Looking for advice: What are your SHTF coins, and why?

There'll probably be as many answers as their are stackers, but I'm interested in what small denomination or low value coins people are stacking for a SHTF scenario (assuming you bother).

I've got no particular, well thought out SHTF stack since I currently think a SHTF scenario is a low probability (at least in the sense that we'd be forced to use silver coins). What I do have is something to hedge my bets, which is basically a few tubes or rolls of nearly everything:

1oz silver ASEs
1oz silver Britannias
1oz generic silver rounds
1oz silver Kooks
1oz silver Koalas
Round 1966 50s

This degree of variety looks a bit ridiculous to me now so I'll probably trim it down, possibly based on replies in this thread.

(One problem is that most of these are locked away in a storage facility so they may be inaccessible if things go really bad.)

 

Round 50s would be almost useless as they do not have weight and material stamped on them... just go test with non stacker friends... ask em how much silver in a round 50 and how much that makes it worth?? At least with a kook you can say it is 1oz Ag then show em the silver spot price (newspaper... TV??)

 

I have my predecimal Australian coins, low denomination (about 50 cents for a 50% 3p), fractional.

I have a lot of them and I don't want to be explaining 'premiums' on top of spot price, I got most for under spot so I would be happy to part with them for spot value. No need to round up to the nearest ounce, I can make change

Explaining to someone how the 2008 Kook is actually worth more than a 2014 ASE would not be worth anyone's time or effort.

I would hope that if access to the internet was still possible then calculators and even phone apps will be available to help people do the sums. The difference between 925 and 500 is a real pain for these situations so if I could get US money it would simplify it a bit but even then you have to explain pre 64 to non stackers.

And would you take them at face value or would you weigh each transaction..?

 

Good point but I think 'most' people know that 50s are worth 'something'. No doubt the traders would quickly work it out. In Argentina the shops had gold testers and a good knowledge of what was worth what apparently.

I agree that SHTF chance is negligible btw - at least for a while to come.

 

I like the 50s. I think if you went into any pub anywhere in Australia, the average bod would know that they contain silver and are worth (as JulieW said) "worth something". People are highly adaptable when it comes to "money" and they'd soon adapt. I think the shiny, pretty coins with designs that have never seen circulation - like kooks and eagles and such - for average trading, would be open to distrust, regardless of having content stamped on them.

I like the fractional nature of the pre-decimals and I don't believe people would be particularly inclined to distinguish between pre- and post-46, so I'd go post-46 as being more bang for your buck (in a SHTF world).

I'm buying the collectors coins still (in addition to my SHTF supplies) as I'm hoping that the "apocalyptic" scenario that would see us go to using old coins for trading will never happen. The day we go to regular day-to-day trading using antique money will not be a nice day. What's the line out of terminator - "everyone's going to be having a bad day ..." or something.

 

Wouldn't pre-decimals with denominations in pence, pennies and shillings be even more confusing to people? At least an ASE, Kook or Koala has $1 on it. Maybe normal decimal coins would be all we'd need, just that they'd be able to buy more.

If there is concern that a 2008 Kook is worth worth more than a 2014 ASE, then just get 1 oz Koalas because they're probably worth bugger all forever.

 

Maybe old coins, ASEs, etc would be a short-liver interim thing that differed per community, and when things settle down silver will still be used, but a new commonly accepted coin will be minted from silver stocks? So as long as we have silver, that'd be good enough. Maybe.

 

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the old money, though I am sure a few shopkeepers would remember back that far.

I would think that it would go back to weights for pre dec because wear and tear means they are underweight anyway and no one wants to remember how many shillings in a pound. At least with the US 90% cents you can ask for a value, like $3.55 and it is easy to work out which coins to hand over, with 1 2s 6p you are just going to end up arguing over small coins.

I think the $1 on an ounce is just going to get confusing because people have a certain expectation of what $1 will buy you (this will go out the window when bread and milk become scarce)

 

Proof libertad sets - because if SHTF I want to have something shiny to look at while I eat the last of my baked beans and the world burns.

 

The press would tout the value of the round 50s from day one because of the newsworthiness of the situation.

Every other coin is wrong!

 

Thats a surprise coming from you sammy :

 

Maybe a SHTF scenario is a bit far fetched for some people and there are other things that go along with it as well, shortages, prices rises, unemployment etc. which will all have an effect on what coins would work.

But say for an underground economy, we know the gov is apparently cracking down on cash-in-hand work, and if everything becomes electronic then buying anything illegal will become traceable, and not just in real time, retrospectively as well. So if your favourite seller gets knicked, then every transaction that has happened in the past will also be traceable back to you, guilty by association.

In this instance I could see Gold Sovereigns being used, you wouldn't want to make lots of small deals because that would leave you vulnerable each time, so one large deal would do the trick. Then you want something that is small, easy to hide, easy to store, easy to swallow if needs be.

For smaller purchases you would want something as pure as possible so you don't have to carry around copper. Small as possible, so no crown sized coins. Maybe something like the Pagnani silver rounds. I reckon I could swallow one of those with a glass of water if I needed to.

The legal tender status might give you some legal protection if you paid them with $200 coins or a roll of $1 silver coins, there would be no way you could argue that trading in bars is anything other than an off the books exercise.

 

He's planning on buying up all of the others from those previously stacking them for SHTF

 

Going by the number of bods willing to trade on the forum for round 50s, they already seem to be a defacto currency for small transactions around here.

 

rather poetic photo, not sure silver will help though :lol:

 

round 50's? the only place they are recognised is at a bullion dealer, do you honestly think bullion dealers will be around come real SHTF?
silver is an industrial pm, I bet you will have more power with copper, at least it would be needed to build things with.

my preffered order of SHTF Materials are..

1: Gold (for buying big ticket items)
2: Copper
3: Cast Iron
4: Aluminium
5: Lead
6: Stainless Steel
7: Steel
8: Brass
9: Timber
10: Silver

 

Pre and post Sixpences and Shillings.

 

In a dooms day scenario, I think most countries will switch to USD, because everything (hard to soft commodities) are priced in USD.
So you'd still need to swap all your precious metals/coins into USD.

 

yeah I bet that's exactly what they would want to happen, but depends on your doomsday scenario.