Foster Publishing, Coin & Stamp

High silver demand is causing shortages in the market.

A shortage of 2008 American Eagle silver one-ounce coins is preventing buyers from purchasing during the current dip in silver prices.

The U.S. Mint suspended sales twice this year. The first time was Feb. 4 to March 3, and the second time was March 19 and continuing into early April.

The Mint notes that from Dec. 27, 2006, to March 19, 2007, it sold 3,497,000 coins while in the same period this year, sales have been 6,549,500 pieces, which is 87 percent more

We have stock of generic bars and one ounce rounds. Come in. No calls please.

Compare today's market prices with those in 2000, the Dow Jones buys:

35% less milk
40% less wheat and corn
50% less gold
65% less silver
70% less oil
80% less copper
90% less uranium

David Morgan recently wrote an article about the inverse relationship between silver prices and US real estate prices, demonstrating how one can profit in times of a declining real estate market. He cites Robert Kiyosaki as an indicator: Kiyosaki now encourages owning precious metals at his live presentations.

Chart 2 will give a real estate investor something to ponder. At the top of the precious metals market last time (January 1980), it took a mere three thousand ounces of silver valued at $150,000 to purchase a median-priced single-family home. Today, three thousand ounces of silver is valued at about $40,000. Who wouldn’t be willing to pick up the median-priced house for $40,000? We are not talking the foreclosure market here; we are valuing houses in terms of silver bullion.

The ability of most investors to profit from differing sectors is key to really becoming a seasoned investor. However, it is human nature to stick with the winners, and most real estate investors, once successful, seldom look to other investment opportunities. This is not to say that a very astute real estate investor cannot do well as the housing market declines, but why swim against the tide?

If the same principals that made you a successful real estate investor were applied to the precious metals markets, you could reap huge rewards by selling silver when it was dear and buying back into the real estate market when it again is fairly valued.

Solari and The Moneychanger have created a handy tool for calculating the rate of exchange between dollars and ounces of silver or gold. It helps those wanting to put their metals to work as transactional alternatives to the dollar. With the dollar losing value against currencies and commodities across the board, more people are becoming interested in precious metals to maintain their wealth and purchasing power. The timing for this kind of tool couldn't be better.

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Want to start a community currency by "just doing it?" As more and more of us buy silver and gold coins, there are increasing opportunities to use our coins to transact.

Whenever I travel, I bring back coins from around the world to give to the children and young people in my life. I am hoping to interest them in far away places and the role of currency in networking us together. For Christmas and birthdays, I also give them gold and silver coins. Increasingly, I wanted a tool that would make translating between US dollars and precious metal coins effortless.

One day I was talking with Franklin Sanders about how to make this easy for me. He said that he thought there were many folks who would transact with gold and silver coins if they had a simple calculator. So we decided to build a web site to provide one -- www.silverandgoldaremoney.com. We called it that because, in fact, silver and gold are money. If we use our coins to transact in our daily lives, then the value of the currency in our pockets is going up rather than going down like the US dollar.

- Catherine Austin Fitts