The Best Tangible Assets to Stockpile for a Depression

The Best Tangible Assets to Stockpile for a Depression

Looking for the best tangible assets to stockpile or hoard in a case of a depression or financial crisis?  Then read on for the Antique Sage’s unique opinion!

 

Pre-1965 U.S. 90% Junk Silver Coins

Pre-1965 U.S. junk silver coinage is a staple of the prepping industry, and with good reason.  If you’re worried that a massive depression will crash the economy, then this is one of the best physical assets to own.

Until 1964, all circulating U.S. dimes, quarters and half dollars were minted from 90% silver and 10% copper.  Starting in 1965, the U.S. Mint switched over to a copper-nickel sandwich composition, which has little intrinsic value.  This is the same base-metal alloy that is still in use today for these coins.

Each $1 face value of circulated U.S. junk silver coins contain approximately 0.715 troy ounces of pure silver, which is worth around $11.50 with silver trading at just over $16 a troy ounce.  Because of their silver content, pre-1965 silver coins offer a hedge against not only inflation, but also economic hard times.

90% junk silver would be incredibly useful in a depression because it is widely recognized and accepted by the public.  It would be perfect for medium-sized transactions – anywhere from just a few dollars to several hundred dollars – in any situation where physical cash is either unavailable or unacceptable.  And because these old coins are solid silver, no person in their right mind would refuse them.

As an added bonus, it is easy to buy and stockpile 90% junk silver in any quantity you desire, from just a few coins, to $5 or $10 face value rolls, to massive $500 or $1,000 face value bags.

 

Bottles of Hard Liquor

Liquor is one of the more overlooked physical assets that would prove quite useful in hard times.  If you really believe that a severe economic depression is coming, then stockpiling a case or two of your favorite hard liquor might be a good choice.

An unopened bottle of hard liquor will keep for several decades if stored in a cool, dark place.  This applies to pretty much any distilled liquor with a high alcohol content, including whiskey, vodka, rum, bourbon, gin, tequila, and brandy, to name just a few.  Of course, all bets are off if you open a bottle, so no sampling the goods unless you intend to finish the entire thing!

Stashing liquid physical assets of this nature would confer three major benefits.

First, if the economy ever implodes, good quality hard liquor would be in high demand, making it easy to trade for other necessities.  If you need a neighbor, friend or acquaintance to do a favor for you, nothing would grease the gears of commerce quite like a bottle of fine scotch.

Second, any suitably high-proof liquor could be used as a convenient disinfectant in a pinch, which may be important if medical supplies are ever hard to find.  I know this seems insanely improbable right now, but just ask any Venezuelan about the unpleasant things that can happen during a severe economic dislocation.

And finally, regardless of whether the apocalypse arrives on schedule or not, you can always sit down with a bottle from your secret stash and enjoy a stiff glass or two!

 

Pre-1982 U.S. Copper Pennies

Pre-1982 copper pennies might seem like an odd physical asset to squirrel away, but in the context of a severe depression, they make a lot of sense.  Due to their copper content, they have a definitive, easily calculated intrinsic value.  Furthermore, they are not only instantly recognizable, but also readily available (at least for people in the United States).

Most people don’t realize that pennies in the United States are no longer made from copper.  In fact, they haven’t been made from copper since 1982.  That was the year that the composition of the lowly cent was switched over from a traditional 95% copper/5% zinc alloy to a debased, copper-plated zinc core.

It takes about 154 circulated pre-1982 pennies to equal one pound, but copper currently trades for around $2.80 a pound on the commodities market.  This means that each roll of copper pennies (with a face value of $0.50) has a bullion value of close to $1!

Old copper pennies would be perfect for micro-transactions in a financially chaotic world.  It would be superbly easy to slip someone a roll or two of copper pennies in payment for a much-needed good or service.

But best of all, pre-1982 copper pennies can still be found in circulation.  So if you are enterprising and have the time, you can sort through your spare change and pick them out.  Keep this up for 6 months or a year and you will have yourself a considerable penny hoard – one that will be worth more than its face value!  Of course, if you don’t have the time to sort through loose change, you can always buy pre-sorted pennies from an e-commerce platform like eBay.

If you want to learn more about pre-1982 copper pennies, I suggest you read my recent article titled “5 Odd Investments for the Stock Market Skeptic under $100“.

 

Physical Cash

In a depression, cash is king.  Out of all the physical assets you could possibly stockpile in preparation for a systematic financial emergency, cash is probably the best.

Just think.  A well-placed $20, $50 or $100 bill can emphasize the seriousness of your intention far better than any credit or debit card.

Cash, of course, is accepted everywhere in practically all situations.  Furthermore, physical currency can provide you with rare opportunities that no other form of payment can.

For example, I recently went to a garage sale where I purchased a set of sterling silver flatware worth $300 for just $110 in cash.  But if I hadn’t shown up with a stack of $20 bills in my wallet, I never could have closed the deal.

In addition, in a truly widespread economic collapse, normal payment methods might not even be operational.  Credit and debit cards are reliant on monolithic payment networks run by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.  If these ever go dark for whatever reason (even temporarily), your credit card is an insignificant, useless wafer of plastic.  Oh, and in this scenario, you can forget trying to buy anything online because there would be no way to pay for it!

Euphemistically-named “bank holidays” are another pitfall to consider in the context of a financial crisis.  During a bank holiday, the banking system closes while the government tries to sort through the financial wreckage.  But during this time, depositors do not have access to ACH and wire transfers, and only have very limited access to ATMs.

Basically, if you don’t already have a sizable stash of physical cash on hand before a bank holiday happens, you are out of luck.  So start stacking those C-notes today, while you still can!

 

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14K Gold & Bakelite Art Deco Cigar Holder

14K Gold & Bakelite Art Deco Cigar Holder
Photo Credit: bigsmile_treasures

14K Gold & Bakelite Art Deco Cigar Holder

Buy It Now Price: $395 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-Sumptuous 14 karat gold and amber-yellow Bakelite seamlessly blend in this chic 1920s Art Deco cigar holder and case combination.

-The case measures 45 mm (1.77 inches) long (including the bail) and weighs a substantial 8.5 grams (excluding the cigar holder).

Vintage cigar holders were important fashion accessories during the early to mid 20th century.  But they also served two practical purposes.  They prevented nicotine staining of the fingers and kept smoke out of the user’s face.

-Patented in 1909, Bakelite was the world’s first synthetic plastic.  For the first few decades after its invention, Bakelite was considered a premium luxury material appropriate for use in high value objects like jewelry.  In this Art Deco cigar holder, Bakelite is being used to imitate amber – a popular material for high end cigar holders of the time.

-The bail at the bottom of this Art Deco cigar holder’s case indicates that it was probably intended to be hung from a woman’s neck as a pendant.

-My best guess is that this Art Deco cigar holder and case contain around 0.16 troy ounces (5 grams) of pure gold.  With the price of gold trading near $1,314, this gives the piece a scrap value close to $210 – a premium of only 88% over melt.  Although you would never want to scrap such a beautiful piece, the low premium over melt clearly limits investment risk.

-Smoking was a way for women in the 1920s to signal their independence and avant-garde social outlook.  But what’s interesting about this piece is that I believe it was intended for a female cigar smoker.  Why is this meaningful?  In the Roaring 20s, bad girls smoked cigarettes, but really bad girls smoked cigars!

-I love the linear pin-stripe decoration on this vintage gold cigar case.  It is quintessentially Art Deco and perfectly reflects the zeitgeist of the age.  Combine that with the item’s excellent condition and you have yourself an investment grade antique!

Tobacciana is a burgeoning niche in the world of antiques, and this superlative Art Deco cigar holder and case duo are about as good as it gets.

-I find the buy-it-now price of $395 for this vintage Art Deco cigar holder to be extremely compelling.  However, you can always make the seller a lower offer if you want to take a chance on getting this treasure for an even better price.

 

Cons:

-Unless you are a cigar smoker, this item is purely a curio or objet d’art.  Honestly, I find this to be a very minor drawback, but worth mentioning nonetheless.

 

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Adventures in Buying a CCT Silver Slide

Adventures in Buying a CCT Silver Slide

One of the quirks of alternative investing is that you end up researching some pretty strange things.  For example, I recently embarked on a silver bullion buying spree.  But that isn’t the unusual part of my story.  The weird part is what I stumbled upon when I looked for a simple and reliable silver counterfeit detection method.  I discovered a device called the CCT silver slide.

 

What is a CCT silver slide?

Simply put, a CCT silver slide is a quick and easy way to test silver bars and coins for fakes or counterfeits.  The bullion market has been hit by an absolute flood of counterfeit Chinese silver coins and bars over the past decade.  The worst part of this plague is that China’s manufacturing prowess has allowed it to make increasingly sophisticated fakes, some of which are impossible to distinguish from genuine pieces by looks alone.

Almost every bullion piece you can imagine has been imitated by the Chinese, including very popular products such as American silver eagles, Australian Perth Mint products and Sunshine Minting silver bars.  So having an effective way to weed out counterfeit silver is absolutely vital for the precious metal stacker.

 

How does a CCT silver slide work?

The device works on the twin principals of diamagnetism and electrical conductivity.  These create an effect known as the eddy current brake.  If you place a very strong magnet on an inclined silver surface, it will only slide down it very slowly.  Likewise, a silver coin placed on a large, inclined magnet will also slide quite slowly.  Most other metals will not behave this way, even if they are plated with a layer of pure silver.  Ferrous metals will stick to the magnet while cupro-nickel, brass and zinc alloys will descend quickly, with little or no hesitation.

This video gives a good demonstration of a CCT silver slide in action:

 

 

My adventures in buying a CCT silver slide

My story begins a few months ago when I began expanding my silver holdings.  Even though I was buying from reputable dealers, I soon realized that it would be wise to spend some money on diagnostic equipment.  Once I discovered the simplicity and usefulness of a CCT silver slide, I knew I had to have one.

Now this is where things got interesting.  CCT is an acronym that stands for “Cyber Curtain Twitcher”, a pseudonym for a gentleman silver stacker who resides in the United Kingdom.  This colorful man has an unusual YouTube channel where he and an assistant torture and destroy counterfeit coins in a myriad of gruesome ways.  I found his quirky brand of humor to be quite entertaining.

CCT is the personal creator of each and every one of his eponymous silver slides.  Yes, there are other silver slides currently on the market.  But to the best of my knowledge, Cyber Curtain Twitcher was the very first person to conceive of the silver slide idea as a simple, non-destructive testing method to distinguish fake silver coins from genuine ones.  He also constructs his slides to much higher standards than his competitors (which is obvious if you read through the build quality section further down in this article).

I wanted the best of the best – an original CCT silver slide.

 

2025 Update

CCT now offers his eponymous silver slides for sale directly via eBay!  I have a link to his products towards the bottom on this article.  This supersedes the section of the article I wrote below, but I’ve left it in for historical accuracy.

 

However, CCT has no dedicated website or formal sales platform for his product.  In addition, there was only one way to contact the man – through the comments section of his YouTube channel.  When I did, he informed me that the U.S. distribution of his slides is exclusively handled by an associate named “Mr. Vegiita” (another pseudonym, of course).

At this point, things began feeling a little cloak and dagger.

Apparently the only way to get in touch with Mr. Vegiita is also through his YouTube channel comments.  When I contacted him this way, Mr. Vegiita informed me that as soon as he received a slide shipment from CCT, he would post a video advertising them for sale.  I just needed to post my comment requesting a slide below one of those videos.

Then the waiting game began.

About a week later, Mr. Vegiita finally uploaded a video stating that some slides were available.  Unfortunately, my YouTube notification didn’t get pushed through, so I was a bit slow in discovering this.  I rushed to Mr. Vegiita’s YouTube channel and left my comment, only to discover that I was too late!  All of the slides had been sold out in the 24 hours since he had posted the video.

But I would not be denied.

Mr. Vegiita offered to put me on a waiting list – a proposal that I readily agreed to.  After waiting a couple more weeks, I received a notification letting me know he had just gotten a few more silver slides in stock in my choice of oak, utile or idigbo hardwood at $80 each on a first come, first served basis.  I sent him the money via PayPal before I even found out if my preferred wood was still available in the desperate hope that shoving the cash into his hands (shut up and take my money!) would obligate him to deliver me something.

Luckily, the utile wood version I wanted was still up for grabs!  Utile, otherwise known as Sipo Mahogany, is an African tropical hardwood exported primarily from Cameroon, Ghana and Congo.  Utile is a beautiful, dark reddish-brown color with a pronounced grain pattern that looks a lot like Honduran Mahogany.  This is because Sipo Mahogany is actually a distant relative of the Swietenia (true mahogany) genus.

Mr. Vegiita was a man of his word and promptly mailed my slide, which I received just a few days later.

I had finally got hold of an elusive CCT silver slide!  And it was everything I dreamed it would be.  But that isn’t surprising considering the attention to detail that Cyber Curtain Twitcher puts into every slide.

 

CCT silver slide build quality

CCT handcrafts his silver slides from a variety of fine temperate and tropical hardwoods in his UK workshop.  The slide portion is constructed from a series of ultra-high strength rare earth magnets laid in parallel.

These N52 neodymium magnets are the most powerful commercially available magnets in the world.  In fact, they are so powerful that people with pacemakers are advised to handle the CCT silver slide (or any other product that contains rare earth magnets) with care, because its magnetic field could potentially disrupt an implanted cardiac device.

CCT then adds a soft felt layer over the magnets so that your bullion won’t get scratched as it slides down the ramp.  He finishes the wood frame with a durable, yet attractive 5-coat melamine lacquer finish.  Finally, he laser engraves a logo on the back that reads “CCT Silver Slide” to brand it as one of his handmade originals.

 

CCT Silver Slides for Sale on eBay

(This is an affiliate link for which I may be compensated)

 

The limitations of a CCT silver slide

Of course, no single precious metal counterfeit detection method is foolproof.  And the CCT silver slide is no exception to this rule.  A silver-plated slug of pure copper (which is also diamagnetic and highly conductive) will slide down a rare earth magnet ramp in much the same way as a real silver coin.  Pure gold will also behave like pure silver, although this is generally a non-issue because no one would bother to counterfeit a low-value silver coin by silver plating a much more expensive gold coin.

A CCT silver slide also can’t readily distinguish between silver coins of different finenesses.  Although a coin or bar of lower silver content should traverse the slide almost imperceptibly faster than a higher purity one, you would need a stopwatch to have any hope of telling the difference.  In effect, a 50% or 80% silver coin will behave very similarly to a 90% or 99.9% silver coin (especially if the alloying metal is copper).

In addition, a silver coin struck in very high relief will slide down the ramp faster than expected because there is less surface area in direct contact with the magnets.  Therefore the eddy current braking effect does not have an opportunity to fully engage.

And while a CCT silver slide is the perfect size for testing fractional silver and 1 troy ounce coins and bars, it won’t work well on larger silver bullion.  Yes, it can accommodate 2 troy ounce bars and rounds, but once you get much larger than that you are better off using a small, button-shaped rare earth magnet directly on the test item’s surface.

Because of these (admittedly minor) drawbacks I advise every silver stacker to use at least two different counterfeit detection methods when buying silver bullion.  The ping test, weight test, density test and acid test are all viable alternatives.  A CCT silver slide combined with one of these other, complementary tests will eliminate practically every fake silver coin or bar that you might encounter.

On the whole, I would highly recommend an original CCT silver slide (or, barring that, a small rare earth magnet) to anyone interested in purchasing silver bullion.  CCT – that mysterious silver stacker from the United Kingdom – makes a great product at a great price point.  The money you save avoiding fake silver is well worth the cost.

 

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1969 Bulova Snorkel Diver Stainless Steel Wristwatch

1969 Bulova Snorkel Diver Stainless Steel Wristwatch
Photo Credit: savethetreestoday

1969 Bulova Snorkel Diver Stainless Steel Wristwatch

Buy It Now Price: $595 (price as of 2019; item no longer available)

Pros:

-This vintage Bulova Snorkel diver wristwatch sports a champagne enamel dial, stainless steel case, tritium lume and a timeless stylistic sensibility.

-This 1960s dive watch measures 35 mm (1.38 inches) wide when excluding the crown, and a chunky 11 mm (0.43 inches) in thickness.

-Bulova was originally a New York City jewelry store that began selling table clocks and pocket watches in 1911.  After strong sales, the firm very quickly branched into watch manufacturing.  Unlike other large American watchmakers of the 20th century, many of Bulova’s movements (like the 11BLACD found in this Bulova Snorkel Diver) were imported from Switzerland instead of being domestically produced.

-Both the case and movement of this vintage Bulova watch can be definitively dated to 1969.  This is because Bulova used an alpha-numeric date code system during this time.  In this instance, “M9” was separately stamped on the case and movement, indicating the year 1969.

-Bulova fist introduced its Snorkel diver in 1961.  After being redesigned in the late 1960s to withstand pressure to a depth of 666 feet (203 meters), it was rebranded as the Oceanographer Snorkel.  Because of the Biblical connotations of its 666 foot depth rating, the Bulova Snorkel is sometimes referred to as the “Devil Diver”.

-This vintage dive watch features a 17-jewel, Bulova 11BLACD automatic movement.  This Swiss-made workhorse caliber had a date function and was produced from 1968 to 1970.  The 11BLACD was not a particularly high-end movement, but nonetheless had a good reputation for robustness and longevity.

-This Bulova Snorkel diver is quadruple signed, which is a good indicator of originality.  Quadruple signed means the watch has the Bulova name emblazoned on the dial, crown, case and movement.

-In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bulova Oceanographer/Snorkel wristwatches typically retailed for between $60 and $100.  After adjusting for inflation, this would be the equivalent of $423 to $706 in 2019 dollars.

-Given the dramatic price increases that vintage chronograph wristwatches have experienced over the past several years, vintage diver watches are relative bargains.

-I love the classic design language of this Bulova Snorkel diver.  Because they are simultaneously sporty and masculine, dive watches are the natural fashion choice for many men.  And this Bulova does it better than most, making it a great addition to your watch collection at only $595.

 

Cons:

-This Bulova Snorkel diver is not in pristine condition, which lowers its desirability somewhat.  However, it has what I consider to be good, honest wear coupled with a nice patina.  This is an excellent sign that the watch is completely original – a tremendous benefit when Frankenwatches abound.

-Curiously, this Bulova Snorkel diver is not labeled on the case or dial as being waterproof.  This is a bit unusual, as diving was the raison d’être of Snorkel watches.  But Bulova made a tremendous number of Snorkel variations throughout the 1960s and 1970s.  In addition, all of its parts – from the dial to the case to the movement – are period correct as far as I can tell.  I suspect that this vintage Bulova is just an obscure, limited production Snorkel model.

-The seller has explicitly stated that he has not serviced this watch.  Expect to pay $100 to $300 for a professional servicing after you buy it.

 

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