adamantio999

Amazing. Great work. I wonder what kind of magnifying glass I would need to do the same with my quarter ounce 😆

I agree with all of you. I live in the UK. Just checked the history of my online orders with three dealers. Last silver purchase (five 1 oz britannia 2021) was on december 2020. Second last (five 1oz britannia 2020) was on june 2020, almost a year ago. Given up on silver right now. Just buying a quarter ounce gold britannia every couple of months when I have free cash.

There are many patterns in history repeating or rhyming themselves. One I saw very often is a goverment (democracy, dictatorship, empire or monarchy) of a powerful civilisation deciding to spend more than it could afford or collect in taxes, and deciding to "export" its financial problems by expanding its territory and subjugating other civilisations. The example of the Nazy Germany was lampent. Its economic miracle pre WW2 was no miracle. It was currency creation and desire for "lebensraum" (living space), which pushed Hitler to invade Europe, in order to export paper reichsmarchs and steal resources and wealth (gold from their central banks) of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, Greece, Soviet Union and so on. We have seen may others alike. A few weeks ago I've had a long chat with a dear friend of mine, about a topic which is, as italians, very familiar to us: the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. From the punic wars onwards (two centuries before christ), almost every conquest of the Roman Republic was launched with the purpose of looting new territories, in order to seize their land and guarantee a flush of slaves and wealth (in the form of gold, silver, jewelry) from the defeated populations. Think about Julius Caesar. He started the Gallic wars in 58 BC as a Proconsul on the verge of bankrupcy, and 8 years later, after having hannilated the Gauls on the battlefield and looting their land (modern day France), he was one of the wealthiest man in Rome. Then, a few years before Christ, two civil wars turned the republic into an empire. It was wide, rich, militarily powerful. And greedy. The emperors always wanted to spend more than what he could collect in taxes. They had bureacracy to maintain, projects to build like acqueducts, arenas and roads all over the empire (never seen anithing alike later in the middle ages). And vaste armies to pay. But there were plenty of territories to conquer. Britannia, Lusitania (portugal), Middle east, North africa, Balcans. And therefore there were plenty of slaves to bring to the empire and to put to work for free. And plenty of Gold and Silver to take from the conquered population. The endless conquests of the Empire worked very well for two centuries, as long as there were territories to occupy, in order to satisty its unquenchable thirst for "over-spending". Then around the 200 AD, the Empire reached its geographical limits. Atlantic ocean in the west. Rhine and Danube in the north. Sahara desert in the south. Parthian empire as main enemy in the east. It couldn't expand any further and it was overstretching. No more lands, slaves, gold, silver. No more fuel for its engine. It will become known as the "crisis of third century". Because the only solution to keep overspending, was to create inflation. They relentlessly started to debase their currency, lowering its purity, melting gold and silver with worthless metals. The picture down below gives a pretty good idea. At some point inflation was out of control. In one year, while the state doubled the salary of the soldiers, the price of grain tripled. They tried to control and lock prices. Did not work. The free market was out of control. They divided the empire in two with two emperors, Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (later known as Byzantine), in order to make the management of that giant easier. It helped the eastern much more than it did for the western. After that for a century or so (from 285 to 376 AD), the empires seemed to flourish again, thanks a long series of population migrations (whom the romans called barbarians) from asia and north-eastern europe. Immigration was successfully controlled, and helped both the empires to bring in new blood, new workforce, new soldiers. They settled in, learned latin or greek, became Romans. They compensated for the foreign territories Rome had no longer the strenght to conquer. But at some point the barbarians crossing the Danube into the empire were too many. A series of accidents sparked a war and the Goths wiped out the Eastern Roman Army ad Adrianople in 378. The East managed to remein safe after the disaster, but the Goths, just a generation after, invaded the italian peninsula, sieged and sacked Rome in 410. It was the first time in 800 years that the ethernal city was violated by a foreign power, and its days were numbered. The Western Roman Empire collapsed under the never ending barbarian invasions, and ceased to exist in 476. The Eastern Roman Empire though, had a better geography, richer lands. And started coining once again an hard currency made of gold and silver from the 4th century. To distinguish it from the always inflated Western denarius, they called is "SOLIDUS" (which in latin means "hard", standing for hard money). The eastern roman empire survived another 1000 years, until 1453. Later in the middle ages, the latin language started giving birth to the italian (my mother language). That "SOLIDUS" started being called just "SOLDO". And still today, SOLDO is the italian word for "money".

Thanks for the article. Thah gold must have been another of the lootings carried on by the Wehrmacht and SS during WW2. "Exporting" worthless paper Reichsmarchs on occupied countries, and stealing all the natural resources, agricultural output, and of course Gold.