Interpreting the Commandment: This Commandment instructs the investor to use funds they feel will not be needed in the short term (within a year). Precious metals are intended to be a longer-term investment as the benefits of holding them tend to amplify over time. As Ralph Keynes, the Nobel Prize-winning economist noted, markets will always behave rationally in the long run. Still, they can act irrationally in the short term. Thus, even if all the factors that drive gold and silver prices are strongly represented in the present economy/world, no one has a crystal ball as to when exactly all these factors have the expected positive influence on the price of gold and silver. As such, money that does not need to be liquid for bills/living expenses for the next year is most likely the best candidate for a precious metals investment. Because, the longer you hold gold and silver, the more short-term irrationality dissipates from the investment’s projected performance.

Interpreting the Commandment: This might be the most important commandment of all and tells the investor only to acquire metals that are commonly known and easy to find with a Google search or by going to any online dealer’s website. Investing in precious metals is exceptionally straightforward, as a handful of government mints produce investment-grade gold and silver coins, and a handful of highly reputable private manufacturers produce gold and silver bars. However, there is a secret that unless you work in the precious metals industry (or unfortunately have bought before and learned this secret the hard way) is pretty much impossible to know. That secret is that the government mints have two production departments. One produces the official government coins, aka THE ONES YOU SHOULD BE ACQUIRING. You will recognize their names as millions exist in the international market. The American Eagle, produced by the US Mint, the Canadian Maple Leaf, produced by the Royal Canadian Mint, the Australian Kangaroo, produced by the Australian Perth Mint; and the Britannia, produced by the Royal British Mint, represent almost the entirety of the official government investment-grade coins. These mints also have a private production department.

Here, any individual can have a coin produced. For example, if precious metals dealer Y approaches the Royal Canadian Mint and requests a coin be EXCLUSIVELY made for it and guarantees a minimum of X million dollars worth of this coin will be purchased, The Royal Canadian Mint will exclusively produce that coin for precious metals dealer Y. The mint will place an arbitrary animal picture on the front of the coin and deliver the requested quantity. Precious metals dealer Y will then market this coin and have its brokers spin a narrative around it (such as it cannot be confiscated, you do not need to pay taxes on it, and it is untraceable by the government) explaining why it is so expensive relative to other similar (if not identical) coins. Since the coin was exclusively produced, the investor can’t find it online, so they can price shop it. Thus, they are flying blind and are left either accepting the word of the “expert,” aka the broker of precious metals dealer Y or following their gut instinct telling them something is awry. Something is very wrong as precious metals dealer Y is charging a massive markup for a coin that is actually inferior to its more commonly recognized alternatives. The market for this “exclusive” coin is solely the metal value, and given that precious metals dealer Y is the only one in the precious metals marketplace that even knows what this coin is, it is highly illiquid compared to coins that are produced by the actual government arm of the mint and have universally recognized international markets.

Interpreting the Commandment: You must be a professional coin collector or acquire precious metals for collecting rather than investing, or else you should avoid any numismatic (collectible) coins. The only factors that should influence the market value (transactable value) of precious metals are the weight, purity, quality, and supply and demand market for that particular metal.

Interpreting the Commandment: This is pretty straightforward. Any company offering 20,000 dollars in free silver on a 100,000-dollar purchase or free fees for life on IRA purchases can offer these deals because they are profitable. Thus, what would make them profitable? The answer is the actual metal you are purchasing (not the “free” metal or “free” fees) is marked up so much over the actual value, that the company can still turn a massive profit even with the supposed “free 20,000 dollars in gold or silver.”

To make this more transparent. Suppose a company is charging 100 dollars for a 2-ounce silver coin that it pays 50 dollars for. That means that for every 100 dollars you spend, the company is pocketing 50% in profit. Thus, on a 100,000 purchase, the company is making 50,000. Of course, if a company makes that profit, it can easily afford to give you “a free 20,000 worth of silver or gold.” It could afford to provide you with a “free 40,000 dollars worth of gold or silver” and still make a 10,000 dollar profit on the purchase. There is no free lunch in life or investing. The most prestigious Wall Dtreet firms do not offer new clients a free 100 shares of Apple stock to open an account, so why should precious metals be any different? The answer is that it is not.

Interpreting the Commandment: Bought credibility is what I like to call this. Instead of relying on earned credibility that is the product of delivering a consistently high-level customer experience, many heavily marketed companies pay millions to conservative firebrands and celebrities for an endorsement. Transparency, honesty, fair pricing, and relationship-focused selling produce earned credibility, which leads to good word of mouth and an organic increase in visibility and notoriety. It may not have that instant money grab that some of these heavily marketed precious metals companies are after, but it does produce long-term relationships, repeat business, and referrals. Over time these organic growth factors will far usurp the endorsement of some celebrities that would not know the difference between gold coins and chocolate coins with gold wrapping.

Interpreting the Commandment: This internet age has as many disadvantages as advantages when researching a company’s reputation. It seems that everything can be bought and paid for from “the top 10 Gold IRA sites (which are owned by the actual companies themselves) to illegitimate reviews. It’s so bad, many past precious metals companies that turned out to be scams were impeccably reviewed with an A+++ rating. Here is a trick I use and have found incredibly helpful. The companies might have the money to influence what is shown online as to their reputation, but the individual brokers do not. Thus, I would put more weight on researching the person I am speaking with and would be doing business with than even the company they work for. Often, brokers will go by aliases. You must ask yourself why a broker would want to use a fake name. I have never encountered someone with a sterling reputation who does not want to leverage that to earn business. Still, I have experienced many with checkered pasts or horrible reputations who want to hide that and thus use fake names. I have also met those who do not believe what the company they work for is doing is right (be it price gouging, selling proprietary coins, horrible delivery times, and after-purchase customer service, etc.). These people also do not want their actual names associated with such poor business practices.

Interpreting the Commandment: This is self-explanatory. Although there is no plausible scenario under which gold and silver would not increase substantially in value over the next 1-3-5-7-10 years, it is still an investment and, as such, possesses no guarantees. Precious metals are pretty easy to understand regarding what makes them rise and fall. Given currency weakness, geopolitical uncertainty, and market volatility, they tend to increase in value. When one looks at the world today, given these drivers, there is no scenario under which precious metals not only would not go up but not go up substantially in value. However, this does not equal a guarantee. This world is a crazy place, and sometimes things just do not make sense. Thus, one should ALWAYS be wary of any promise or guarantee as to the future price of precious metals, how precious metals will be used in society, and the availability of precious metals. We can speculate but never be 100% sure of anything.

Interpreting the Commandment: First, you should never analyze any investment in a vacuum but somewhat relative to the other alternatives available. All too often, I see people go “down the rabbit hole,” so to speak, and propose all sorts of scenarios, either very positive or very negative, regarding the future of precious metals. However, when they step back and use the same criteria on the alternatives to investing in precious metals (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.), they realize there is no perfect solution to an imperfect world. The only thing they can do is make the best possible decision based on the information available and the alternatives public. On that point, I often see colleagues in my industry sell precious metals by fear-mongering and stirring up people’s emotions. I hear statements like “Biden is going to take all your money” or “The government is going to confiscate your bank account.” We are certainly in unprecedented times, but I feel that is an unethical method of selling this investment. I think it is much more compelling to consider the buying power of the dollar in the next five years or where stock prices are relative to the actual earnings of those companies and how that stands to potentially affect precious metals prices rather than the absolute necessity in making this investment because financial armageddon is upon us tomorrow.

Interpreting the Commandment: Many people need to be more informed about the liquidity of precious metals. They feel that because it is a tangible physical asset and not a number on a computer screen, it is more illiquid than its paper counterparts (stocks, bonds, dollars, etc). This is patently false. As long as you acquire the correct type of precious metal (not collectible or proprietary), liquidating is incredibly accessible (often quicker than settling a stock trade). Thor Metals Group offers a buyback commitment to always purchase back the metals it sells without charging any fee or commission on that transaction. Thus, if you wanted to sell any of your metals, you would contact your broker at TMG and instruct them on what you want sold. You would receive whatever the corresponding market value is on that day. With the simple electronic signing of a liquidation form, you would be back into cash within as little as 48 hours (depending on if you hold the metals in an IRA-approved depository or your possession). God forbid if something befell TMG, the metals we recommend you acquire have an international liquid marketplace. You can be sell Thor-Approved precious metals as quickly in Saudi Arabia as in Philadelphia.

Interpreting the Commandment: Through years of conditioning, lack of education, and the fact that precious metals are a direct competitor to the banking system and Wall Street’s revenue structure, it is lost on almost all people what the dollar is and what precious metals are. The dollar is a loan. It says it right on the bill itself. “Federal Note.” It is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government (an entity, unfortunately, with 32 trillion dollars in debt obligations). Gold and silver are tangible assets with intrinsic value. They cannot be printed, they are not a loan, and they have been around since the advent of humanity. There is a reason gold and silver are mentioned in the Bible several hundred times. Whereas various forms of currency, empires, and countries have come and gone, gold and silver have remained.