Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Sarcasm Report v.30

Today's USA Today has a full page advertisement that offers a free safe if you buy 267 never-circulated U.S. Government coins and currency.

Here's what you get.

1. A free safe! Woohoo!
2. 12 presidential golden dollar coins
3. 250 never-circulated U.S. Buffalo nickels (minted in 2005)
4. 4 $2 bills (in a "banker's stack" no less!)
5. 1 American Silver Eagle

You'll need to cover $149 for the first shipment of coins. You'll also need to pay the same amount for the last remaining shipment of coins. It's a bit fuzzy on just how many total shipments there will be though. I wonder why that is? It seems to me that they could just put all the coins in the safe along with all that currency (all four bills, lol) and ship it to us in just one shipment. Wouldn't that cut down on shipping costs and save everyone money? What am I missing? ;)

Is it a good deal? Let's start with the safe. Free safe! Awesome deal! Enough said!

Now let's move to the presidential dollar coins. Probably best to just stick with the melt value of all that gold. Right?


2007-2009 Presidential Dollar Value (United States)

$0.0395132 is the melt value for the 2007-2009 Presidential golden dollar on June 04, 2009.

Oops! The one dollar face value was clearly the better way to look at it. Maybe we can make it up on ALL those nickels though. First, let's find out how many were minted.

Nickel (United States coin)

2005 P bison - 448,320,000
2005 D bison - 487,680,000


There were 936 million coins minted. Ouch. What about metal content?

As of December 14, 2006, the value of the metal in a United States nickel coin reached $0.055759, an 11.5% premium over its face value.

Fantastic! We're going to be rich once we melt them.

In an attempt to avoid losing large quantities of circulating nickels to melting, the United States Mint introduced new interim rules on December 14, 2006 criminalizing the melting and export of cents and nickels. Violators of these rules can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000, five years imprisonment, or both.

Bummer! How about those $2 bills?

United States two-dollar bill

The most significant evidence of the $2 bill's reawakening would be that, in 2005 alone, 61 million $2 bills were printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This is more than twice the number of $2 bills that were printed annually between 1990 and 2001.

People love hoarding $2 bills. I'd say they are worth about $2 though. Just a hunch. As a side note, people are strange.

That leaves us with the one American Eagle Silver dollar.

It's tough to put a price on just one unless you are buying through a full page advertisement in a national newspaper. Here's an attempt though.


Northwest Territorial Mint

Our Buy Price*
1 ounce rounds $16.90


In summary, we get 12 dollars worth about a dollar each, 250 nickels worth about a nickel each, 4 two-dollar bills worth about two dollars each, one silver dollar worth about $16.90, and a "free" safe.

17 comments:

EconomicDisconnect said...

Now Mark,
Why so cynical?

I have an essay contest tonight where you can win a real .999 fine silver ounce. Not much compared to the great deal you highlighted!

Love this blog!!

Anonymous said...

"As a side note, people are strange."
http://tinyurl.com/owvmq5

Yup.

Kevin

Anonymous said...

Sri Lanka wants George Soros, Mark Mobius and other top fund managers to invest in the country and help the Colombo Stock Exchange “take off” after the end of a 26-year civil war.
http://tinyurl.com/pfnpdn

Please buy our country, please so our stock market will take off and we will have the illusion of prosperity hiding the rape it actually is.

Kevin

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

"Why so cynical?"

C is for cash, that I do like to stash.

Y is for yield, that doesn't seem real.

N is for notes, when I've lost all my hopes.

I is for ink, that's red beyond pink.

C is for checks, that will bounce and cause wrecks.

A is for albatross, to distract from the loss.

L is for loan, that once bought new homes.

Cynical! Yay! ;)

Stagflationary Mark said...

Kevin,

"Please buy our country..."

It sounds like the Holy Grail.

"Well, I'll ask him, but I don't think he will be very keen. Uh, he's already got one, you see." - French Soldier, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

mab said...

Stag,

Strange central bankers printing and distributing money to venal financiers is no basis for a successful economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKIWjnEPNY&feature=channel_page

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

We're all oppressed now!

mab said...

Stag,

We're all oppressed now!

Some are oppressed less than others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgences#Abuses

Venality and vanity. Partners in crime.

Anonymous said...

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said that policy makers need to be prepared for “substantial shocks” and that rising Treasury yields may be a “disconcerting” signal of inflation fears.

http://tinyurl.com/q35m9r

I'll bet that idiot Bernanke would give anything to take back that little Making Sure Deflation Doesn't Happen Here speech.
What do ya think Mark.

Kevin

EconomicDisconnect said...

Mark,
you won the essay contest with that hilarious piece of work! See the site to get the info on how to claim your prize.

EconomicDisconnect said...

the number is:
16379

mab said...

Stag,

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-06-03-benefits_N.htm

From the above link:

one of every six dollars of Americans' income is now coming in the form of a federal or state check or voucher. A record!

And one in nine Americans are receiving foood stamps. Another record!

Based on the above, it's abundantly clear that we have to get credit flowing again. American households need access to more debt.

What have we done? What are we doing?

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

"American households need access to more debt."

We could simply expand existing programs.

Forever Food & Housing Stamps

"What have we done? What are we doing?"

Where are we headed? Why the hand basket?

mab said...

Stag,

This comment probably doesn't belong in a sarcasm report, but it seems like we have finally borrowed our way to prosperity!

I was getting worried when the spending and guarantees crossed the $10 trillion mark, but it looks like we're really starting to see the fruits of our borrowing.

Soylent green shoots. They're everywhere.

mab said...

Stag,

This dude is a bit wacky, but, oddly, he's quite good with economic stats.

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/can-we-get-this-guy-on-cnbc.html#disqus_thread

G..damn b%tch broke my mother f...ckin sledge hammer!

I'm wondering, if everybody defaults, who will have any money to buy back the gold?

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

"Soylent green shoots. They're everywhere."

It's People's... Bank of China!

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

Just watched the video. I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

I laughed. I cried.

"I'm wondering, if everybody defaults, who will have any money to buy back the gold?"

No worries. Food stamps will be replaced with gold stamps.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/JeniferVilfranc.shtml

"Thus one ounce of gold can be beaten out to 300 square feet."

A one inch by one inch gold stamp would use just 1/43200th of an ounce!

Put another way, 450 pounds of gold could easily supply every man, woman, and child in the United States with a gold stamp.