Shire Silver prototypes shown on Ridley Report

Re: Shire Silver prototypes shown on Ridley Report

Just a suggestion, I know it would tke some time, but I think shaping the silver strands and fitting them into the "window" might be a nice touch. it might be easier to do with the gold, since it doesn't take as much.

Re: Shire Silver prototypes shown on Ridley Report

I like the innovation in creating a standard that is designed to be home brewed. The problem that I find in doing so is when people decide to state that 'this is .1 gram' and it isn't. This can, and let us face it now, will be a problem with any home brewed exchange. In the same way that people are leery to accept silver because they don't know the value of it, here too we face the "don't know the value" problem. This problem in my opinion will always be a problem and I haven't seen anyone do anything to address this problem.

Liberty Dollar(God bless them) tried their best, however most 'real money' guys didn't want to accept it for face value or at the exchange rate value of what it took to get it to the buyer's hand. This was because there is a cost involved in making currency and its hard to get someone to agree that value is what the buyer and seller say it is rather then what some market far away says it is. Everyone can look up the NY market rate for silver, but most people assume that because it is stated as X dollars per oz that every oz should be traded the same, when the rate stated is for a 4000 oz purchase of silver and without transportation costs of getting it from NY to NH.

I like the idea of using rounds, because everyone recognizes them as currency, of course I also understand that to make rounds means higher value of FRNs to create them rather then silver rounds. Personally, I also like the idea of silver bars, it stands out and stops anyone from recognizing it as currency of the realm, but again the cost of buying, minting, and transporting the silver is an issue, not to mention centralization.

I can't make it cheaper to buy, mint, and transport silver, so this is one hurdle I won't focus on.

My suggestion is that a merchant network be established, as has been done. All members agree to exchange metals at a set rate, as has sort of already been established. What I further recommend is to treat all like metals to have the same value. For example, every .999 fine 1 oz silver round be treated as the same as every other .999 fine 1 oz silver round. I think that this point addresses the centralization issue as well as the 'home brew' concept. Since silver rounds aren't unique in and of themselves, being silver, that anyone could trade for value.

A information network needs to be made, which is largely done already with the ability to pull current market value. However utilizing this as a method of dictating value doesn't allow for transportation to market which also varies with the NY market price.

What I see is that we need to create a market. How can we do this? I don't claim to have a real answer to this. I think that the best way might be to replicate the NY market, all be it on a smaller scale. How does the market work exactly? I'd like to think I know the basics. Its like every other transaction in life, seller says I am asking for this much, and buyer puts out I'm looking to buy silver for this price.  If we could create a system where individuals can put what their bid and ask price on an item of value and facilitate the transaction with a middleman(the exchange) so we can be assured the transaction actually took place that would help set the market price in our area.

Once we have a market price we can then distribute the price information to the merchants. I think using technology and marketing would help. In most states with lotteries the current value of the pot is posted outside the merchant's location, a similar type system could be rigged up the same way for our market price. For information distribution, price data, simply transmitting the market price at the end of the market day could be as easy as texting to people's cellphones, emails, and maybe even transmission over phones as a recorded message.

I think that the group ought to use a single order generation point. As individuals we are limited in the amount of silver we can buy and ship at a time. As a group with a single buying/selling point we can decrease the costs whenever possible, larger orders get better discounts and save on shipping costs, thereby lowering our market costs and reflecting on an overall lower market price, hopefully toward the NY market price. If we can get to within 10-20 percent of NY market price, on silver, I think it would be well for us.

I'm interesting in other's thoughts.

Re: Shire Silver prototypes shown on Ridley Report

Branding

I like the innovation in creating a standard that is designed to be home brewed. The problem that I find in doing so is when people decide to state that 'this is .1 gram' and it isn't. This can, and let us face it now, will be a problem with any home brewed exchange. In the same way that people are leery to accept silver because they don't know the value of it, here too we face the "don't know the value" problem. This problem in my opinion will always be a problem and I haven't seen anyone do anything to address this problem.

The original coins that had the king's head on them were one of the earliest forms of branding. The users of the coins trusted, to some extent, that the king's coins were what they said they were.

The same is true for many of the monetary systems in use today, at least originally. The dollar was a specific amount of silver, as was the pound sterling. People trusted the coins in commerce because they were government branded. Of course, all governments in the history of the world have debased their money, so the track record isn't all that good. This is one reason why we need to get money away from governments.

Shire Silver cards are also branded. People can choose to trust the brand, but even better is that people can test that the brand is true. You can burn away the plastic and paper, and have pretty much any jeweler test the metal for mass and fineness. If just a few folks do that, and find that the content is good, then the brand's trust will build.

Ease of use

I like the idea of using rounds, because everyone recognizes them as currency, of course I also understand that to make rounds means higher value of FRNs to create them rather then silver rounds. Personally, I also like the idea of silver bars, it stands out and stops anyone from recognizing it as currency of the realm, but again the cost of buying, minting, and transporting the silver is an issue, not to mention centralization.

I think if you do an honest comparison of the ease of use of paper versus coins, you'll understand why we even have paper currency. The market has pretty well spoken, and coins are undesired. Sure, an individual ounce coin feels great in your hand, but having a fistful of coins in your pocket is uncomfortable. Coins don't fit in modern wallets well.

Basically, coins are inferior to paper and plastic because they are harder to use in everyday commerce.

Merchant Network

My suggestion is that a merchant network be established, as has been done. All members agree to exchange metals at a set rate, as has sort of already been established. What I further recommend is to treat all like metals to have the same value. For example, every .999 fine 1 oz silver round be treated as the same as every other .999 fine 1 oz silver round. I think that this point addresses the centralization issue as well as the 'home brew' concept. Since silver rounds aren't unique in and of themselves, being silver, that anyone could trade for value.

Yep, we do need to get to work on growing the merchant network. I'm not sure we can get merchants to agree to exchange at the same rate, so I wasn't even going to try. Let the market figure it out. If merchants do want a uniform rate, they'll figure out a way to do it; whether its telling us to set it or by someone else making a price announcement system.

Some of the ideas you have are interesting. Maybe you should figure out a business from that. Just like with banking, I'm all for someone doing it, but it probably isn't going to be me. Besides, if the pricing data is coming from a third party, wouldn't that be seen as less corruptible?

Decentralize

I think that the group ought to use a single order generation point. As individuals we are limited in the amount of silver we can buy and ship at a time. As a group with a single buying/selling point we can decrease the costs whenever possible, larger orders get better discounts and save on shipping costs, thereby lowering our market costs and reflecting on an overall lower market price, hopefully toward the NY market price. If we can get to within 10-20 percent of NY market price, on silver, I think it would be well for us.

While getting people together for bulk purchases can help lower costs, it should be done in a decentralized fashion. One of the biggest lessons of the Liberty Dollar raid is that if you have a head, you have something that can be attacked. No central office = no easy target for thugs.

Re: Shire Silver prototypes shown on Ridley Report

 We are considering that for our premium version of the cards. However, one of the basic design goals is that anyone can produce their own version - even if it looks a little more amateurish.

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