5 ms·
It's not like that money disappears. Just think of it like buying gold bullion. Unlike say, a $9000 motorcycle impulse purchase, a block of raw metal should ho
by anonporridge 5y ago
It's not like that money disappears. Just think of it like buying gold bullion.
Unlike say, a $9000 motorcycle impulse purchase, a block of raw metal should hold it's inflation adjusted value relatively well for decades and you can sell it whenever to recoup the money.
- lacksconfidence 5y agoGold bullion has a healthy market to sell back into though.I don't know the numbers, but i wouldn't be surprised if I could easily sell gold for 80% of "market" value, whereas probably closer to 20% for something like Iridium that has a very small adressable market unless I were to expend considerable effort finding someone willing to pay what it's worth.
- tyingq 5y agoPlatinum might be a better fit in this "really heavy" category. 21.447 grams/cc versus gold at 19.3 grams/cc.
- anonporridge 5y agoYou could probably sell it to just about any gold dealer, as a lot of them sell iridium bars anyway. The tools they have to verify the purity of gold also work for other metals. If not, then they would certainly have connections to find someone who will buy it. Also, you generally buy/sell on a 5-10% spread from the "spot" market price of the metal, depending on the quanitity you're dealing with. Dealers generally offer a closer price to spot when dealing with larger dollar value amounts of metal.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoIridium is commonly used in jewelry; it's one of the platinum group metals. It doesn't have the mass awareness of gold, but it's not some weird niche material either.
- tofuahdude 5y agoNew form of investment?
- BurningFrog 5y agoMetals also survive pretty much anything, including catastrophic fires.
- moftz 5y agoGold can easily melt in a house fire. A diamond ring can turn into a puddle of gold and no diamond because it burned off
- anonporridge 5y agoMelted gold is just as valuable as gold jewelry, since they melt it down anyway when you sell it. It might be worth marginally less than an intact piece of gold bullion that can be resold without processing. Diamonds don't have resale value anyway. They're literally a scam.
- kadoban 5y agoOne thing I've wondered, exactly how easy would it be to find a gold puddle after a fire anyway? I mean it's not going to vaporize or walk off on its own, but is it just going to be a little solidified glob there to pick up or what?
- dreamcompiler 5y agoYes but it will probably be blackened with soot which will make it hard to find.
- tastyfreeze 5y agoYes, it might flow around in the fire but it would be in the same area. A metal detector would be the fastest way to find it. Likely less time to find it solidified than looking for jewelry on a beach. Certainly less time than mining the gold. I've found aluminum globs under fires that had cans or trashed roofing thrown in. Pretty clean, since nearly everything floats on it, and easy to spot in ashes.