That is a very intesting question. I wonder what happened with the jewelry market back in the 30's.
Gold jewelry will certainly be worth something. I did read an article earlier in the week, and one of the comments was that people seemed to know the value of a gold ring better than a gold coin. I don't believe that gold jewelry has ever been "called in" by the U.S. government, in fact, it is only the gold coins and bars that are at risk.
As far as gold jewelry, I don't know if it will increase in value as quickly as the price of gold, because the demand for that type of jewelry may decline as the economy heads deeper in decline. For example, a gold ring with 1/10 an ounce of gold content may have been purchased for $300, while the actual value of the gold is only $80. At least the jewelry would be worth that much, if one could find a buyer.
Melting it down might be a challenge. The melting point of gold is 1063°C (1945.4°F), and the hardening metals of copper and silver have melting points of 1083°C (1981.4°F) and 961°C(1761.8°F). So, the fire or kiln would need to be nearly 1100°C (2000°F).
It might be interesting to find someone who could work with gold, and have them take a gold coin and melt it down to make rings, although melting down a gold coin that has a dollar value on it, might be illegal due to the law against destruction of money.
I was also considering that money itself may become useless if the economy collapses -- you might be wiser having things people can actually use/eat to barter rather than money which, although easier to carry than, say, a bushel of corn, won't do anyone any good if no one takes it.
(ala Confederate money during the Civil War, I suppose)
Yes, that is certainly true. We have considered that a bit. For example, we have a pantry that includes some very odd spices, in large bottles. I don't think we even use some of them, but they will probably be very desirable one day.
After watching "Jericho", I've been thinking that having a couple hundred pounds of salt would be good. We've been looking at prices of flour as well... Did you know that 50 pounds of flower only costs about $15? If I knew how to store it so it wouldn't go bad, I would probably buy quite a bit of that.
In addition, of course, there is fuel. We have a small amount of gasoline in storage that may be worth something. I've looked at buying a little motor scooter as well, since they get 100+ miles per gallon, and could get a person to work or the store and back with minimal use of fuel.
We also decided that rather investing in "the market", we are going to start spending for stuff that will maintain value and/or usefulness. For example, investing in a backup electrical production system for our home will be well worth the cost if the electric grid and/or fuel supply lines go down.
The best use of money would be to use it to become entirely self-sufficient, including having a garden that produces more food than the family can eat in a year, and a home that can keep itself warm and supplied with water without any or much effort on the part of humans. This is why I'm so interested in building a home that can do everything on its own -- provide heating and cooling for all applications, provide water, and provide electricity. Unfortunatly, this seems to be an expensive project. Perhaps we will undertake it if the economy hold on for a while.
The most valuable thing of all is to live in a community and/or around neighbors who will work together and help one another during an emergency.
By the way, there are quite a few people that believe that the dollar is going to crash. There are web site and books devoted to the topic. One that I recently visited is...
I buy flour in huge bags and keep it in my chest freezer. As long as you keep it safe from the moisture it will be fine in there. I keep multiple kinds of flours, too. Not that I'm much for baking durng the working part of the year, but I like to have things on hand. Granted, as of yet our pantry is really only stocked to keep us fed for about 2 weeks, but it is better than nothing at all.
The stock market is very worrying, too, with all the dips and spikes lately. High instability and volatility is NOT a good thing.
This weekend we went to visit the Leu Botanical Gardens in Orlando, which also included a completely organic vegetable garden, which they use to provide food to some of the local restaurants and the surplus goes to food pantries. They keep it current to teach people how to garden in Florida (for example, now is perfect for tomotos, squash, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, carrots and peppers. They also had grapefruit (those are WEIRD looking), blackberries and some other tree, but I coudlnt' find a label for it. Also modeled were composting ideas and how to do raised flower beds.
I can't wait until we own our own space again so I can put in some gardens.
Then we visited the Science Museum, which was tons of fun. They had a room that modeled global warming across the globe, with displays of probable temeratures projected out over the next several hundred years.
Gold jewelry will certainly be worth something. I did read an article earlier in the week, and one of the comments was that people seemed to know the value of a gold ring better than a gold coin. I don't believe that gold jewelry has ever been "called in" by the U.S. government, in fact, it is only the gold coins and bars that are at risk.
As far as gold jewelry, I don't know if it will increase in value as quickly as the price of gold, because the demand for that type of jewelry may decline as the economy heads deeper in decline. For example, a gold ring with 1/10 an ounce of gold content may have been purchased for $300, while the actual value of the gold is only $80. At least the jewelry would be worth that much, if one could find a buyer.
Melting it down might be a challenge. The melting point of gold is 1063°C (1945.4°F), and the hardening metals of copper and silver have melting points of 1083°C (1981.4°F) and 961°C(1761.8°F). So, the fire or kiln would need to be nearly 1100°C (2000°F).
It might be interesting to find someone who could work with gold, and have them take a gold coin and melt it down to make rings, although melting down a gold coin that has a dollar value on it, might be illegal due to the law against destruction of money.
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(ala Confederate money during the Civil War, I suppose)
Reply
After watching "Jericho", I've been thinking that having a couple hundred pounds of salt would be good. We've been looking at prices of flour as well... Did you know that 50 pounds of flower only costs about $15? If I knew how to store it so it wouldn't go bad, I would probably buy quite a bit of that.
In addition, of course, there is fuel. We have a small amount of gasoline in storage that may be worth something. I've looked at buying a little motor scooter as well, since they get 100+ miles per gallon, and could get a person to work or the store and back with minimal use of fuel.
We also decided that rather investing in "the market", we are going to start spending for stuff that will maintain value and/or usefulness. For example, investing in a backup electrical production system for our home will be well worth the cost if the electric grid and/or fuel supply lines go down.
The best use of money would be to use it to become entirely self-sufficient, including having a garden that produces more food than the family can eat in a year, and a home that can keep itself warm and supplied with water without any or much effort on the part of humans. This is why I'm so interested in building a home that can do everything on its own -- provide heating and cooling for all applications, provide water, and provide electricity. Unfortunatly, this seems to be an expensive project. Perhaps we will undertake it if the economy hold on for a while.
The most valuable thing of all is to live in a community and/or around neighbors who will work together and help one another during an emergency.
By the way, there are quite a few people that believe that the dollar is going to crash. There are web site and books devoted to the topic. One that I recently visited is...
http://www.dollarcollapse.com/
Reply
The stock market is very worrying, too, with all the dips and spikes lately. High instability and volatility is NOT a good thing.
This weekend we went to visit the Leu Botanical Gardens in Orlando, which also included a completely organic vegetable garden, which they use to provide food to some of the local restaurants and the surplus goes to food pantries. They keep it current to teach people how to garden in Florida (for example, now is perfect for tomotos, squash, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, carrots and peppers. They also had grapefruit (those are WEIRD looking), blackberries and some other tree, but I coudlnt' find a label for it. Also modeled were composting ideas and how to do raised flower beds.
I can't wait until we own our own space again so I can put in some gardens.
Then we visited the Science Museum, which was tons of fun. They had a room that modeled global warming across the globe, with displays of probable temeratures projected out over the next several hundred years.
Reply
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