If we are talking financial apocalypse scenario then holding GOLD or ZAUWBA will be useless as the government will probably confiscate or force default on it.
There are similar (but 3rd party) services like www.goldmoney.org which seems to have Mike Shedlocks personal endorsement, but he is obviously not forseeing any such apocalypse scenario so not too worried about the company defaulting and taking your bullion. If you share this view, (i.e. after gold as the next profit maker rather than something more fundamental) then it’s obviously fine and you could hold 100 unit lots of ZAUWBA safely as they are government backed and still provide some guarantee of redemption.
For the apocalypse scenario, the only answer is physical gold, where the only answer to your question is GET IT WHERE YOU CAN. I don’t mean to be hysterical, but the fact remains for small holding buyers the premium is at a minimum of 10-15% over spot not to mention delays if you can get it at all. No government can confiscate your physical, or force the company holding it to default, or attach any other such liability to it. If you are worried about this scenario then one can only assume 10-15% premium is the least of your concerns. Large buyers seem to be having no problems, the shortages in physical being restricted to small coins/bars rather than the 500/1000g bars which seem easily available.
Regardless, the best approach will probably be to diversify. It is relatively inexpensive to move a small portion of your total capital into physical (say 10-20%) even at these high premiums which should insulate you fully if the apocalypse comes (as the POG would most likely skyrocket past everything else which would be dropping). I mean, if you have $10,000 and spend $2000 on physical, if things get really bad that $2000 will = $10,000 while the rest of your holdings plummet to $0.
This is a worst case scenario that I think it would be wise to recognise, none of us really want. If it comes down to this, your gold holdings won’t protect against rioting and looting! In which case, gold and a shotgun might be a better trading pair
Personally, I have been accumulating bag silver and gold sovereigns and 1 oz bars as close to spot as I can (there is usually a small premium baked into sovereigns). By bag silver I mean: Pre 1946, all pre-decimal Aussie coins were 0.925 grade silver. Same applies for pre 1920 UK pre-decimal coins. These can be picked up at spot or less if you are lucky. Ignore those being sold by coin collectors for their collection value!
To give you an idea $250 used to be the standard asking price for a gold sov at any coin shop. You will notice that 5 * 250 = 1250 (approx 5 sovs for 1 troz gold) which just so happens to be the current spot of gold, so if you were buying apocalypse sovs last year you only just broke even now thanks to USD pumelling AUD lower, and it’s worse now, the cheapest I managed to get is $265, not really willing to go above $280 and thats high!
Small holders willing to pay the premium can go to ebay there are some decent dealers (if you ignore the premium). If you are unwilling to pay the premium then you probably don’t recognise gold in that fundamental way and may as well hold ZAUWBA to redeem when you can.
I made my play in mid November and haven’t made any purchases since then, long EWH and FXI on international markets (13% total) long ASX RMS and RMSOC (15%) and again a similar percentile of total holdings in physical gold (I do not include bag silver in my holdings, only a speculative apocalypse play) and the rest in cash.
Hope to diversify cash into a few diff currencies soon and may enter long position on one of NEM, NCM, LGL or AGG (purely sentiment play) on the next downleg.
Deflationist contrarian strategy:
Buy USD and JPY on market weakness (i.e. high AUD)
Sell forex profits to accumulate gold on market strength (i.e. lower gold)
Inflationist contrarian strategy:
Sell everything but land you own 100%, buy gold, silver, a gun, 50 cans of spam and pray for the best.
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