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A Compelling History Of Precious metals

Long, long before government-issued currency, such as the dollar or the euro, existed, people must have had something else to help them trade with each other. How did people buy stuff they needed? Before there was any kind of currency, there was bartering unless you were a barbarian and pre- ferred plundering. Civilized merchants and consumers traded goods and ser- vices, but trade did get cumbersome. For example, what if the merchant selling food didn’t really want your 47 pounds of lint in exchange for a head of lettuce?

To make commerce a little easier, the buyers and sellers in the marketplace slowly decided on what could be used to facilitate trade. They decided that something had to be used as a currency, and that currency had to be portable and widely accepted as a unit of transaction, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Whatever they chose as currency needed to be something that performed the role of . . . money! For thousands of years, precious metals — primarily gold and silver — filled the bill nicely. Very nicely.

Gold and silver came to be recognized as precious, valuable, and desirable in virtually every nation across the globe dating back to the dawn of civilized society. Now, you might ask “What the heck does history have to do in a For Dummiesbook?” Actually, history is very important because it will impact your portfolio in the coming years. History has shown us that there were (are) two major types of currency: precious metals and manmade (or government- issued) paper currencies. This chapter explains why the vast majority of paper currencies lost their value and are now gone but precious metals are still . . . uh . . . precious, making them worth a long look from investors.

In this book, I even take a step outside the word “precious” because I don’t want anyone to call me “baseless.” So I give you a look at the great opportuni- ties that base metals (such as zinc and copper) offer investors and specula- tors