Edwardian Ketcham & McDougall Thimble in 14K Gold

Edwardian Ketcham & McDougall Thimble in 14K Gold
Photo Credit: antique palace furniture home decor

Edwardian Ketcham & McDougall Thimble in 14K Gold

Buy It Now Price: $225 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-This antique 14 karat gold Ketcham & McDougall thimble, circa 1910, has the delicate lines and whimsical feel characteristic of Edwardian design.  It is engraved with “1859 FB 1909”, indicating that it might have been a high-end 50th wedding anniversary gift.

-This old, size 9 thimble is made from an impressive 6.2 grams (0.2 troy ounces) of solid 14 karat gold, which indicates good build quality.

-This Ketcham & McDougall thimble comes in its original fitted cardboard case printed with the name of the retailer – “John Wanamaker; Jewelers & Silversmiths; Philadelphia, New York, Paris”.

-Sewing was a required skill for practically all middle and upper class women in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Unlike today when clothing is often discarded as it becomes damaged or outdated, clothing was regularly mended, altered or otherwise modified in households before World War II.

–Wanamaker’s was a Philadelphia department store founded by its namesake, John Wanamaker, in 1876.  Wanamaker’s revolutionized retailing via its pioneering use of print advertising, mail order sales and no-questions-asked refunds.  It eventually became a template for Sears, J.C. Penny and other great American department stores of the 20th century.

-This antique 14K gold thimble was made by the well-regarded firm of Ketcham & McDougall.  Established in New York City in 1832, Ketcham & McDougall produced exceedingly high quality thimbles that are quite collectible today.  The company finally ceased production in 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression.

-This Edwardian thimble is in good condition, with no apparent dents, holes or other major defects.  The plain gold band around the bottom has some tiny scratches, which is to be expected on an item over 100 years old.

-At the current gold spot price of $1,315, this Ketcham & McDougall thimble has a scrap value of about $152, meaning that the premium above melt for this wonderful antique is a paltry $73.

-Because it was made by a famous firm and comes with its original fitted case, I believe this gorgeous Edwardian Ketcham & McDougall thimble is well worth the $225 asking price.

 

Cons:

-Antique thimbles are out of favor right now, which allows you to sometimes find solid karat gold examples for ridiculously low premiums over scrap value.  In fact, I was watching an eBay auction earlier this week where a gold thimble was selling for less than $100 – only $20 over melt.  Predictably, it sold quickly.  On the whole, a $73 premium for this fine Ketcham & McDougall specimen is quite low too – so this is hardly a con.

 

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Growing Your Tangible Assets via eBay Flash Sales

Growing Your Tangible Assets via eBay Flash Sales

Can you grow your tangible assets via eBay flash sales?  The answer is a resounding “Yes!” if you consider antiques, precious metals and other hard assets to be good investments.

Let me tell you a story I experienced a few months ago.

I was watching a silver stacking video from the YouTube channel Mr. Vegiita.  In that video he pointed out that eBay was having a one day only flash sale where everything was 15% off.

I was intrigued.

I had an eBay account, but hadn’t been active on the platform for a while.  However, I had recently adopted a new gold and silver-centric savings strategy.  And eBay flash sales seemed like a great way to build tangible wealth at a discount.

But first I read the fine print on the promotion, which should always come first.  It specifically excluded purchasing gift cards and anything in the Coins & Paper Money category.  This was an unwelcome development, as the easiest way to use the discount would have been to purchase a gold or silver bullion coin.  Alas, the margins are too low on these items and eBay understandably wasn’t willing to swallow the loss.

But I was undaunted.  I quickly began browsing the Jewelry category for a deal.  My approach was to buy something with a high intrinsic value relative to its asking price.  This is not only low risk, but also comes quite naturally to me because I used to scrap gold and silver many years ago.

So I searched…and I searched…

Then I finally found it – a trio of solid 10 karat gold loyalty service tie-tacks issued by The Timken Company, a bearing manufacturer founded in Missouri in 1899.  Large corporations would hand out these pins to their loyal employees once they had achieved significant anniversary milestones – 10 years, 25 years, etc.  They were sort of a variation on the old concept of receiving a gold watch at retirement, although a person was still employed in this case.

These particular service pins were probably from the 1950s or 1960s and weighed in at close to 5 grams in aggregate.  At the then spot rate of $1,212 an ounce, this translated into a bullion value of about $80.  This was a happy coincidence, because the buy-it-now price for the pins was also $80 (plus $3.50 for shipping).

Now under normal circumstances I would not have been interested.  Although solid karat gold corporate service pins are a great slice of Americana and well worth collecting, I was not in the market for them.  And paying $83.50 for $80 worth of gold doesn’t make much sense if you don’t care about the item as a collectible.

But we can’t forget those eBay flash sales, which provided me with a compelling 15% discount.  In the world of gold scrapping, a 15% margin is the difference between a discouraging loss and a healthy profit.  In this case, the discount from the eBay flash sale reduced my total cost to just $71.50 ($80 original cost – $12 (15% eBay flash sale) + $3.50 shipping).

In addition, two out of the three Timken service pins held small diamonds.  Although they had a very modest value by themselves, popping them out of their settings could potentially give me an extra couple of dollars of profit.

I also took advantage of the auction platform’s rewards program, eBay Bucks.  This is effectively a 1% rebate on the purchase price of all items bought through the site.  EBay Bucks are issued as a voucher to your account and can then be used to reduce the cost of other eBay purchases.

I didn’t stop stacking rewards there, either.  Many banks issue credit cards that accrue reward points, typically between 1% and 2% of every dollar spent.  I have one of these cards and while the individual amounts are fairly small, they do accumulate over time.  Because of this, I would recommend that everybody interested in building their wealth via tangible assets consider using a rewards credit card.

So adding up all the Timken service pin bonuses, we get this:

 

Asset Value Cost
Gold  $   80.00
Diamonds  $      2.00
eBay Bucks  $      0.80
CC Rewards  $      0.72
Total:  $   83.52  $71.50

 

Now this might not be an earth shattering return, but for anyone looking to save via precious metals or other hard assets it is quite solid, especially if repeated again and again.

The thing I really like about this eBay flash sale strategy is that I can simply sit on these pins as I accumulate more and more scrap gold over time.  Waiting gives the price of gold time to rise, while simultaneously spreading out any refining costs over more pieces.  Or, alternatively, because the pins are in good condition and quite collectible, I may eventually find a buyer for them above melt value.

In any case, when you stockpile vintage gold and silver jewelry, silverware, etc. you can’t really lose money, assuming you bought them right.  Sure, it does lock up some of your capital, but it does so in the form of precious metals and gemstones.  Therefore, this strategy is more or less immune to currency crises, inflation or other financial dislocations.

My eBay flash sale story doesn’t end there, though.

The day after I completed my purchase, eBay sent me a coupon for $5 off any purchase (once again excluding the Coins & Paper Money category and gift cards).  So back I went to find another bargain, this time focusing on antique silver.

After quite a bit of searching, I had narrowed it down to a few different choices.  One of them was a set of three different .830 fine antique Norwegian silver spoons.  Now, I really love Continental European silver.  It is immensely beautiful.  But at the same time, it is also poorly understood.

Antique Continental European silver was made in a variety of finenesses, ranging from .750 to .950 fine (sterling is .925 fine).  Furthermore, there was a jumble of different hallmarking systems in force across the Continent, causing widespread confusion among modern-day collectors.  Both of these factors combine to suppress the price for this type of antique silver.

That was certainly the case for the three Norwegian spoons I was eying up.  They weighed a grand total of nearly 3 troy ounces (93 grams), giving them a melt value of around $37.  But they were only selling for a buy-it-now price of $32 (plus $3.75 shipping).  The deal was further sweetened by the $5 off coupon I had.

But I still wasn’t certain.  I typically like to shop around a bit first in order to make sure I have the best deal possible.

Then I noticed a countdown timer in the upper left-hand corner of my browser window.  This particular seller was having one of those infamous eBay flash sales in her shop; everything was 10% off.  But there were only 17 minutes left in the sale!

I was sold.

The new grand total was $27.55 ($32 original cost – $3.20 (10% eBay flash sale) – $5 coupon + $3.75 shipping).

Once again adding up the bonuses, this is what we see:

 

Asset Value Cost
Silver  $   37.00
eBay Bucks  $      0.29
CC Rewards  $      0.28
Total:  $   37.57  $27.55

 

These Norwegian silver spoons have many of the same positive attributes as the gold service pins above.  They are made from a precious metal and I can sit on them for nearly forever without having to worry about depreciation or inflation.  And when the time is right I can either ship them to a refiner or try to resell them.

All things considered, I absolutely love eBay flash sales.  The discounts can allow you to purchase tangible assets at a discount to their intrinsic value.  And stacking them with eBay Bucks and credit card rewards only adds to your margins.

 

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Set of 12 Antique French Liquor Cups in 1st Quality Silver

Set of 12 Antique French Liquor Cups in 1st Quality Silver
Photo Credit: ricou251

Set of 12 Antique French Liquor Cups in 1st Quality Silver

Buy It Now Price: $215 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-This exquisite set of one dozen antique French liquor cups from the early 20th century have gilt interiors and are fashioned from solid, .950 fine silver.

-Each silver shot glass measures 1.5 inches (4 cm) tall by 1.2 inches (3.3 cm) wide.  The lot of 12 cordials weighs in at a substantial 239 grams (7.68 troy ounces) in aggregate.

-These silver cordials are in the Louis XVI style, even though they date from the early 20th century.  The Louis XVI style was originally popular during the reign of the last French Monarch, from circa 1770 to 1789.  It later enjoyed a revival in France from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

-This set of liquor cups bears two period-correct hallmarks: Minerva with a “1” underneath her chin, indicating French 1st quality silver of .950 purity (which is higher than sterling), and the maker’s mark in a lozenge.

-Louis XVI style revolted against the excesses of earlier Baroque ornamentation and was characterized by simple embellishment and clean, straight lines.  Louis XVI decoration often consisted of elegantly rendered ribbons, garland and fluting, which foreshadowed the later Neo-Classical style.

-This set of antique French liquor cups was made by the silversmith Charles Barrier, who operated out of his Paris workshop located at 7 Rue Réaumur between 1905 and 1923.

-These antique French liquor cups, with their simple form and restrained scrollwork, are perfect examples of the Louis XVI style.  As an added bonus, they are in excellent condition, with only a couple small dings present.  Normal wear of this type is to be expected on silver hollowware that is fully a century old.

–Old French silver is rather undervalued in today’s antique market.  This is puzzling in light of the fact that classic French artistry is world renowned and their workmanship is universally superb.

-With spot silver currently trading for $15.31 a troy ounce, these antique French liquor cups contain nearly $112 in melt value.  Yet you can buy the set for just $215 – less than double their scrap value!  Seriously, you are paying less than $18 for each cordial, which is an embarrassingly low price.  We truly live in a golden age for antique enthusiasts and investors.

 

Cons:

-In my opinion, the only possible con is the relatively high shipping charges ($19 to the U.S.) because the items are coming overseas, direct from France.  But this is really a minor quibble for such a fine set of antique French liquor cups.

 

Read more fascinating Antique Sage antique silver posts here.

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My 8 Requirements for the Perfect Crypto-Currency

My 8 Requirements for the Perfect Crypto-Currency

Although I don’t own any, I find crypto-currencies to be a really interesting concept.  The world desperately needs an alternative to the shortcomings of venal central bankers and their unstable fiat currencies.

Then a thought crossed my mind.  What would my personal requirements for the perfect crypto-currency be?  What would make a crypto-currency good enough to challenge and possibly displace traditional government-issued money?

According to the Antique Sage, the perfect crypto-currency must be:

 

1) SECURE

There must be every assurance that the blockchain cannot be corrupted or manipulated in order to steal, divert, destroy, double spend or counterfeit the crypto-currency.  This basic requirement for a successful digital currency has largely been solved, albeit not without a few growing pains along the way.

All the large cryptos, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETC) and Ripple (XRP), along with most of the smaller ones, are quite secure today.

 

2) NON-INFLATIONARY

The terminal growth rate of the crypto money supply must be under 1% per annum.  This is to avoid the situation that exists with fiat currencies today, where central banks are free to issue currency in unlimited quantities to their banking buddies and the politically-connected (as happened during the 2008 financial crisis).

This is another problem that the crypto-community has largely solved.  Bitcoin, for example, will famously cap-out with a total of 21 million tokens.  After 21 million Bitcoin have been mined (most likely sometime in the 22nd century), the terminal growth rate of the currency will drop to zero.  No more Bitcoin will ever be created after this point.

Most other crypto-currencies have followed their progenitor’s lead.  For instance, Litecoin (LTC) will top-out at 84 million coins, while Cardano (ADA) has a maximum potential supply of 45 billion.  However, a few have chosen to allow infinite (but controlled) monetary expansion, like Monero (XMR) and Ethereum.  I believe this option is completely acceptable, provided the terminal inflation rate remains below 1%.

 

3) PRIVATE

Transactions must be truly anonymous with no possibility of corporate big data or governments using the blockchain to infer holdings, transaction participants or buying patterns.  Absolute crypto-privacy is still a work in progress, but a few pioneering crypto-currencies have taken up the challenge.

Foremost among these is Monero, in which all transaction data is completely private.  A couple other crypto-currencies – Zcash (ZEC) and Dash (DASH) – share some privacy attributes, although not quite to the same extent as Monero.

 

4) INEXPENSIVE (TO TRANSACT)

It must cost less than 10 cents to process a transaction. This would allow micro-transactions of just a couple dollars to be viable – an absolute requirement for any crypto-currency that wants to become truly mainstream.  It would also help the crypto in question to displace credit card transactions, where the VISA/MasterCard duopoly often charges 2% to 4% in fees, plus additional fees if foreign currency exchange is involved.

Many different crypto-ecosystems have already achieved this precondition for a commercially-successful digital currency.  According to this March 2018 article by The Motley Fool, Tron (TRX), Ripple, EOS (EOS) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) all had transaction fees of less than $0.01.

 

5) FAST (TO TRANSACT)

The perfect crypto-currency must be able to process substantially all transactions in 5 seconds or less.  This would allow it to be used with confidence for internet purchases or international commerce.  Right now Nano (NANO), Stellar (XLM) and Steem (STEEM) meet this stringent criteria, while Ripple gets close with a transaction time of around 10 seconds.

However, I do believe it is important to note that transaction speed (how long it takes to process a transaction) is a separate issue from scalability (the number of transactions a crypto-network can process at peak load).  It is absolutely possible for a crypto to be very fast when its network is lightly loaded, but slow to a snail’s pace when transaction volume picks up.  Of course, the perfect crypto-currency would complete every transaction very quickly, regardless of network loads.

 

6) SCALABLE

It must be able to process 50,000 to 100,000 transactions per second.  If any crypto-currency ever hopes to displace our antiquated 20th century payment system, it has to be capable of significantly beating VISA’s 24,000 transactions per second.

I predicate this on the idea that a mainstream digital currency would have very strong worldwide demand, with a user base of anywhere from hundreds of millions to billions of individuals.  Murphy’s Law dictates that at some point in the future, everyone will try to buy their morning coffee with their crypto at exactly the same time.  Therefore, being able to outperform VISA’s current network throughput is a necessity.

Although no crypto-currency clears this significant technical hurdle yet, Ripple gets an honorable mention with its capacity to process approximately 1500 transactions per second.  I suspect new technological refinements will propel us past this benchmark in the next decade or two.

 

7) ENERGY EFFICIENT

The blockchain (or equivalent technology) used to process transactions must use as little energy as possible.  While it was initially an afterthought in the crypto-space, energy efficiency has gained increasing attention with the revelation that Bitcoin mining alone uses a staggering 73 TWh of energy per annum – the same amount of electricity used by the entire country of Austria.  As if that wasn’t enough, the British newspaper The Guardian recently released an article that claims Bitcoin mining consumes more energy than the copper, gold and platinum mining industries combined!

It stands to reason that it is unwise to waste electricity if we don’t need to, particularly on such a grand scale.  Therefore, having our perfect crypto-currency’s blockchain be as energy efficient as possible is a reasonable requirement.  In addition, I think it is vital to save our computing energy for the next item on the list.

 

8) A STORE OF VALUE

Processing the blockchain should not only tally up transactions, but also create computationally-expensive intellectual property that is of broad use to mankind. This could take the form of medical simulations, geologic mapping, astrophysics calculations or climate modeling, to name just a few possibilities. In addition, immediately after its creation via the blockchain mining process, this intellectual property must enter the public domain where it can be freely leveraged by any corporation, individual or non-profit group who wishes to use it.

This requirement is by far the most technically challenging of the 8 that I have listed.  However, cracking it will endow the winning crypto with the Holy Grail for all digital currencies – intrinsic value.  This would remove the last great disadvantage inherent in crypto-currencies – their ephemeral, purely-digital nature – and allow them to compete head-on with more traditional stores of value such as precious metals.

If you are interesting in reading more about this tantalizing possibility, I touched on it in an article titled “Blockchain 3.0 and the Problem with Bitcoin“.

 

Conclusion

So far I believe that the crypto-community has definitively solved my first two requirements (security and a low inflation rate).  I think the next three (privacy, low transaction cost and quick transactions) are in the process of being solved.  Scalability and energy efficiency, in contrast, are proving to be difficult hurdles.  And the final requirement for my perfect crypto-currency – that it be a store of value – is still just a fevered dream.

Perhaps even more importantly, all of these desirable attributes must be rolled up into a single crypto-currency before it can truly be competitive with existing fiat currencies.  In my opinion, we have a ways to go yet in crypto-land.

 

Read more thought-provoking Antique Sage crypto-currency articles here.

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