Red Stick Coins and Metals is a Reality

I finally quit my job working for someone else and started my own coin and PM business.  I also have order silver ingot molds that are engraved with Red Stick Metals, so I will be pouring my own silver and gold ingot. I have been pouring ingots in the past but these will be more professional looking. I am working on getting my website up, so for right now this blog is my main means of communication outside of coming to my 3000sf building.  I have plenty of room to grow, and plan to one day get the equipment to press my own rounds.

My contact info is:
Greg Lacy
Red Stick Coins and Metals
14617 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70810
225-753-1150
glacy@globalecotec.org

If you would like to get on my mailing list, please send me an email at the above address.

Silver Outpacing Gold in Growth

I have said for a while now that Silver is a better investment vehicle than gold.  Well with silver's wild run that prognostication is coming true.  When the month of August started both silver and gold were not doing spectacular compared to some of the previous months. Silver was vacillating around $18 an ounce and Gold had dropped to $1190 an ounce.

Now, almost two months later both silver and gold are at new highs.  Silver closed today at $21.46 an ounce and gold at $1297 an ounce. Albeit $1297 is a big number and is a big gain for gold, it is only an increase of 7%. Whereas, silver's increase from $18 to $21.46 represents a gain of more than 19%. 

If silver were to continue at this rate, we could see silver prices over $30 an once by the beginning of next year. 

Of course there are a lot of factors that influence the price of silver, one of those being the value of the dollar.  However, the way the current administration is spending our tax money like it is there own piggy bank to do with as they wish, I do not see our fiat currency gaining value. But, if in the midterm elections, the people get out of their recliners and vote the tax and spend incumbents out of office, it may instill hope in the citizens of this great nation and may reinstate belief in the almighty dollar and slow the rate of growth of precious metals. 

I still see the price of silver growing, maybe at a lesser pace; however, it would be a win win situation. either higher silver prices or lower taxes.  I will take either one!

QSB challanges Au and Ag Chat Room on Paltalk

It has come to my attention that our good friend Jim Little, owner of QSB issued a challenge to Chad Venske AKA“Economic Spy” during a Paltalk session. Apparently, Jim told him if he could get 450 registered members to join his Au and Ag chat room on Paltalk within a reasonable amount of time, Jim would work with him to create a 1 oz. or ½ oz. .999 pure silver round for his chat room. So if you want to support someone who is doing an incredible job in getting the word out about silver and gold ownership - Here is your chance. To support this endeavor, register on paltalk and join the Au and Ag chat room. You can watch the YouTube video about this challenge here.

Warning to Precious Metal Dealers and Interested PM buyers

Beginning in 2012, I suggest you start buying your PMs in $599 increments.  The Obama administration slid another little surprise by us in their Health Care Law. The passage of the national health care legislation by Congress will have a big impact to the Nation’s coin collectors, silver and gold dealers, or anyone else who buys and sells coins, or silver and gold bullion.

Effective Jan. 1, 2012, the Internal Revenue Service will require that 1099 tax forms will be required for all transactions involving coins and PMs  that are bought or sold in excess of $600. The arbitrary $600 or more number (I believe that is the same number at which a casino’s IRS agent takes their share of your winnings, on the spot), is not a very high level and one that has already started sounding alarm bells. It doesn’t matter in what form payment is made; cash, check, credit card, or PayPal, the $600 threshold still applies.

IRS Form 1099 is used to report independent contractor income, income from dividends, and income from many other sources.  It is kind of a catch-all form to collect taxes on income received but not specified on other forms.


Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148) that was signed into law by President Obama this spring, is where you will find the relevant part. Look under “SEC. 9006. EXPANSION OF INFORMATION REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (a) IN GENERAL. – This is where Section 6041 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended to require a 1099 issued for any transaction of coins and bullion in excess of $600.

The old exemption against corporations is also gone. If you buy or sell more than $600 of coins, or whatever, from, to or with a bullion dealer, for example, you have an obligation under the new law to issue 1099s.

On the hopeful side, there is a bill being introduced, H.R. 5141, by Rep. Dan Lungren , that has gathered over 80 members of Congress as co-sponsors to repeal this section of the Obama administration’s Universal Health Care farce . However, the drafters of the initial provision believe there is a $17 billion loophole that the requirement plugs.

Call or write a letter to your representative and urge everyone you know who invests in, purchases, sells, or collects silver or gold coins and bullion, expressing your outrage at this sneaky, underhanded tactic utilized by the Obama administration to pay for a Health Care Law that we did not want in the first place.  Hopefully dealers, collectors, investors, and the public at larges cry of outrage will lead to a ready modification before the law becomes operational in 2012. Potions of this article were taken fro NumisMaster.com and Numismatic News.

The Silverbug Round Will Begin Production Today

After numerous emails and phone calls between me and Jim Little, owner of Quality Silver Bullion we are ready to start production on the 2010 Silverbugs .999 Fine Silver round.  The obverse die cam in a few days ago, but needed to be treated and cleaned.  In the meantime, Jim and I looked at several possibilities for the reverse side.  I have to give Jim props for being very patient with me.  I did not want anything too plain, but I did not want a reverse imprint that detracted from the Silverbugs side. We finally settled on this:

Jim also sent me a photo of the unpolished Obverse (Silverbugs) side.  Remember this is unpolished so it will look much better before minting begins.

They go on sale tomorrow!  So If Jim does not have them up QSB's website, you can call the contact number and order!  This is a great day for Silverbugs, how many groups have their own .999 Fine Silver round?  So I encourage you to buy these, since Jim had the artwork touched up and die made and did not charge us a cent. Plus he had to put up with me for a month or so, and I was like a picky dowager in a shoe store.  I wanted to see every possible combination of obverse and reverse sides.

Also, you do not have to be a Silverbugs member, to purchase these rounds, but I think Silverbug members will get a discount on the premium!  So buy silver NOW!

BTW, look for our coin in one of Jim's YouTube productions soon.

Resource Prospector In Agreement On Why Owning Silver Is Critical

Kevin McElroy, Editor of Resource Prospector is long- term bullish on PMs and commodities, but for the past 6 months he has been loading up on silver. His reasons for doing so are almost identical to mine. One reason to buy silver is that it is still cheap. Today, silver sells for under $19 an ounce. If silver catches up to its historic, inflation adjusted highs, it would sell for over $300 an ounce. Also we both believe that silver is undervalued relative to gold, and it's nowhere near its nominal highs, let alone inflation adjusted highs.


One of the primary reasons I own silver has almost nothing to do with its current valuation. Silver has more tangible benefits in the event of a total currency meltdown because of its much lower value-per-unit than gold. If hyper-inflation is in the cards, the question of how many dollars can I get for an ounce of PMs just won't matter. The better question will be: how many gallons of gasoline can I get, or how many pounds of rice, or how many cartridges of 9mm ammunition?

This is what I tell my friends and family. Tally up your living expenses (food, water, gasoline, etc.) for six months, and buy the commensurate amount of silver. In the event that the dollar implodes, your daily expenses will likely be more easily met by silver bullion than gold. A one ounce gold coin is a large amount of money, so unless you're buying food for a dozen people, it would be tough to find daily living expenses that would require gold bullion. Silver coins are much better suited to daily expenses like food and gasoline. So, I'm buying silver for the same reason. In the event that the dollars in my bank account become worthless, or near-worthless, I want to have something that I can fall back on - as an insurance policy.

MoMoney : Silver Chart Price Predictions

I always start these posts off with my standard disclaimer, I know squat about technical analysis and reading chat trends.  However, Mo Dawoud, in his MoMoney Blog explains the charts and trends of the Little zig-zags on the chart. This months silver chart  is in and Mo stated that  it was a disappointment. After climbing above the first hurdle at $19 per ounces, it stop at nearly $19.80 before dropping down to below $18.00 per ounce. I was hoping silver would jump over the second resistance at 20, but formed a new resistance level at 19.50 instead. Nonetheless, he still believe silver will finish above $21 before the end of the year and the “big players” on wall street will join the party once quantitative easing appears. This will cause massive inflation and investors will flee to the hard asset like Precious Metals

He doesn't believe there will be a hard downtrend for silver  since the fundamentals for silver is so strong that the price of silver could reach at least the triple digit by the end of the decade.  Current prices are  being manipulated by the big banks on Wall Street. They perform naked shorts in the silver market to depress the silver price and to prevent investors from dumping the US dollar for silver.The volume is light so I don’t believe the “big players” left this game as well. As a silver investor, you will have to be patience and focus on the big picture. The big picture is the upcoming inflation and the strong industrial and investment demand for silver that will boost the price a lot!

To see the charts and read Mo's analysis go to MoMoney blog.

Silver Deal of the Day

Monday, June 14, 2010, is Flag Day and APMEX has a special offer to help you show your true colors. APMEX has recently acquired an allotment of 1 ounce .999 Fine American Flag Silver Bars. These bars are a great way to show your patriotism while at the same time saving big $$$ on silver. Between now and Tuesday, June 15, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. (CST), or while supplies last, purchase these American Flag Silver Bars for only $0.69 per ounce over spot in any quantity.
Buy Silver Bullion 1 oz Silver Bars

Dealer and Mint Premiums vs Ebay Prices

I was checking in on a friends blog, Gold Wars, and the latest post is titled Why Are There Premiums On Gold and Silver, in it author  Kirsty Hogg stated "Another good thing to do is a quick comparison on Ebay for a similar item. Whatever you are looking for, type it into the Ebay search field and It will come up with the price they are being sold for that day/week".  Don't get me wrong I am not knocking Kirsty's article it is good.  I just had one thing to say about using Ebay as a guide.


I buy and sell silver on Ebay as well as buy from dealers and mints. I do not know if you have noticed but often the prices on Ebay for a particular piece will be higher than if you ordered it from the mint.

I have a few theories why this happens:

1. Bidders get caught up in the momentum. Ebay is addictive, you have been watching and bidding on an item, and you get the mindset that your are going to win that item.

2. Many people on Ebay are both buyers and sellers and  usually have money in our Paypal account. It is so easy just to push a button and pay from Paypal.

3. I think is many start out buying silver on Ebay because they do not know how to shop the online dealers and mints for specials.

4. The last reason I think that some people price their items higher on Ebay is that they make money off of what few items they post, and I think sentimental value plays a large role in what they would accept. 

Dealers and mints sell on a whole other scale and that is why they have premiums, but can often sell silver bullion less than you can buy it on Ebay.  Jim Little, owner of Quality Silver Bullion commented on the Gold Wars article writing "When we buy large silver bars and silver shot, there is already a premium tacked onto it, along with the freight costs." They also have a lot of overhead costs. He went on to explain "From the premiums we charge, we end up being able to keep just a small portion as profit. That is why quantity plays a huge part in the pricing of a bullion round".

Because of the reasons above, I suggest if you are going to buy an item on Ebay.  Decide what is the most you would pay for it before you ever place a bid. You do not need to place the whole amount on the first bid, actually I suggest you put the minimal bid on it and wait until closer to the end of the auction

One thing to keep in mind is if you use Ebay as a pricing guide, you have to look at the final sale price.  Some items may list at a certain price but never sell or you might catch the auction before the end.  Most prices increase dramatically in the last few minutes.

That said I still shop Ebay as well as dealers and mints for the lowest prices.  Be careful on Ebay for fraud, but that is a whole other post.

Contest To Design The New Silverbugs .999 Silver Round!!!!!!!

If you do not know already, there is a group on Facebook called “Silverbugs”. It is for people who have an affinity for Precious Metals, especially Silver. This group is growing at an extremely fast rate. We have over 200 dedicated members, with more joining everyday, and it is open to the public.

The admins at Silverbugs are always looking for ways to make Silverbugs the best group on Facebook. So with that in mind, our next great accomplishment is that Silverbugs is going to have our own, professionally minted silver rounds produced, thanks to one of our members, Jim Little, owner of Quality Silver Bullion (QSB). But that’s not all! Not only are we going to have our own round, but we are going to let our members design and choose the Silverbugs logo that will go on the face of the round. That’s right, we are going to have an art contest, open to all Silverbugs members. Then we will let all Silverbugs members vote on the winning logo. The logo with the most votes wins!

The winning member not only gets bragging rights, but will also get a QSB .999 silver 1 troy ounce round. So if you’re not a member but want to submit an entry, join Silverbugs on Facebook. If you are already a member, get out your pencils, pens, computer art programs, etc. and get to work. The submitted artwork must be on a template that looks like this:

Your submission should go in the large circle, diameter approximately 7”, and the winning submission will be put on the face of the round that will be the size of the smaller circle. The template is on 8.5” X 11” paper. I am in the process of setting up a site where you can download the template in pdf format. The XXX’s on the template are for you to remember to leave room within the circle for lettering, as we there will be a phrase on the round as well as a link to our group.

There really aren’t any rules; except every member is limited to one submission and it must fit within the larger circle on the template. So create what you think would look best on a round. The round will not be colorized, or shaded, but if you want to submit a colorized or shaded version, the die maker can trace around it. I suggest a detailed line drawing.

I believe this contest is something we all can have fun with and the final product will be a work of art that we can all own and be proud of! I know that I will want plenty for myself. I have to give kudos to: Jim Little, who is having the die made at no cost to us and Darrell Head, who, along with Jim came up with the idea for our own round. Of course, the contest was my idea ;). We will discuss how to obtain the freshly minted rounds at another time, but for now be creative and remember Silver is Money!

NIA: Introduction and Silver Mining Stock Recommendation

The National Inflation Association is an organization dedicated to preparing Americans for hyperinflation and helping Americans to survive and prosper in the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis. The U.S. government’s obligations include a $12.8 trillion national debt, $6.3 trillion in Fannie/Freddie debt and $60 trillion in unfunded obligations for programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The NIA believes that the U.S. for all intents and purposes is bankrupt and Americans need to take steps immediately to protect themselves from the potential loss of the purchasing power of their U.S. dollars.


NIA believes the largest financial crisis in history is ahead of us as a direct result of the U.S. government unwilling to accept a much needed recession. We are now at a point where our national debt is impossible to pay off. Due to rising interest payments on our national debt, it is unlikely the U.S. will be able to balance its budget ever again. Foreign countries will eventually stop lending the U.S. money and the Federal Reserve will most likely have to print the money to fund our deficit spending out of thin air.

The NIA’s ultimate goal is to help as many Americans as possible become aware of the disaster we are rapidly approaching. The NIA believes that the wealth of most Americans could get wiped out during the next decade, but it will be an opportunity for a small percentage of Americans to become wealthy by investing into companies that historically have prospered in an inflationary environment, such as gold and silver miners and agriculture producers.

Their website has extensive articles, news, reviews, stock suggestions, gold and silver seller reviews, and coin melt values. The articles are written by the staff of the NIA, and you can subscribe to the free NIA newsletter to have them emailed to you before they are posted online. You can check out their website at http://www.inflation.us/ and you can sign up for the newsletter on the same page. The NIA also has a Facebook group site that is open to the public.

Today, NIA announced a new stock suggestion, Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation (CDE). CDE is one of the world’s leading silver companies and is also a significant gold producer. NIA's last silver recommendation was Silver Wheaton (SLW). SLW reached a new 52-week high last week of $19.83, up 194% since NIA suggested it on February 26, 2009, at $6.74.

With the recent breakout in silver prices and potential imminent short squeeze from naked short positions held by JP Morgan, NIA felt it was the perfect time to announce a new silver company that they felt has significant long-term upside potential. You can read the CDE profile at http://www.inflation.us/cde.html

As usual do not buy stock on my recommendation or anyone else’s. Always do your own DD.

Detailed Explanation to a Good Question from "The Golden Truth"

One of the blogs I follow, The Golden Truth, received a comment in the form of a question today.  I thought it should be shared, and I hope Dave does not mind.

The comment:
Dave,
Any thoughts as to why gold and silver have been moving in opposite directions to each other the last couple of days?

Dave's reply:
Good question. Primarily because this is what is known as "roll" week in the futures market. The last day you can hold May silver contracts is tomorrow, unless you fully fund your account for delivery. Since most long positions are speculative funds who have no intention of taking delivery, there is usually heavy selling in the week prior to "first notice" which is this Friday.

Typically the gold/silver manipulators (JPM, HSBC, GS, etc) will try to force the market lower during "roll" week, because they know they have a large amount of natural sellers. In fact, it can be argued that silver is performing much better than usual right now and I think because it seems that a large number of the longs are rolling forward to the next front-month, which is silver. Typically in the past, on a day like today during roll week when you wake up and silver is getting hammered, it just stays down. Silver has been bouncing back all during the last trading week.

The Golden Truth can be accessed at: http://truthingold.blogspot.com/
Go there and read today's post: Physical Gold Buying vs Paper Fraud

In it Dave states "It is becoming more readily apparent to anyone observing and participating in the trading/investing of gold and silver that the physical market is beginning to overwhelm the fraudulent, fractional bullion practices of the Big Wall Street Banks. This is a scandal that ultimately looms much larger than anyone realizes and will take gold and silver to prices that will shock even astute, long-time precious metals market participants."

The Top 20 Silver Producing Countries in 2008

Top 20 Silver Producing Countries in 2008 (in millions of ounces)

1. Peru - 118.3

2. Mexico - 104.2

3. China - 82.8

4. Australia - 61.9

5. Chile - 44.9

6. Poland - 38.9

7. Russia - 36.1

8. United States - 36.0

9. Bolivia - 35.8

10. Canada 21.5

11. Kazakhstan - 20.2

12. Turkey - 10.1

13. Argentina - 9.9

14. Sweden - 8.4

15. Indonesia - 8.0

16. Morocco - 7.8

17. India - 7.1

18. Guatemala - 3.2

19. Iran - 3.2

20. South Africa - 2.7

Source: The Silver Institute. 2010. http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply_demand.php#supply

Precious Metals Trader Blows Whistle on Market Manipulation

Many people in the precious metals (PM) market have long suspected market manipulation by JP Morgan and other large banks. These firms have allegedly been keeping down the prices of gold and silver. I personally believe there is more manipulation on the silver price because of the many industrial applications of silver; however, it would not surprise me if both markets were heavily manipulated.

Today, Andrew Maguire, a former Goldman Sachs trader blew the whistle on gold and silver price manipulation. According to an article by Michael Gray of the New York Post, Maguire explained JPMorgan's role in the metals pits in both London and the US, and how they can generate a profit either way the market moves. Of course JPMorgan denies the allegations and says that no one in the firm is familiar with Andrew Maguire.

Despite gold's rise each of the last 10 years, Bill Murphy, chairman of the Gold Antitrust Action committee believes the price of gold today would be closer to $2,300 an ounce if the price just moved with inflation, but Maguire believes the price should be even higher given the fear trade that would have sent prices spiking during the financial crisis in 2008-09. Both PMs have seen a recent spike since Maguire's e-mails became public

According to e-mails that Maguire sent to Commodities Futures Trade Commission (CFTC) regulators, he was uncannily accurate in his predictions of how the PMs would trade on release of the January jobs report. Maguire stated that The prices of gold and silver have been allegedly suppressed by JPMorgan and HSBC. Maguire laid out the banks’ plan in e-mails to the CFTC prior to trading on the Comex on Feb. 5, 2010 by contacting the CFTC via e-mails. On February 3, 2010 he sent an e-mail giving them a heads up for a manipulative event signaled for Friday, Feb. 5th, 2010. Then, on the 5th, Maguire sent an e-mail to confirm that the silver manipulation was a great success and played out precisely as he had predicted.

To read the Post's article in it's entirety go here.

Learning Corner: Silver in Other Languages

Language		Language		Language		Language
Afrikaans:	Silwer	Finnish:	Hopea	Latin	Argentum	Scottish Gaelic:	Airgead
Albanian:	Argjendi	French:	Argent	Latvian:	Sudrabs	Serbian:	Сребро
Amharic:	ብር	Friulian:	Arint	Limburgian:	Zèlver	Serbo-Croatian:	Srebro
Arabic:	فضة	Galician:	Prata	Lithuanian:	Sidabras	Sicilian:	Argentu
Armenian:	Արծաթ	Gan:	銀	Lojban:	rijno	Slovak:	Striebro
Asturian:	Plata	Georgian:	ვერცხლი	Low Saxon:	Sülver	Slovenian:	Srebro
Azeri:	Gümüş	German:	Silber	Luxembourgish:	Sëlwer	Spanish:	Plata
Basque:	Zilar	Greek:	Άργυρος	Malay:	Perak	Swahili:	Agenti
Belarusian:	Серабро	Guarani:	Itatĩ	Malayalam:	വെള്ളി	Swedish:	Silver
Bengali:	রূপা	Gujarati:	ચાંદી	Manx:	Argid	Tajik:	Нуқра
Manipuri:	প্রাটা	Haitian:	Ajan	Maori:	Kawata	Tamil:	வெள்ளி
Bosnian :	Srebro	Hakka:	Ngiùn	Marathi:	चांदी	Tatar:	Kömeş
Bulgarian:	Сребро	Hebrew:	כסף	Min Nan:	Ag	Telugu:	వెండి
Catalan:	Plata	Hindi:	रूप्यम्	Nahuatl:	Iztāc teōcuitlatl	Thai:	เงิน
Cebuano:	Silver	Hungarian:	Ezüst	Norman:	Ergent	Turkish:	Gümüş
Chinese:	銀	Icelandic:	Silfur	Norwegian :	Sølv	Ukrainian:	Срібло
Chuvash:	Кĕмĕл	Ido:	Arjento	Occitan:	Argent	Urdu:	چاندی
Corsican:	Argentu	Indonesian:	Perak	Persian:	نقره	U.S.A :	Silver
Croatian:	Srebro	Irish Gaelic:	Airgead	Polish:	Srebro	Uzbek :	Kumush
Czech:	Stříbro	Italian:	Argento	Portuguese:	Prata	Venetian:	Arxento
Danish:	Sølv	Japanese:	自然銀	Quechua:	Qullqi q'illay	Vietnamese:	Bạc
Dutch:	Zilver	Javanese:	Perak	Ripuarian:	Silber	Welsh:	Arian
Erzya:	Сия	Kapampangan:	Pilak	Romanian:	Argint	Yiddish:	זילבער
Esperanto:	Arĝento	Korean:	은	Russian:	Серебро	Zhuang:	Ngaenz
Estonian	Hõbe	Kurdish:	Zîv	Sanskrit:	रूप्यम्	Zulu:	Isiliva

http://www.mindat.org/min-3664.html