Been lurking around here for a while and figured I may as well sign up, in the event that I have something to say I’ve been stacking since 1993 - I bought my first ounce of silver for $5.25 - and seen a lot of crazy things happen in this market. Most of my stack is silver, as I haven’t jumped in to gold, but for a few wayward grams here and there. When reading the forum comments, I find it ironic that people post the same sentiments today that they did in the early days of online forums: - silver’s gonna shoot to the moon any day! - fiat is fake and never lasts - better buy now, as it’s going up to at least $40 within the next month - better get more silver before TSHTF...it’s gonna be the only thing that matters - why is my stack’s value not appreciating faster? - silver’s down? That damn evil satanic cabal is at it again, manipulating the price of silver just to keep us down That’s not to say that the people who believe those things are wrong, only making the observation that in my time buying silver over the last 30 years, the fundamentalists STILL have not seen their ruminations materialize. I also find the same group of (what I believe to be) misinformed stackers questioning why their return in silver has not been bigger. My opinion is just mine; the main reason I hold silver is not because I believe it’ll “shoot to the moon,” and I’ll get rich fast, rather to hedge my savings (well, a part of it) in silver opposed to the dollar. We’ve seen a couple nice spikes over the last 10 or so years, but for the most part, silver has just seen a slow & steady increase in spot, while continuing to function as a hedge against the dollar. Outside of silver, I’m a hobbyist numismatist. I just freakin love American coinage. There’s nothing like holding an old US coin and wondering what it would say if it could talk. My coin collection is much smaller than it used to be, but I still enjoy the hell out of it. Beyond that, I’m permanently disabled after having 5 spinal reconstructions. I try not to let that stop me too much, as I’m a hobbyist bladesmith/blacksmith as well. Have a couple of amazing kids too (17 & 21). I suppose that’s it. Took me a long time to register, but considering my love for silver, I’m kind of excited to get back in to talking about it with other folks. Cheers, Mike