Once a gold bug, (not) always a gold bug
Before I discovered Bitcoin I was a bit of a gold bug. Not a hardcore gold bug, but I used to occasionally stack physical gold and silver when I had some excess cash. I continued stacking gold and silver in my early years of stacking sats but stopped around 5 years ago.
Until yesterday, I had never sold an ounce of gold or silver. However, the recent fiat price increase had me thinking about it for some months now. Especially silver. I get the thesis for gold as central banks and large entities want to get away from holding treasuries and are looking for a neutral reserve asset they can buy in size. I have always subscribed to the notion that they will try gold first and then eventually move to Bitcoin. Silver is essentially a shitcoin at this point, it has a bit of industrial utility but much of its value derives from hanging on gold's coattails (sound familiar). So, while I didn't want to part with all of my gold and silver stack, I was content to sell some of my gold and a good chunk of my silver. Now seemed like as good a time as any considering the recent price surge. Also, I had some recent unexpected expenses with my dog and car that some extra cash would cover and of course Bitcoin is relatively cheap (and getting cheaper) these days so I can use some of the proceeds to stack more sats.
Pawn Stars it was not
I have been in pawn shops before but usually just to browse. I have only ever sold something to a pawn shop once- some jewelry from my first marriage. In that instance the pawn shop owner, who was well known from his local tv commercials was highly skeptical of my story that the jewelry was returned to me but it was true and in the end he was perfectly happy to buy it from me for a steep discount to "intrinsic value". Years later I saw on the news that one of his shops had gotten robbed and he was beat up and pistol whipped. I felt bad for him and thought back to our interaction. He probably took me for a ride on the sale and maybe he thought I had stolen the jewelry yet he bought it anyways but overall after meeting him I had a more positive impression of him than I did from his commercials.
Anyways, back on track. I decided to go to the local pawn shop because it was the only place I knew of in town that buys gold and silver. I had wandered past the shop around 6 weeks ago while I was waiting for my car to be serviced and noted the sign on the door that indicated they bought gold and silver. Later that day I checked their website and learned it was part of a small chain of pawn shops in southern Ontario and they post their daily rates for gold and silver on the site. The rates were very good for a pawn shop, only 4% under spot. So, I decided I would give it a shot and sell some of my gold and silver.
I called them in advance to see if I had to have an appointment and they said no come in any time during operating hours. So, yesterday afternoon while my daughter was visiting with my parents I ventured off to the pawn shop. I had done a rough estimate beforehand and knew I was bringing around 10k (CAD) based on their current rates posted.
The shop was small and kind of junky. They had all the regular things you expect of a pawn shop electronics, tools, musical instruments, jewelry but none of it really looked of high quality. While I was waiting for the guy at the counter to finish up with the customer in front of me I browsed some of the merchandise. I noted they had a few decent guitars and some switch games my kids would like but otherwise nothing I found particularly interesting. It was perfectly fine for a pawn shop but Silver and Gold Pawn from the TV show Pawn Stars it definitely was not.
The Normies still have no clue
Now on to the ulterior motive of my post. I was there for about 1 hour and ended up dealing with and chatting with all 3 employees in the store that day. The manager, a supervisor and another employee. They were all very nice and helpful as they verified the authenticity of the coins I brought in and went through all the hoops they had to jump through to get authorization to give me over 10k.
My takeaway from our chat: None of them seemed to have any clue why gold and silver have been rising in price. They understood consumer price inflation from their experience but didn't have any sense of the fact money supply has been exploding for the last 15 years in Canada or that global government debt levels are over 100T. One did complain about some of Carney's current pet projects but quite honestly they all came across as quite clueless to what is going on at least from a monetary/fiscal perspective. I am not sure what they thought of me when in our conversation I said "devaluing the currency is the only option at this point". One of them seemed to half nod acknowledging my observation made sense but the other two looked at me oddly as if to say, "that can't be right" in their minds.
And finally when I mentioned to them that I don't stack gold and silver anymore and hadn't bought any in years because I got into Bitcoin instead their collective response was kind of surprising to me because there wasn't really one. It was as if I had said something as perfectly normal as "good game last night". No "oh that's interesting" or "that sounds risky" or "what do you think of xyz coin". No surprise, strange, critical, or enthusiastic looks. I didn't really pursue discussing Bitcoin further from there as it didn't seem to elicit any positive or negative response from them. I don't know if this is good, bad or neither. I do however, feel it is an indication that Bitcoin has definitely crossed into the mainstream conscious but do the people who need it the most even care?
Thanks for reading.
Sats for all,
GR