Now I’m lucky if I recognise half the stars I see on screen.

And talking about silver, I can remember the fact that stocks of silver bullion are becoming hard to get, because I’ve had this fact hammered home to me on a number of occasions in relation to one of the writing companies I work for. But don’t ask me some other ‘facts’ I should know. I probably won’t be able to tell you.

I discovered that all this is perfectly normal. I suspected that it was, but I found a new book at the library the other day called Where did I leave my glasses? : the what, when, and why of normal memory loss. It’s by a woman who must now be getting on for seventy (she was a child in the forties) and who’s obviously been a top article writer for generations. Her name is Martha Weinman Lear, (of course I had to check it out on the book’s cover, because I’d forgotten), and she writes with great good humour and plenty of sense. She dispels the myth that most of us are heading for Alzheimer’s, and she includes plenty of sound scientific stuff in a very readable way.

She writes non-fiction the way I’d like to do it: plenty of information, but made so palatable that you just keep on reading. Years of experience probably helps, but for me it’s the sort of thing that’s quite hard. Maybe it is for her too. I don’t suppose she gets up in the morning and composes twenty pages on the trot without recourse to a few moments of thought.

I have written some good pieces in this sort of vein in the past – mainly for the NZ Listener – but I don’t seem to have the opportunities so much now. And many magazines have got deadly serious, so that humorous articles don’t get picked up readily. Just have to keep blogging then, to pay the bills.

Of course I should have checked earlier, but Tonto was the Indian. His horse was called Scout. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the name of his horse: The origin of Tonto's horse, Scout, is less clear. For a long time, Tonto rode a white horse called White Feller. In the episode titled "Four Day Ride," which aired on August 5th, 1938. Tonto is given a paint horse by his friend, Chief Thundercloud, who then takes and cares for White Feller. Tonto rides this horse, and simply refers to him as "Paint Horse," for several episodes. The horse is finally named Scout in the episode "Border Dope Smuggling," which was broadcast on September the 2nd, 1938. In another episode, the lingering question of Tonto's mode of transport was resolved when the pair found a secluded valley and the Lone Ranger, in an urge of conscience, released Silver back to the wild. The episode ends with Silver returning to the Ranger bringing along a companion who becomes Tonto's horse, Scout.

Intriguing question

There are days when you look at the Net and you have to go….oh, dear! I was looking at items related to silver bullion – now’s the time to buy it, I’m told (!) – and got sidetracked by some question related to men wearing jewellery. It was on a question and answer site run by Yahoo called Yahoo answers! Sorry, Yahoo! answers. Getting the exclamation point in the right place is essential.
Anyway, the question was this (and I quote it verbatim): Could men wearing ear rings, necklaces, skirt to go to anywhere?
I’m not entirely sure what the point behind the question is: does someone want to go out in this sort of gear but feels inhibited somehow? Maybe.
Anyway, the person who responded with an answer seemed to think this had something to do with it. Jerry G (who has a drawn picture of a woman beside his/her name) says:
The problem is that Lots of people think that when a man dresses that way , that he is gay but thats wrong. Most men who wear womens attire, are straight. I myself dress female every chance i get. The cloths are comfortable and there is lots more varity. So bit the bullet and just do it. Its loads of fun too.
I’m intrigued to know that most men who wear women’s attire are straight. It’s possibly true: there does seem to be a bit of a thing about straight men letting themselves go in women’s clothing in party situations, or even, as I remember from when I was a kid, in concert situations. The local University has an annual ballet done by men in tutus, but way back in the fifties there was a concert party left over from the War. All the women in it were played by men, and some of them were so good you’d never have known they were blokes.
In response to Jerry G’s answer, the original questioner added:
Sometime I like to be Gay, because could be able to wear Tee shirts and pants, sometime wear skirt, could show off the breasts, so good and nice of that.
I leave it at that. I have no idea what he wants to do this for. Who’s he trying to attract? LOL

Meccano

Many people will no longer know what I mean when I write the word, Meccano. When I was a lad, it was the world's equivalent of Lego, but made out of metal and much more flexible. People used to build great models of engineering machines and such out of it. I wasn't ever much into it, because I'm not really a building-sort-of-person, (being creative in a different mode) but I've seen some extraordinary uses made of it.
While checking out some info on a 1930s analogue computer made out of Meccano (I kid you not!) I saw a link to Meccano and Divorce. Obviously some people still horde their Meccano sets with a fervour that is usually only reserved for gold, silver and other precious jewels.

Clad Coins

Okay, tell me what a ‘clad coin’ is. I learned today that in the US it’s a coin that has more than one layer of metal in it. Most current U.S. clad coins consist of an inner core of copper, with outer layers of a silver-coloured nickel-copper alloy. The U.S. Dime, the Quarter, and the Half Dollar are all clad coins.

At Monex, a company I’ve mentioned several times before, you can get your silver in a different way, by buying coin bags containing 715 ounces of silver in the form of either 4,000 U.S. quarters or 10,000 U.S. dimes. All the coins were minted prior to 1965, and their face value is guaranteed to total US$1,000.
That’s the first option. The second is to buy a bag containing a different mix. This one contains around 295 ounces of silver in some 2,000 clad half-dollars – clad as in composed of silver and copper. These coins were minted between 1965 and 1970, and feature John F Kennedy on the obverse side. Doesn’t this sound like a fun way to have silver around the house?

Nintendo Jewellery

While checking out another HitTail search phrase – sorry to inflict so many of these on you in a row, but needs must – I came across this quote from another blog, called Wiifanboy.

We've wasted our lives. What have we been doing all these years, while we could have been learning to work with gold, silver and platinum jewelry, and sharing handmade Nintendo jewelry with our friends and loved ones? Oh, right, going to school and having jobs. And also actually playing games.

That learning to work with gold, silver and platinum makes a nice contrast with the Nintendo jewellery. I’m not sure what Nintendo jewllery is, but the site also has Star Wars done with Lego men, so Nintendo jewellery could mean anything!

Wiifanboy, which appears to have been going a good long time, and is concerned not just with Wii (which has only been round a while) but with a number of other computer gaming areas. Check out the photo of the D-pad necklace. It’s rather cool. (Even I, as a person of the middle-age, think so.)

God the Silversmith

One of those things that gets sent round by email. I like it, but I've removed a couple of paragraphs from the end which only served to explain what was already obvious.

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it"

Weighing it up

Rereading the Book of Chronicles (in the Bible) yesterday, I was struck by the amount of gold and silver David stockpiled for the Temple. According to my translation it was in the region of 100,000 talents of gold and million talents of silver. There were 3,000 shekels in a talent, and a shekel weighed (as far as archaeologists have been able to establish) around 10 grams. A hundred shekels, therefore, would make a kilogram, which means that a talent would weigh, roughly, 30 kilograms. I’m not going to try and recalculate that in pounds, as I find it hard enough working in kilograms as it is. That seems a phenomenal weight for what is virtually a large gold ingot. And the weight of 100,000 talents would be in the region of 3,000,000 kilograms. (We haven’t even started on the silver yet!)
No wonder the Temple was considered such a wondrous building. It must have shimmered in the Eastern sun.
Which goes to show, perhaps, that gold has always appealed to human beings as being something of exceptional worth. Even now an ounce of gold – which I discover is equivalent to 28.4 grams (go get the calculator out and you can work out how many ounces David had) is worth a pretty penny. (Apparently bullion bars come in ten ounce units.) If my reading of Monex.com’s price list is correct, the current gold price is edging up to $US700 per bullion bar. (If you’ve worked out how many ounces David had, you’ll be able to figure out what his 100,000 talents were worth.)
Gold is on the rise, it seems, particularly since oil is so iffy. So the expression, Go for Gold, is probably quite apt these days!

Hi Ho Silver!

Instead of a FAQ section on their site, the Monex Deposit Company has a ‘Why, Why, Why’ section. Original, at least!
I’ve written before about the way in which silver is still regarded, apparently, as a much more worthwhile investment than money, or stocks. Don’t ask me how the stock market works: for all my investigations into it over the years, it doesn’t seem any more reliable than betting on the horses. And the other day, again, there was great fuss in the stock market world because China had had a bit of a dip. Oh, for goodness’ sake! When will stockmarket people recognise the simple fact that stocks rise and fall on a regular basis, and if you hold your breath long enough in a down time, you’ll find they’ll come up again in due course. They’re rather like whales: sometimes they live above the water, sometimes below.
Silver, on the other hand, isn’t prone to all this roller-coaster stuff. And the only issue with it, it seems, is that it’s getting harder to purchase. Monex makes the somewhat poetical, but not entirely clear, comment: Above ground stockpiles of silver bullion are low, shrinking rapidly and approaching zero.
So…if they’re not above ground, where are they? Never mind, I’m not in the position to purchase silver at the moment, but it’s something I’ll keep in the back of my mind in case a sudden windfall comes my way.
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