MONEY: What to hold and in what form?

Thursday, October 9, 2025
<<PRICES ARE AS OF 2025-10Oct-03>>
 
In my mind, what form of “gold” should I be buying?  
  • Dollar cost averaging into ₿ at Swan.com has been an easy winner.  
  • GOLDBACKs despite a significant seigniorage  —  now with 1 oz gold spot $3,892.75; then 1000 GOLDBACKS is about $7,820 per ounce equals about 100%  —  makes it unsuitable for holding any significant amount of gold in GOLDBACKs. But one can have extremely small (i.e., ½ GOLDBACK = 1/2000 T Oz. for $3.91 for 0.0005 of an Oz) amount of gold that can’t be replicated in a physical form at any price.  Smallest physical gold product is 1 gram = 0.0176 of an ounce for about 90$ which equates to 15K$ per oz.
  • SILVERBACKs have even a worse ratio.
  • SILVER can be held in 1 ounce rounds or pre-1964 US Coins aka junk silver.  One ounce rounds can be bought at about $50 per oz which is about $2 over the spot price.  Seigniorage is about 4.25%
  • GOLD can be bought in 1 ounce generic rounds for $4,002.85; spot is 3,893.85. Seigniorage is about 2.79%
It’s a hard call because of the high cost barrier to entry.  To be practical, 20 oz of gold (one sleeve) is 80k$ and a sleeve of silver is $1k.
 
Feels like silver is the way to go.
 
YMMV
 
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