EP35: Turning Gold into Generational Wealth with Industry Expert Dana Samuelson

So I think gold really should be looked at as a savings account more than an investment vehicle.

True.

And you should take your hard earned gains and put some of them into gold and silver both as a way to save your money instead of putting it in the bank in a savings account that's going to earn you less than inflation will take away from that dollar's purchasing power. I think that's really the way to look at it.

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Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to another episode with Think Outside the Stocks. Here we have a very esteemed guest with us today, Dana Samuelson. He's the founder and president of American Gold Exchange. But before we go ahead, I do want to mention that this is information and education purpose only, what whatever we are providing as an education on this podcast. Please be sure to do your own due diligence on it. Consult your tax professionals, your lawyers so that you can implement this strategy in your financial structure. Dana, welcome to Think Outside the Stocks.

Thank you, Nadi. It's wonderful to be here with you.

Thank you so much. So, Dana, I always like to talk about three fun facts about our guests. And you come here with tremendous experience. So you have been first fun fact is, 43 years in the industry. That's tremendous. Would love to know about your journey. And you are approaching about $2 billion in transactions. Right. You have seen so many transactions and I'm sure that the history behind it is going to be incredible too. And you have been a professional numismatist, right? Did I say it correct?

Yes.

So I would love to know more about what that means. I'm sure our listeners would love that too. And you have been, you know, in 12 years have been various board of directions, professional organization when it comes to the goal and the precious metal committee. Right. So thank you so much for that and thank you for joining with that. Let's jump into your own introduction a little bit more from your own mouth. So tell us more about what you do and you know, the word that I had time pronouncing as well. Tell us more about that as well, Dana.

Well, Nadia, I'm 43 years in the business. I got out of College in 1980 with a German degree, which was unusual. And I was completely unhirable. So I got a job working in a vault because I could be trusted. And that is was back in 1980 when the gold price was near an all time high then on the back of the last inflationary cycle. But my lucky break was working for Jim Blanchard, who was the man most responsible for the private re legalization of gold ownership in the United States in 1974. Jim drove that effort because when the US went off of the gold standard, where the gold, the dollar, excuse me, was backed by an ounce of gold and we depegged that link in 1971. Jim knew that the dollar would lose value purchasing power over time because politicians would inflate the value of or deflate the value of the dollar by printing more than they should. You can't just print gold and create new money, right? And that's what happened. So my formative years were spent working for Jim, who was a titan in the industry. And that's where I basically learned enough so that I could start my own company, American gold exchange, in 1998. That was 25 years ago. So I've had a long, long career in this business. As I like to say. I've kind of painted myself into a golden corner. It's all I really do well. But I'm pretty good at buying and selling gold and I believe in gold because primarily it is sound money. Gold has no counterparty risk. It's one of the only assets that isn't simultaneously someone else's liability. Like think outside the stocks. What are stocks? They're a promise for a company to perform, right? And if the company doesn't perform, the value of the stock will go down. With a mortgage, you know, if you have a tenant, you know, getting the rent is a counterparty risk. If you buy a Treasury, you're assuming you're going to get a yield in your money back over time. That's counterparty risk, even though things are supposed to be safe investments. So. But gold has no counterparty risk.

I'm also a vintage gold coin expert from the time when gold was money back in the United States from 1795 to 1933, the US Mint made gold coins as money. And those coins survive today. And I'm an expert in appraising and valuing those coins. That's what a numismatist is, is someone who is a studies coins.

So that's basically my kind of resume. I've done over $2 billion in transactions in my career with a flawless perfect record. We've never not paid someone who sold us merchandise and we've always delivered merchandise that we've sold. And we have an impeccable national reputation. And really in the great scheme of things, your reputation is all you have. So I've done everything I can to make sure that mine is perfect. As perfect as it can be, let's.

Put it that way, as shiny as gold. Dana.

Well, I hope so. I hope so.

Yeah. Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that about you. So just going back to gold, right? I mean there's just so many bits and pieces that what you have said, I have so many questions around. But going back to the gold, the history when it was 35 ounce, right? So the gold price was really low. So let's talk about little if you can give us a highlight that what happened and what just skyrocketed gold's price price from, you know, that early on from $35 per ounce. And how did we get here when it comes to gold?

Well, I'm going to take you one step back farther. So gold was valued relative to silver at 20 parts. Silver equaled 1 part gold back to ancient times because that's how prevalent gold and silver were relative to each other in the ground easily found. And there are golden silver coins that go back to ancient times. So in more modern times, since the 1700s, gold has been valued around $20 an ounce, with silver valued at $1 an ounce. And that's how most of the monetary systems for the world worked until the late 1920s when we had the financial crisis, the Wall street crash in 1929 and the ensuing financial depression in the United States. Well, Theodore Roosevelt took the US off of the gold standard when he made gold illegal to own in 1933. And the US confiscated gold, made gold illegal to own, and two years later, the gold price was revalued at $35 per ounce. Silver was still a dollar an ounce. So that's when it got to $35 per per ounce of gold. Following World War II, the US was the country that had the most gold in the world, right? We were basically physically unscathed by the war. Our manufacturing capacity Although it shifted during the war, was intact.

Germany and Japan were in ruin.

So the powers that be came together in a little town in New Hampshire called Bretton Woods. And it was agreed that the US.

Dollar would become the world's reserve currency as a paper currency backed by gold.

At $35 per ounce, or $1 equaled 1 35th of an ounce of gold. Well, that lasted pretty well until the mid to late 60s when the US.

Went on a deficit spending binge due to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program. Medicare and Medicaid were enacted.

We were in the Vietnam War. We were also doing the space program.

To the moon, which was expensive.

So the gold price crept up to 38 to 1 and then $41 an ounce. When Nixon was break the dollar peg to gold.

And that's when the gold price really took off. In the mid-70s, gold went from 40 to $200 an ounce, came back to 100, and then ran up to $850 an ounce during the last real severe bout of inflation we had in the, in the late 70s, early 80s. For most of my career, from 1982.

81, 8283 to 2003, 2004, gold traded.

Between 3 and $500 an ounce.

And then following the 911 attack on the U.S. u.S.

Going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then the great financial crisis, you.

Know, gold has taken off again, you.

Know, up to $1,900 an ounce. When the economies of the world got.

Some traction and we got back into.

Like a normal business environment, gold fell to about $1200 an ounce, 1100 dollars an ounce. And then Covid hit and gold exploded again. But what also happened, and this is very important for your listeners to understand, between 1795 and 1995, the US accumulated $5 trillion in debt. 200 years to get to $5 trillion in debt, right? And from 1995-20, 23, 28 years, we've multiplied that by sixfold.

Wow.

And as our debt has exploded over six to seven times in value, the gold prices pretty much track that in dollars and almost every other currency in the world. Because gold was $300 an ounce, $400 an ounce. Now it's a little over $2,000 an ounce, 2040 today. So it's tracked our debt higher. It's really not that gold is so much more valuable. It's that the dollar is so much, much less valuable. And this is the same with all fiat currencies that have no backing. And our debt has just exploded worldwide. So Gold is really an inverse comparison to what paper currencies can buy. And in the environment that we're in lately, with inflation rearing its ugly head again, we all feel how the dollar loses. Our own currencies, lose purchasing power. For 10 years when inflation was 1 or 2%, we didn't really feel it. But when inflation jumps to 6, 7, 8, 9, suddenly everything costs a lot more and prices aren't going back down. We've all gotten that pay cut. But if you had gold, you would have helped to preserve your purchasing power. Real estate is a good inflation hedge too.

Right.

Because like land and gold, they're not making much new of it. Many new ounces or many new acres.

You know, every year they're not printing it at least. Right, right, right.

And the printing presses, they can obviously just turn on at will. Our debt went up $6 trillion, and two years after Covid, it exploded.

Yeah, no, I think it totally makes sense. Right. The weaker, the taller is the gold gets that much stronger. Right. And going back to, you know, how you explained it, that whenever there is economic uncertainties or there's uncertainties in general, in political environment or any of the environment, whether it's wars or, you know, 9, 11, or certainly some other stuff going on, the gold is becoming more and more stronger because people know that that is one asset that is not going to go away, that's not going to melt away. It's going to be there. Right. The goal is always there, and the goal is limited supply. So that's a very great point. You mentioned something about the goal being confiscated. Right. So let's talk about that. Do you think there's a possibility that can happen again? And what are the circumstances that actually that did happen and that could actually get implemented?

Well, back in the early 30s, people had a choice between a $20 gold coin and a $20 paper bill, and they didn't really trust the paper currency. But in order to print more money, Roosevelt had to do something drastic, which was to confiscate the gold. Now, gold was everywhere as currency and money, they're two different things. Money is something that has value. A barrel of oil could be considered money, but it's not easy to trade with. Whereas currency is a medium of exchange. So when President Roosevelt confiscated the gold in states, it was a drastic measure that he did to enable the U.S. to print more money. The rest of the world had gold coin as a history as well, you know, going back to ancient times. But World War II eliminated gold as currency in the world, especially After Bretton Woods. So while the US Made gold illegal to own, that wasn't the case anywhere else in the world. It was only in the US In Europe and in Asia, you could own gold, no problem.

Yeah.

So will gold be confiscated again? Probably not, because it was never confiscated around the world except for the United States. And the only reason it was is because it was money at the time and it's not money now. Now we don't have a gold tradition in the US like most other countries have.

We do have it. I come from India and, you know, we just had the Festival of Lights, which is Diwali. We buy gold during Diwali.

So, yes, India has a very big gold culture, I'm very well aware. And it's usually if your currency has failed, people understand why gold is good. When my brother got me into this business in 1980, he got into the business in 1975. His first job was working at a Vietnamese refugee relocation camp in the United States where Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam literally had gold bars sewn into their clothes. That's how they carried their wealth out of the country. And that's another example of, you know, the portability and transferability of physical gold. So I don't think confiscation is going to be another. It's going to be a problem because it's not money anymore.

Right.

And it's a different monetary system today than it was back then when gold was confiscated. So I don't think that's an issue.

Yeah, and there's like a lot of checks and balances. Right. Even with, you know, the whole recession and inflation, we can see there's just so much activities going on. Right. So there's a lot of checks and balances. So thank you for sharing that. So with that, let's talk a little briefly about gold story itself. We talked about your story that, you know, let's talk about from mines to. To my home. Right. How does the gold travel? How does it go through, you know, being in the coin and precious, like the anti coins that you're talking about. Share some of that insight with us.

Well, gold does come from the ground. It's from ore deposits and silver too. You know, that's where, you know, all our natural resources come from the ground, obviously. So it has to be mined.

Right.

And gold mining is a big dirty business. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of dirt to get it out of the ground. You've got to find the deposits and then you've got to get it out and then you have to refine it, which is remove the impurities. So it's estimated that it takes about a ton or 2,000 pounds of dirt to get one ounce of gold out of the ground.

Wow. That's incredible.

Yeah. So every, you know, gold mine has those big gigantic yellow caterpillar trucks driving around and a lot of energy. So it's, it's expensive and it's not necessarily ecologically friendly, but that's how it starts. It comes out of the ground in raw form, it gets refined, which means the impurities are taken out and it's made into either pure gold coins or most gold coins that were made to be used as money for currency are not quite pure because pure gold is very soft.

Right.

And if you were to issue a coin that was pure gold, it would wear out very fast. You know, a paper bill lasts about a year, year and a half in, in use as general currency, where a coin, a quarter, a nickel, a dime, whatever it is, lasts about 20 years.

Yeah.

Well, if they add a little other to a gold coin, usually copper, nickel, or a little silver, and make it 90% pure, that adds a lot of hardness to the coin. So most vintage coins are not quite pure for that reason. They.

I see.

They add a little alloy to harden. And that's the same thing with jewelry. No jewelry. 18 karat is 3/4 pure.

Right.

14 karat is less pure. So if it was pure, like my wedding ring is pure gold, I have to be careful with it because I can damage it really easy if I'm not careful with it. But I wanted a pure gold wedding.

Ring, so that's what happens. It's refined.

And then when it's made into coins.

Either for currency back in the day or modern bullion pieces, whether it's a.

1 ounce bar or a 1 ounce.

Coin made by the US Mint or the Canadian mint or the Austrian min, It has to be made to very exacting specifications.

Right.

The disc that the, or the blank.

That the bar or the coin is.

Made from has to be perfectly up to specifications for purity. It has to have the right exact weight so people can trust it.

Right?

Right. And others don't have to, you know, be a rocket scientist to know that it's what it's supposed to be. Right. And says right on it what it is. And the manufacturer doesn't want to lose trust in their product. Right. So they have to make sure that the specifications are pure. So back in the day we had the mints make coins currency. A lot of them still survive today. Now in modern Times we have mints around the world making various bullion coins that traded just a little bit over their intrinsic metal value as physical gold pieces that we can buy as either investment or for savings. If you want to have some savings outside of the banking system or outside of the currency, that's really what gold is good for.

Right.

Is getting some of your hard earned wealth out of the dollar, which is continually being devalued or out of the banking system.

If you're a little bit worried that.

Your bank might fail, like we had some bank failures earlier this year.

Right, right, right. And I think one of the advantages. And then maybe you can throw some light on that. Is gold actually getting counted towards your estate tax exemptions or is it, it stays outside of it. How does it work?

Well, when you buy gold, there's no tax. There might be sales tax. Some of our states here in the US have sales tax, some others don't. Some have tax at a threshold level above or below a dollar amount. Where if you're below a certain dollar amount, you might have to pay tax above may not. So they're all different. So you just have to know what state we're delivering to. That's what matters to us as a dealer. Gold is taxed on a capital gains basis. If you earn a profit, okay. You're taxed on as a capital gains rate. So that's where the tax comes in.

I see.

And when you, it's only when you sell, you can hold it forever and there's no tax until you actually sell it.

So you have to hold on to the receipt to kind of have that tax implication calculated. Is that how typically it's done? Because you could own a lot of gold and some, it's hard to track which coin was purchased and which one are you selling?

Well, it just depends on what your accounting system is. You know, some people do first in, first out. You know, some of our clients are gold bugs. They remember when old times before the debt exploded. So some of our customers, they actually will their gold to their heirs. Right. So what happens is depending upon the size of their estate, the gold may never be taxed by the original buyer. The gold value gets reset at the basis owner's point of death. Yeah, right. So that gain, if there's a gain, is not taxed if the estate's not taxed. Right. Plus it's something outside of the system. So you know, who knows if I give somebody gold, whether they have to report it or not. Right. That's up to individuals to report their Own. And I'm not saying people should do things that are not legal.

Yeah.

I'm just saying.

But it's an interesting point. Right. You know, it's, you know, how the reporting works. So going back to, you know, the, the gold. Right. And more of a precious metals perspective. Right. I'm sure that, you know, there are other metals which are worthy of consideration. Right. So why does that golden child treatment and what, what are the other metals which could actually stand that level?

Well, gold inherited its status as the, the most alluring of the precious metals back in ancient times for a couple different reasons. Number one, it was hard to find. Number two, it was impervious to the elements.

Right.

So it's really.

It doesn't rust. Number three, it's malleable. So you can make it into coins or jewelry easily. I mean, King Tut's death mask had 22 pounds of gold in it. Pure gold.

Right.

Also, it has a great yellow color.

Yeah.

Just true. So that's what got gold to be accepted as a medium of exchange that was trusted back in the day. Now, silver was second for the same reasons. Although it's not quite as alluring as gold is in color, it is more susceptible to the elements. So here's an example I can give you. There have been shipwrecks that have been found that have had gold and silver coins in them.

Right.

The gold coins come up out of the ocean pretty much intact the way they went down. But the silver coins tend to be eroded a little bit by salt water, where gold doesn't really. Yeah, it's true. So silver is a little bit more reactive. The other two precious metals are platinum and palladium, but they're more industrial metals rather than traditional precious metals. Right. Platinum and palladium are used primarily today in automobile catalytic converters to help reduce pollution. And palladium is used in hydrogen fuel cells as well.

Right.

So uranium is a precious metal technically, but you really can't handle it because it'll kill you.

So talking about that. Right. You know, let's talk about some ethical or environmental, say, about, you know, mining these metals. You know, what are these considerations, first of all, and which stands that gold standard of actually being ethical and environmental?

Well, it just. It depends on the country where gold is being mined and what the regulations of that country are. It's hard to have gold mines in the United States because the environmental regulations are quite strict. Where other countries, like in Africa or South Africa or Russia, where a lot of gold comes from, you know, the restrictions are A little bit lower. And there's also geopolitical risk. Now I'm happy to be friends with Robert Kiyosaki.

Yep.

Who wrote the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Well, he's like my old boss, Jim Blanchard. He's a proponent of gold ownership. That's what his rich dad told him when we went off of the gold standard in 1971. He bought his first gold piece in 1972. Robert actually had a gold mine in China. And then when he discovered gold and proved that it was a reliable mine, the Chinese took it from him. So he. Yeah, he's not very happy about that. So there is. But the point is there's geopolitical risk, too, depending upon where the mines are. Now, I'm not a mining expert. I have a couple of friends who are. Because I've been in the business so long, I know a lot of people. I'm a physical precious metals and vintage coin expert. That's really my expertise. That's where my career is.

Right. And then compared to other kind of, you know, investment options, like, for example, cryptocurrencies. Right. How do you compare the cryptocurrencies with something like a precious metal? Right. We're kind of getting more advanced. There's a lot of changes that are happening even in the investment habits. Right. So how do you compare those two?

Well, gold has a history going back 2,500 years, 3,000 years. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies by comparison, go back about 30 seconds. Right. But cryptocurrencies are something that's here to stay. I think there's a place for both. What cryptocurrencies allow, I think, are the most advantageous attribute are the ability to move money over borders easily, which you don't have with paper currency and you don't have with precious metals because of current border controls.

Right.

So that I think cryptocurrency's biggest advantage is banking system that's independent of central banks and it's outside of the system. But it also allows you to move money over borders easily. I think those are the best attributes, and there's a place for both of them in people's individual portfolios. But I do think we're going to see some competition for the private cryptocurrencies from central banks. And we know central banks, digital currencies are coming, and they don't like to lose that authority that they have. So there might be some problems for cryptocurrencies governmentally as time passes.

Right. And any regulation impact, any you Know, government changes or rules and regulation changes that might actually impact the precious metal world that you see.

Right. So when bitcoin was on a run from $10,000 to $65,000, we couldn't get anybody under 40 to be interested in an ounce of gold. It was really hard because young people have grown up with their phones. They can trade it, look at the prices, they can trade it. But when the price collapsed, suddenly these people realized, oh, there is some risk there.

Right.

And now we're seeing some of the younger crowd come to gold and silver because cryptocurrencies taught them that they should have some money out of the system. But gold and silver are much more stable.

Yeah.

In price.

I always talk about that even with the think outside the stocks, but I'm not against stocks. Right. If you get some gains, just secure your gains, put it into something that's secure. Right. Cryptocurrency or stock market is just that habit of securing some portion of it and still playing in the market, still managing that risk. Right. That diversification is really, really important. And that's why gold, or precious metal in general is a great, great component of your diversification. So with that, you know, just the last question on the gold topic that where do you see the future going? And you know, kind of an integrated question that how do you advise investors to invest in a gold so that there is the least amount of expenses or overhead per se.

Right. Well, I do think that the financial record of our politicians who control our monetary system is quite obvious. They have no discipline. They're more interested in getting reelected and doing what it takes to get reelected than they are running our business of the government correctly or conservatively. And in the United States, it's both parties have been guilty of spending more money than we take in and that just makes the dollar worth less and less. It's not that the gold price is gaining so much as the dollar is losing so much, and other currencies are as well. So having, you know, 10% of your assets in precious metals is an excellent diversification where you have enough so you have a hedge against inflation or crisis without losing opportunity in other places. And I agree with you, you should have a diversified portfolio. It makes sense, but it also makes sense to harvest some profits. So I think gold really should be looked at as a savings account more than an investment vehicle.

True.

And you should take your hard earned gains and put some of them into gold and silver both as a way to save your money instead of putting it in the bank in a savings account that's going to earn you less than inflation will take away from that dollar's purchasing power. I think that's really the way to look at it.

I love that. I love that because I'm a big proponent of infinite banking system and we were talking about it a little while ago and that's exactly what I help them understand that there are two systems. There's a savings, which is your sleep well money kind of emergency chunk sitting there that no matter what it's gonna stay there, it's not gonna go away. And then there is this investing side where you can take a little bit or more risk based on how risk managed you want to stay. So it's kind of nice to see gold also adding to that, that risk free foundation of your kind of financial wealth. Right. So thank you so much for sharing that. And with that, let me ask you, how can American Gold Exchange help listeners if they are interested and what is the process that they can go through when they reach out to you? What is the process that they can expect in order to purchase that and how does it work?

Well, we are a national mail order physical precious metals and vintage coin business. We deal primarily in the most competitively priced and widely traded modern bullion items and vintage US Gold coins. What this gives people who own this merchandise, liquidity.

Right.

So if something, if you need to raise money, gold is one of the most liquid things there is. So if you have a problem with your business or whatever it is and you need to raise some cash, you can do it very quickly. With gold, we focus on the products that are made by the major mints, the U.S. mint, the Canadian Mint, the Austrian Mint and a couple refineries out of Switzerland in 1 oz bars, 10 ounce bars and kilogram bars. That's typically the most cost effective way to buy gold. The 1 ounce coins that the mints make have a slightly higher premium, but they also have a slightly higher bid when you sell them. But the physical transaction on physical gold does have a bit of friction. It's a couple percentage points between the buy price and the sell price. So they're not trading vehicles. That's why I say you should use them as savings vehicles. But we in the US we focus mostly on US Gold Eagles, Canadian Gold Maple Leafs and Austrian Gold Philharmonics. These are the three most popular products. It's like, what do you want, vanilla, chocolate or strawberry? That's what really they are.

That's a nice way to put it. And what is your favorite flavor then? Dana?

I like the US product when the premiums are right. You know, we've had the US Mint has not been able to keep up with demand a few times over the last 20 years and the premiums have gotten too high where when that happens, we just go to a lower premium item that's more competitively priced. It gives our clients a better value and or us a better value if we're buying.

Yeah, totally makes sense because you know, even when I'm going and purchasing a coin, I want to look at something that's most reliable and even if it's a little bit expensive, I prefer to, you know, to buy something that's us based. Right. So thank you for sharing that. So with that we're going to go to our next segment. And in this segment, which is my favorite segment, where I ask the experts, the guest about, you know, how do they do this diversification that we are big proponents of. Right. So let me ask you, Dana, how do you think outside the stocks?

Well, I like real estate for the same reason I like precious metals. They're not making any more land. I like income producing real estate. So I have some rental properties. I'm actually trying to enlarge my portfolio there. I like to take the profits that I earn from those properties and put them into precious metals. I'm also in the precious metals business, so my viewpoint is a little bit different than most people. So I'm more highly correlated to gold and silver than most people would be. I do dabble in stocks a little bit in my IRA account, but I'm not a very good stock picker. What I like to do is focus on the stocks the same way Warren Buffett would buy great companies.

And just stay in.

Yeah, and just stay in. Or trade a little bit if you need to and invest for the longer term. That's the way I look at it. With good companies and good businesses in the right markets.

I love that. And then in terms of kind of, of guarding your assets. Right. And we think outside the stocks, we talk about the perspective which is a little bit different than just, you know, passive income or you know, generating growth or wealth for your money, but to kind of look at growing, preserving, protecting and passing your generational wealth. Right. So whether it comes to tax strategies, whether it comes to estate planning, kind of creating that trust, throw us some light on what are the strategies that you have implemented in your of personal financial structure.

Well, as I said, I've told you where I'm primarily invested. So I'm just trying to build a wealth that I can Pass on to my family, my wife and my kids. I'm an older man, but I've got a couple younger kids and, you know, I've got to set them up for their future as best I can. And that's really why I like income producing real estate.

Right.

And own it for the long term. I think that's really one of the safest investments you can have to generate wealth and generate income as well.

Totally makes sense. And you know, we think outside the stocks. We also have kind of a commercial real estate focused fund where we bring weighted investments into our fund. And again, that income producing and something that you can actually touch and feel. And gold and real estate has that commonality. It's not paper money, it's not paper stock, but actually has a value. You can hold it in your hand, you can touch it. Right. And that's something to pass on to your heirs. I think that's the most important aspect of it. So thank you for sharing that. So with that, you know, before we go to our last round, which is going to be kind of a rapid fire fun round, tell our listeners that if they want to reach out to you, how can they get in touch with you?

Our website is www.amergold.com amerigold. We have live, transparent pricing, very competitive pricing. We focus, as I said, on the mainstream, competitively traded, widely traded items, things that are easy to sell if you want to sell them, either to us or someone else in a pinch or whenever you do want to sell. So our website is really the best place to look us up. Our general email box is info infomericold.com so if you want to reach out to us, that's the best way to start a conversation is send an email to infomergold.com Perfect.

Thank you so much, Dana. And with that, I'm gonna jump into the last round, which is the rapid fire round. You know, some fun questions and 30, 60 seconds or whatever, however long you want, you know, but quick answers. Right? So are you ready for that?

I'm ready.

All right. I'm gonna ask some interesting questions. All right, so my first question is going to be that you mentioned about the collective coins that you have. So tell us about the most interesting coin that you have come across. Either it's your collection or you have sold it to somebody. But that felt like, oh my God, this is the one.

Well, in 1982, when I was working in a vault, because I could be trusted, my boss bought at the big summer coin show auction an 1804 silver dollar made by the US Mint. There are only 14 of these he's known. It is one of the most classic rare US coins. He paid $250,000 for that coin in 1982. It sold in 2016 for almost $3 million.

Oh, my gosh.

And I got to hold that coin in my hand back in the day. Now, there's others. I can tell you about four or five other coins, but I don't want to bore your.

No, go ahead. Pick another one. Just go ahead.

Well, another great coin is a 1933 $20 Saint Gaudens. It's the last $20 gold piece the.

US Mint ever made.

Really?

Right. But they were never released by the Mint into the general circulation.

I see.

But some of them got out of the mint. There was a jeweler in Philadelphia who went down to the Philadelphia Mint and got the guy out the teller window to swap out 20 of them for backdated, earlier made coins. When the US Mint melted all the 1933 $20 gold coins, they had the right amount of ounces. But in 1934, 35, 36, 37, these things started to pop out at. At auction and in private sales.

Right.

Well, King Farooq of Egypt bought one for his. His coin collection was a big coin collector.

Right.

But he wanted to have it authenticated, so he sent it to the U. S. Mint who authenticated it, wrote a letter saying, yeah, this is real. And they put it in the diplomatic pouch and sent it to Egypt.

Well, a young secret service agent decided he wanted to make his name for himself. Like J. Edgar Hoover was with the FBI. So he started to go around and confiscate these 1933, 20 gold pieces when they came up at auction. So the ones who were out went into the black market.

Oh.

King Faruk of Egypt died. And a dealer in London bought that coin from his estate, and he went to sell it to a dealer in the US privately at a coin show in 1999. And the US government caught wind of this, and they confiscated the coin.

Wow.

But the dealer said, hey, back in 1935, you said this coin was legal. Are you sending the diplomatic pouch to Egypt? So there was a negotiation, and the coin was sold at auction in 2008 for $7 million.

Wow.

The US government got half of the money. The dealer in London who owned the coin got the other half. We don't know who the buyer was until the coin resold two years ago for almost $19 million.

From 7 to 19.

Yeah. In the last 15 years.

Talk about the return of investment. Wow.

So the guy that bought it in 2008 turned out to be Stuart Weitzman, who has been famous for making ladies shoes.

Huh.

And he made a lot of money making those shoes. I know my girlfriend back at the time had one of those shoes, and my dog ate it, and I had to replace the shoes. And I said, well, how much are they? $400. I said, what? That's. That's my personal relationship with Stuart Weitzman.

Right, right. Oh, my God.

That's the most famous, one of the most famous US Gold coins as well.

Thank you for sharing that. That's the, like, a lot of history lesson that we learned about, you know, about gold coin. I actually didn't personally think that, you know, it. It's almost like an art, right? That it just, you know, its value is just exponential after a few years. So thank you for sharing. That's incredible. The next question I'm going to ask you is, you know, you mentioned about Robert Kiyosaki some time back. What's the most interesting conversation that you have had with Robert?

Well, I've had a lot of them, but basically, Robert does not trust the US Government to get the financial system right. And as our debt has continued, he has been proven right. And he believes in sound money. He's been on a gold standard like Jim Blanchard was on a gold standard.

Right.

He's a very, very smart man and he's very, very active. Even as he gets into his 70s, he says to me, dana, we're on the same team.

Totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. He has been big proponent of precious metal because, you know, he just doesn't trust the system. Right. He just doesn't trust the way we are printing money. And, you know, a very interesting perspective on the economy. He always has. So thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And you know, the last question I'm going to ask, on a personal note, right? When you're not, you know, in the business, what is the most interesting thing that you have ever done? Whether it's travel, whether it's this country that you have done that that's like, okay, this is the most interesting thing that I have ever done.

Well, I'm a big music lover, so I've traveled all over the world, you know, Europe and the US to go to a lot of concerts. I'm. I'm a vintage rock fan from back in the 70s here in the U.S. interesting. Yeah, I love Van Morrison. I've seen Van Morrison 20 or 30 times, various different places. I love Bob Dylan. You know, he's A class. He's 82 years old and he's still going strong. So music is one of my passions and I actually married a singer songwriter.

You did?

Yeah.

Did you play ever?

I'm a backyard guitar player. I'm not very good, but I have fun.

That's awesome. I would never think about that. So that's great to know about you. So with that, you know, this conversation, it was very interesting and golden. Thank you so much for sharing so many golden nuggets with our audience. I'm just coming up with puns, you know, right and left. It's your presence, it's your golden presence that's impacting Dana. So thank you so much again for being on, I think outside the stocks. You know, I hope, you know, listeners, if you want to get in touch with Dana, you have that information and look at that diversification. So that one thing, if you have that one takeaway that diversification is the key. Something that you can touch and feel and you can rely on for generations to come is something that you should think about it. So as you know, we also have our passive Power hour. Every other Tuesday we meet at 06:00, clock CST where we will dwell more on this diversified opportunities. So hope to see you there and thank you so much for listening again. Dana, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Absolutely.

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