[00:00:00] Voiceover: Welcome to private banking strategies podcast with Vance Lowe and Seth Hicks your secret weapon to protect your assets and never have to start over financially again. Vance and Seth help, high net worth individuals, families, business owners, and investors structure, an asset protected tax-free fortress for their families.
[00:00:21] Learn how to keep what you earn and use the velocity of money to create your own private banking system. Join us on this journey, as we explore the secret strategies of the rich and political elite and helping take total control of your financial security now onto the show
[00:00:46] Aric Johnson: Hello, and welcome to private banking strategies with Vance Lowe and Seth Hicks. Today, this is a part two podcast, and I normally would not say this because you’ll get so much information out of each and every podcast. However, this is part two please, please, please go back and listen to part one.[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] The guest today and on the last podcast is Andy Schectman and he’s from Miles Franklin. And he’s back on the show, but the last podcast. Is so important to listen to as the foundation for everything the gentlemen are going to be talking about today. So please go back and listen to that and then rejoin us because you’re just going to find so much value.
[00:01:17] It’s stunning. It really is an amazing podcast. So Seth advance, I’m so glad you brought Andy back.
[00:01:23] Seth Hicks: Thanks Aric. Glad to be here.
[00:01:26] Vance Lowe: Glad to be on.
[00:01:27] Aric Johnson: Somebody recap for me, what you guys spoke about on the first podcast, just a brief introduction to why Andy’s here again.
[00:01:35] Seth Hicks: Andy Shackman is a phenomenal provider of value in the metals industry and at Miles Franklin, they help folks take positions in metals and they help people sell metals. And Andy laid foundation for us discussing where our current fed reserve policy is the inflationary effect and the printing of money, the potential devaluation of the U S dollar [00:02:00] timeframes for those things why we need precious metals and just a plethora of other foundational issues that we’re going to springboard off of and into our, this current podcast.
[00:02:12] Andy, we’re really thankful for you. Glad to have you back on our show. And really looking forward to this podcast.
[00:02:19] Andy Schectman: Awesome. Great to be here again, guys. Same goes for you, Aric. Thanks for the kind words.
[00:02:24] Seth Hicks: So one of the things that our clients are particularly focused on is financial privacy and the, and in the purchase of whether it’s real estate or they’re protecting their assets.
[00:02:38] One of the seven pillars is financial privacy. So many of our clients have purchasing entities that they use and they have. Private banks that they use to finance acquisitions or investments. Can you walk us through a little bit about your process of re helping clients purchase [00:03:00] metals and entities or trust and what type of records that you guys keep?
[00:03:06] What type of paperwork’s required? Is there KYC any obligation to provide information to third parties? A compound series of questions, but I know once I’ve got you wound up that you can just take it from there. So I’ll just let you take it from there, with all those various questions.
[00:03:23] Andy Schectman: Precious metals. I mean, in a world of decreasing privacy, I would argue that precious metals offers a unique set of. Privacy and anonymity, liquidity, things that are fleeting and very hard to find when you buy precious metals with the exception of cryptocurrency. Now, the ironic thing about buying cryptocurrency is the appearance of anonymity.
[00:03:51] In many respects, you have that until you leave the ecosystem and come my way where there is KYC not [00:04:00] done by me, but a BitPay link that we send you. So anything over $3,000 would be KYC. If the client paid with cryptocurrency, not by me, we’re not going to do the KYC BitPay, will. Keep that in mind.
[00:04:18] But other than that, buying precious metals is really the last island of privacy and safety. I think in that there is very little KYC. There is very little AML. Requirements in this industry. It doesn’t mean we don’t do things loosey goosey, but we’re not going to ask you for your social security number.
[00:04:40] We do no external filing whatsoever. Anything that we ask you is for our internal records alone. And we have ways of checking ourself. If we feel that something isn’t on the up and up, but it never ever involves any third-party reporting I think the bottom line is that even if you’re [00:05:00] paying with a trust if you’re paying through an LLC there is no reporting.
[00:05:05] The only time. That reporting would come into play with a trust or an LLC is if metal is stored in one of our offshore depositories. And we have three in Canada. And if you store in the. Confines of a trust or an LLC or corporation, then you would have to file FATCA and F bar a FACTA goes to the IRS and F part of the treasury, I believe.
[00:05:29] And here again, this is done by you. Not by us. By and large, there are very few circumstances where we actually do any reporting whatsoever. And in most cases would be a tremendously private situation from start to finish. If you paid with cash. Over $10,000, like hundred dollar bills. Whether you take your family to Nordstrom and buy everyone a wardrobe and you pay 11,000 in cash, go to a [00:06:00] Ford dealership and try to buy a new F150 with cash and the.
[00:06:04] Minute you get above 10,000. This would happen or you buy precious metals and form 8,300 would be filled out any retail transaction in the United States. When you pay with over 10 grand, it doesn’t, it’s not just centered on precious metals. It’s anything that you pay with over 10 grand in cash.
[00:06:22] You are supposed to be given a form 8,300, which is where’d you get all this cash basically short of that. There is no reporting ever when you buy. When you sell, there are a few items that trigger a 10 99 on sell back in certain quantities, but very few of them. And, as an example, if you sold more than a thousand ounces of silver in bar form or generic rounds, you would need to furnish a social and that’s just in one transaction.
[00:06:51] So if you sold. 900 ounces today and 900 ounces in three days and 900 ounces a day after that. And 900, [00:07:00] technically, those are separate transactions. They’re not reportable. But just about everything else in the silver world, with the exception of some junk silver reporting requirements, nothing else triggers reporting ever when you buy or when you sell by the dealer.
[00:07:15] So anytime you sell any investment, you’re supposed to report it. But by and large our reporting requirements are a very minimal part of our business and easily legally avoided. If you understand what the laws are and a difference between avoiding and evading. So it is in your legal right to avoid paying taxes or disclosing.
[00:07:41] You can’t evade them and we will tell you what the laws are and what your responsibilities are. In most cases, it will be the honor system and not a responsibility of my company.
[00:07:52] Seth Hicks: Understood. And I think, many of our clients are well-studied they’re knowledgeable. And like you said, structuring their [00:08:00] tax obligations to the most beneficial way possible. I have some clients that have that take it even a step further and sovereign citizenship. Arguments where, the IRS is effectively an unconstitutional regime and they don’t sign tax returns and they don’t consider themselves as having to pay taxes.
[00:08:20] So there’s a whole continuum of people that are willing to take their risk or are risk averse and that’s within their own tolerance, but a common way that we structure things for folks as we’ll form trust for people to exercise their private banking through and in and also trust or other entities to make investment or acquisitions.
[00:08:43] And so a typical transaction, Andy from our clientele would be someone purchasing metals in a trust, and then perhaps liquidating them down the road in that same trust. And so that, that would be, something you feel is right down the [00:09:00] middle of what you’re offering, correct?
[00:09:01] Andy Schectman: Oh yeah. 100%.
[00:09:03] It would go like this, you call up, we discuss what it is you want to buy. We discuss price and delivery and where are you going to store it? And, or you can take possession of it. Once we come to a conclusion, we’d literally lock it in, send you an invoice. You send a wire, we ship it to you. Transactions over and I don’t mean to make it sound simplistic, but it is.
[00:09:26] And it’s in a world where in insurance, in finance in just about anything that you do nowadays with a brokerage or a bank or anyone, you have a lot of paperwork to fill out in the world of precious metals, you don’t and. This is one of the reasons why if you do things the right way in this industry, as a company, you can afford your clients a great deal of privacy.
[00:09:53] We don’t cut corners, we don’t accept cash. We don’t do things that could potentially have the [00:10:00] spotlight shown upon us. We are US mint representatives. We will show your client. And your listeners how to go all the way to the edge of legality. Look over it, but never step over it. And that’s the most important thing we will tell you what you can do to legally maximize your privacy in this industry.
[00:10:19] That’s really it. It’s really that simple. And one of the big allure is really to owning precious metals. So let’s take that out. Even a step further your client purchases, it takes possession of it, and then it’s gone. There’s no reporting done on that ever again.
[00:10:35] And so in a in a capacity of real privacy, even privacy from people within, in your own family, if that’s what you want the privacy is really unrivaled and it has also immediately and non subjectively liquid world over whether you speak the same language as the people in the country that you were in or you [00:11:00] are in any corner of the world and ounce of gold is an ounce of gold.
[00:11:04] And it provides you liquidity. It provides you privacy in ways that are very hard to rival. It’s right up your alley in terms of what your clients are looking for. I think this is one of the big benefits, really the accentuating factor actually of owning precious metals.
[00:11:22] I’ve been buying it every two weeks, as I told you in our last podcast for over 30 years. I don’t even know how much I have and where it is all stored or stashed. And so if I don’t, no one else does. And that’s really, I think when you talk about privacy, about as private as it’s going to get in finances these days.
[00:11:46] Seth Hicks: Most of our clients are going to take possession of the metals. Andy, I think that there may be some that if they were buying silver in multi-million dollar quantities, that [00:12:00] obviously becomes a size issue because if my calculations are right, I mean, if you take a, what about a million bucks worth of silver, you’re looking at 40 to 50,000 ounces and it’s probably going to take up a.
[00:12:13] Three by three by seven feet is pretty, pretty big space.
[00:12:16] Andy Schectman: Well, more importantly than that, if you call it 40,000 ounces, you are talking about a minimum of 2,500 pounds or more. The interesting thing about that, Seth is that same amount of gold you could put into a backpack or a briefcase and sprint at full speed down the driveway to your car.
[00:12:35] Same thing with silver. You’d have to have about 12 of your buddies, each one, carrying a wheelbarrow. And that’s the one issue between gold and silver is the logistics of it. And this is why storage is something that, that we have become pretty good at, but we don’t store things ourselves. We have worldwide exclusive arrangements with Brinks.
[00:12:57] We’re very proud of our relationship with Brinks and [00:13:00] the exclusive arrangements that they have provided us. And we have a depository relationships with them throughout all throughout north America California, salt lake city, Utah Miami, Florida, the only ones in north America that do have a relationship with them in Miami, Florida.
[00:13:16] We also have New York. Uh, Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. And if you need to store it, we can provide storage solutions for you. But you’re right. I think as things progress, counterparty risk, it should also be thrown into the equation. Privacy is one thing, but so as counterparty risk, this is one of the big things they talk about with cryptocurrencies, having your own keys in your possession, remove counterparty risk.
[00:13:43] You can do the same thing by holding metals in your own possession. I think you have a better chance of being ripped off by the system than you do by a burglar. And if you are creative, you can start even that kind of amount of silver pretty easily without [00:14:00] really people even knowing what they’re looking at when the stuff is packaged and sent.
[00:14:06] No matter how it’s packaged at the mint in a hard plastic box or whatever, it’s packaged the nondescript cardboard box. When we send it, when we send it to the clients, we only insure it for maybe 1% of its value through the carrier. So if it’s a hundred thousand dollars box of gold, we will ship ensure it at most for a thousand bucks.
[00:14:28] And then we put 99,000 in insurance. Through a Lloyd’s of London rider, they have a program that meshes with the UPS tracking software. So the driver doesn’t come to your house and say to your wife, gee lady, what do you got in here? A hundred grand worth of gold. And so we take great lengths, not only at packaging, the boxes and completely nondescript cardboard boxes, but not alerting anyone even in transit as it is.
[00:14:51] Supplementally insured with a return address being the first name of my vault manager. First and last name and my vault manager in one of our [00:15:00] facilities. It’s from Joe blow, whatever his name is, and it’s not from Miles Franklin Precious metals. But if you were in someone’s basement or in their garage, and you looked over into the corner and you saw 15 cardboard boxes very nondescript piled up next to all the other junk.
[00:15:16] You’d have no idea that it is a million dollars worth of gold and our silver rather. Keep in mind that there are ways to very easily, even in plain sight, hide your silver. Now I’m not suggesting you do that. But what I am suggesting is that if you have any capacity, To take possessions, I think in a world where counterparty risk very well may take on greater significance in the future.
[00:15:40] Having it in your own possession is one less thing to have to worry about. But if that doesn’t work yet, we have some fantastic storage programs with Brinks global services all throughout north america
[00:15:50] Seth Hicks: I’m with you, Andy, and you and I have talked about this off recording, offline about midnight gardening.
[00:15:56] And this is why you have folks that like in [00:16:00] Northern California, walking out on their property, stumble across a coffee, can with gold rounds from the 18 00s, some of them in mint condition, $10 million worth of gold rounds on their property that were buried. Obviously someone either robbed the stagecoach or hid them and forgot about them.
[00:16:20] And as long as you can keep your good treasure map. I it seems like taking possession is as good as it gets
[00:16:26] Andy Schectman: Always, a hundred percent. And that was a very cool story actually. And I actually had the good fortune of being able to get a couple of those coins. They were all certified by PCG S and had the good fortune of seeing them and getting a couple.
[00:16:39] But yeah, you’re right. There is no better way to hold your own metals than to do it yourself, bury a hole in the ground, pry open the floorboard. There are lots of ways.We buy empty one gallon paint cans at Home Depot splash paint on the outside, or even the five gallon orange ones, splash paint on the outside, keep them in the basement or the seller with your other half [00:17:00] empty paint cans but filled with silver and gold.
[00:17:02] There are a million ways to do it. And I just think that, look, I make money. If you store it with our Brinks program, I’d love to tell everyone yes, store it, store it. That’s great. I’ll make a little bit of residual income, but if I’m being completely forthright, I think it’s best only to cross that bridge when you’re losing sleep at night about what you have underneath your rafters.
[00:17:24] Yeah, take possession. If you can, if not, we have great solutions with third party. You never ever want to store the metal directly with a company that you bought it from company out of Austin, Texas bully and direct. A few years ago, $35 million with the client product was being stored, is gone.
[00:17:40] And he’s the owner, young guy is in prison. And there’s a lesson to be learned there. So you want. The separation, if you will, between the dealer and who is storing it. And this was one of the big reasons why we. Chose Brinks to begin with and work very closely with them subsequently as a third party entity, rather than [00:18:00] directly under our, in our vault, in with our care, a remove any and all chances of impropriety or any even thoughts of it and put it with a company that is known and synonymous with quality and safety and integrity.
[00:18:13] And that’s why we work with Brinks.
[00:18:19] Voiceover: Do you see yourself in that story? Do you feel like you are generating a lot of revenue, but are not moving forward as fast as you would like? Are you ready for help please call private banking strategies at (817) 200-4777. Or visit us@wwwdotprivatebankingstrategies.com.
[00:18:51] Vance Lowe: Hey, Andy, I’ve got a question for you here. And I think it’s a question that a lot of clients would ask things that are happening out there. Mega [00:19:00] inflation and literally the demise of the dollar. What type of precious metal, if it’s gold would be the most serviceable, the most practical to have, if you actually had to use it.
[00:19:14] Andy Schectman: That’s a good question. And let me say this, that I think in our first podcast, we’ve talked about the reclassification of gold by the bank of international settlements in 2019 as the world’s only other tier one reserve. So ultimately that tells me we want to be in gold, ultimately. And in gold, I prefer the American Eagle, the American Buffalo, the pre 1933, us $20 Liberty and St.
[00:19:43] Codon as well in very low grades, even circulated or very low on circulated, but only if you have a position in gold bullion first, there are many reasons why I like the pre 33 coins, but only if you can buy them at a good price, [00:20:00] if you’re paying high premiums, stay away from them.
[00:20:02] Vance Lowe: Why gold bullion?
[00:20:04] Andy Schectman: To me, the American Eagle and the American Buffalo are gold bullion because it’s vanilla ice cream in a hot fudge sundae, it’s okay to have hot fudge sprinkles and a cherry somewhere in the sundae but you got to start with a big bowl of vanilla ice cream and that’s the gold bullion, the Eagles, the buffaloes, the maple Leafs gold bars.
[00:20:23] And if you buy gold bars, never go bigger than one ounce and get the certified carded one-ounce gold bars by the Royal Canadian mint or the Perth mint or Pam Swiss mint. These are all really high quality, very non-subjective vanilla liquid. Uh, approaches to buying gold. You don’t need to buy proof coins.
[00:20:42] You don’t need to buy certified coins. You just buy us Eagles or buffaloes. I think that is the best way or one ounce gold bars or maple Leafs, things that are very conservative. Very boring and plain, but that is what you want. But I think in gold bullion, but let me say [00:21:00] this, I believe again, ultimately you want to be in gold, but I believe that silver is the pathway into getting more gold.
[00:21:07] And I do believe that silver is the most undervalued asset on the planet. Now, when it comes to utility, There is nothing better for trading or bartering or having utility than silver. I think when you buy gold, you want one ounce gold coins. And although you can buy a one half, one quarter or one tenth ounce American Eagles.
[00:21:29] The premiums go up exponentially from the mint. Now, if I had my druthers, I would own all one tenth ounce American Eagles they’re 10 times as flexible. They’re about the size of a dime. They come in tubes of 50. They’re fantastic, but they’re also probably a hundred bucks plus an ounce more than the American Eagle one ounce.
[00:21:47] So from a standpoint of. Of getting the biggest bang for the buck while maintaining tremendous liquidity it would be the Eagle or the Buffalo for me, both made by the U S mint one ounce. But when you talk about [00:22:00] silver, it’s a very unique situation. Where. Right now the ratio in price between gold to silver is about 83 to 1
[00:22:11] and it’s only half bend a handful of times in human history that we’ve been this high on the price ratio. Literally. You can go back to the beginning of time for 5,000 years. And the ratio between gold and silver price-wise and geologically is 16 to one or 16 ounces of silver by one ounce of gold.
[00:22:30] And as we move forward through thousands of years, it stays that way. One, sir, Isaac Newton is formulating how he wants currencies to look, he’s using a 16 to one ratio between gold and silver in the pound Sterling. As an example, you move forward to the industrial revolution and you see an average ratio of about 42 to one for the last 200 years.
[00:22:52] And then you see this at 85 to one. Now here’s the thing, a friend of mine, his name is Keith Neumeyer. He’s a, the [00:23:00] CEO of first majestic silver. They’re one of the biggest silver companies in the world. And he’s told me this on a podcast and again, at dinner in Las Vegas, about five weeks ago and I asked him again, Keith, well, the first time I asked him, I said, Keith, what do you think?
[00:23:14] And ironically, a year ago, almost to the day when I was actually more, about 18 months ago when we had our first interview, he and I, and they, the ratio was 85 to one. And I said, what do you think about this 85 to one ratio that everyone’s talking about? So in other words, you divide the price of gold buy silver.
[00:23:30] You get 85, 85 ounces of silver is equal to one ounce of gold. And I said, what do you think about that? Considering it’s only been here a few times in human history and he says, I don’t think about it. And it kind of took me back when he said that because everyone was talking about it. He says, well, what I think about Andy is the mining ratio, which is at seven to one, meaning globally.
[00:23:53] Silver is coming out of the ground at a seven to one ratio. It is a depleted asset. It is found in nature and a form called [00:24:00] epithermal, very near the surface. So the big deposits were phoned long ago. And so when you talk about an asset that has massive duality, like silver does most commodities don’t have duality and demand.
[00:24:12] They have one demand. Silver is huge in an expanding green and digital world and it’s industrial applications and solar panels and iPhones, and, even if it’s a tiny little amount that’s being used in an iPhone, or just a few ounces in a solar panel, whatever it may be because of its conductivity, both in reflection and in transferring electronic or electric signals, pulses, or whatever you want to call it.
[00:24:39] It’s used in all of these things. But it’s also experienced a monetary Renaissance where the demand for silver from the public is way more than it is for gold has been for the last few years because of this relationship, because this is an anomaly in price. The first time that I noticed this price, [00:25:00] like this was 2010.
[00:25:02] And this is when I started doing podcasts and I’m like, I got to tell the world in 2010, it was 85 to one. It was the second time in human history to ever been there. And so I go online and start doing podcasts and say, if you own gold, trade it to silver right now. And they did those that did eight months later.
[00:25:24] Could have traded it back at 37 to one, as it blew through its 200 year average and settled at 37 to one with $1,915, gold and $50 silver. So anyone who would have traded gold at 85 to one getting 85 ounces of silver could have traded back 37 ounces of silver eight months later. And almost well call it two and a half times what they started with.
[00:25:48] And I think we’ll see that again, because it’s coming out of the ground right now. It’s seven to one. And so this is a distortion and it’s a distortion because I believe. [00:26:00] Manipulation on the Colmex market, which we’ll save for another podcast, but let’s just simply say this, that this is four feet of snow in the Florida keys in July in 83 or four to one ratio.
[00:26:09] It is an anomaly. And so when you talk about ultimately wanting to be in gold, because it’s tier one, the pathway into getting much more gold in my opinion is through silver right now, which I look at as the value proposition of a generation. In many ways you can become wealthy by owning silver. That’s not the reason or rationale that I sell it for, but I think if you own enough of it, you will.
[00:26:34] Because I do believe it will get much closer to its geologic ratio of seven to one. Then it will stay at 83 to one. You could argue it’s 12 times undervalued because of suppression. And and we should talk about on another podcast about Colmex suppression. Why how it breaks, how it ends, how it started the whole nine yards.
[00:26:54] But nonetheless, I think you buy in silver right now. I [00:27:00] think you buy kilo bars, 32.15 ounces. I think you buy 10 oz bars, and you buy a 100oz bar. Now I’ve always been a coin guy, always. I’m one of only 24 us mint reps. I have silver Eagles in stock. If I sell them, get $13 over spot or somewhere in that neighborhood, I’m cheaper than 99.9% of the companies in America, the premium on coins.
[00:27:21] This is what I was talking about in our first podcast, have gotten outrageous and in a world where more and more people are awakening. I don’t care what the price has done. The price is suppressed and. People are wise to it. And the demand for silver is extraordinary. And so you see huge premiums, both buy and sell silver coins right now, as high as I’ve ever seen in my entire career, prior to COVID a silver Eagle had never been higher than $3 and 69 cents.
[00:27:52] Over the price of silver was the highest I ever sold them for. I haven’t seen those prices in going on three years. And they [00:28:00] haven’t gone below $8 over the price of silver since COVID started. And so when you talk about what’s the best way to accumulate it in gold, the gold Eagle and Buffalo haven’t gotten crazy expensive.
[00:28:11] The way the silver Eagle has, I would buy that. And my second choice would be one ounce gold bars made by the Perth mint, the pant mint, Pam Swiss mint, or Royal Canadian mint. Right now I prefer a 100oz silver bar, kilo silver bars, which are 32.15 ounces, about the size of an iPhone or 10 ounce silver bars.
[00:28:33] At This moment, I have always preferred government issued sovereign coins above the bars, but I have a hard time justifying the premiums and, it changes from day to day, but these are the things that we will discuss with people when they call us to give them the ammunition, they need to make an educated decision.
[00:28:52] If they want coins like the Austrian Philharmonic for just over five and a half dollars over the price of silver or the Canadian [00:29:00] maple leaf for $7 over the price of silver, where they Eagle for $12 to $13 over, or a bar for $3 over, so there are different ways of accumulating.
[00:29:10] The different benefits. And in this case, different costs, we’ll go through all of that. But a silver is a little bit more complex, but I think is a must in everyone’s portfolio. Right now. I look at it as a very unique situation.
[00:29:24] Seth Hicks: That’s excellent. Andy. So do you, so when people call you, you actually take the time and help consult with them based on whatever they’ve already accumulated, what they’re in and help to give them a a framework and a roadmap in what to acquire.
[00:29:41] Andy Schectman: Yeah, I think, if you don’t give that some thought, Seth, I think you make a massive mistake. You can have the greatest thing in the world, but if nobody wants it, what good is it? And yes, we will always, in other words I’m mentioning bars so I could sell you a 1000oz bar, which is a bigger bang for the buck. It’s the size of a giant loaf of bread.
[00:29:59] And it [00:30:00] weighs 70 pounds, nearly. But it has very little demand. It may, at the end, maybe an industry will want it or whatnot, but I think you have to waive those kinds of things. With a 10 ounce silver bar, you’re a hundred times more flexible for a very small cost. And so the savings is not commensurate with the loss of flexibility.
[00:30:22] And so these are the things we will talk about. What are the. What are your motivations? What are your goals? Do you want to take possession of it? Do you want to ultimately trade it for gold? Maybe we’ll choose a 100oz bars in, or maybe even 1000oz bars. But in general, I would say this general philosophy is that whether you’re playing poker with your best friend driving on a very crowded highway or living life, you can never have too many outs or too many exits, too many options.
[00:30:49] And so I think I am a big fan of versatility and liquidity and the enhancement of that through Not being penny wise and pound foolish. I think it is better to [00:31:00] spend a little extra money and that is money that doesn’t go into my pocket, the mints and the refiners and all of the whole way down, charge more money for smaller pieces.
[00:31:09] Generally the bigger the piece, the less the work, the less the packaging, et cetera. And you’ll always pay a little bit more money, the smaller the item. But I think in general, you’ll reach a point where, like I said, on the one 10 pound Siegel, it’s too expensive. I’d rather have it because it’s 10 times more flexible than the one ounce pound.
[00:31:27] But here again, you have to question is a couple of hundred dollars premium above a one ounce coin worth the flexibility. Is it worth the cost? Some people would say yes, others would say no, here again. We’re going to arm you with the information and let you decide. What is the most important thing to you?
[00:31:47] Is that utility? Is it flexibility? Is it converting silver to gold? Is it passing money? On whatever it is, you want to maintain as much flexibility as you can and liquidity and who knows how high this, these [00:32:00] prices will go up. And having more and more options and exits to me is always a good thing.
[00:32:09] If it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg.
[00:32:11] Seth Hicks: There’s Multiple purposes, perhaps. I think for most of the folks that I talked to, I would think one is store of value. They’re hedging against the inflationary effect, but they’re also planning for potential catastrophe events and need to visibility.
[00:32:26] So you got 10oz bars of silver. It seems like you could still do some transaction, but at the same time, you’re not saying put all of your eggs in one basket. You can have rounds, you can have jock, you can have a 100oz silver, you would diversify.
[00:32:41] Andy Schectman: Yeah, for sure. And these are the things we’ll help people do.
[00:32:45] And give them the information to decide, which is the best way to go look. Like I said, I’ve been doing this for 33 years, and I have a very intimate relationship with gold and silver in that capacity. I’ve thought about it in every single angle and [00:33:00] from every single angle. And for someone who’s accumulated a ton of metal over many years.
[00:33:04] Yeah. Buying a 100oz bars and whatnot, bigger pieces may not be a bad idea, but for most people, one ounce, silver and gold probably is the best way, but. If it weren’t for the distortions anomalies really in, in premium on one ounce silver coins, I think there is arguably a better value in the 10oz, the kilo, and the a 100oz silver bar.
[00:33:29] I have lots of one on silver coins in stock, and we’ll make sure that your listeners get the best price in America on them. That I can assure you. From a 33 year perspective, it’s sometimes hard for me to get past the fact or maybe it’s a new reality that these premiums are where they are.
[00:33:45] They’ve never been here. And yet an interesting fact, one half of 1% is the number only one half of 1%. Is allocated to precious metals in the United States. The 40 [00:34:00] year mean is 2.5% on average in 1980, it was as high as 8%. If all we did was reach the 40 year average of how much metal was in a typical portfolio in the United States.
[00:34:13] And this is from Joe six pack all the way up to the Harvard endowment fund and everything in between. You’re talking a five fold increase. In demand in an industry that has really not been able to handle just the increase we’ve seen since 2020. There’s a lot to think about and we’ll walk you through it, but, always keeping in mind value and utility and finding the middle ground between the two that works best for the client individual needs.
[00:34:38] Seth Hicks: Let me ask you this, Andy, if you’ve got increased demand for metals, I’ve heard, and, these are just rumors. You’re going to be much more dialed in on it that there are potential counterfeits with gold. And that’s probably why you suggested the purchases of the one ounce rounds and bars that you did.
[00:34:57] But I would also suspect or [00:35:00] guess that there’s not much counterfeiting of silver. Is that true?
[00:35:04] Andy Schectman: Well, I think that first of all, though, the only counterfeiting of gold I’ve seen on any company, like mine is going to have sophisticated machinery that can detect anything. And in 30 plus years I’ve only seen one or two things that were counterfeit and ironically, they were real gold made to look like old numismatics that were rare and very expensive.
[00:35:29] In silver, there have been rumors, of none that I have substantiated or seen, of Chinese counterfeits, they make American Eagles and other silver coins that look like silver, but they don’t really, I mean, if you hold it in your hand, you’ll know it’s not, what you’re talking about is the 400 oz tungsten bars, the good delivery bars that were.
[00:35:54] Rumor to be filled with tungsten, which has a similar density to gold in [00:36:00] terms of its principles. There are very few things on the planet that, that have the density that, that gold does, tungsten being the closest to it. And this is one of the reasons gold has been money for 6,000 years because the weight and when it almost plays tricks with your mind, when you look at a one-ounce point a little coin, but it feels so heavy.
[00:36:18] It’s difficult for your mind to rationalize at first. And so if you’re going to experience counterfeiting of anything you’re going to be buying it off of the platform. You shouldn’t be buying metal on to begin with. Buying things on eBay or Craigslist or whatnot, or to at a flea market or a garage sale, buyer beware, but.
[00:36:38] It hasn’t reached proportions that are even on my radar yet. I’ll put it to that way. Now we have a little handheld gun that looks like it’s a remote control. That’s $40,000 and you touch a piece of gold or silver. And on the digital display will tell you down to the thousandth of a gram, what the.
[00:36:54] W what the components are, what it’s composed of. And so anything that [00:37:00] alerts us immediately, we will tell you if it’s real or not. And I can tell you as a company that did 600 million in sales last year, we didn’t see anything counterfeit, but it speaks to not being penny-wise and pound-foolish do not buy in places where you shouldn’t be buying financial assets in, and you’ll probably not have any problems.
[00:37:20] Seth Hicks: So that’s one of the values that you guys provide at Miles franklin is we’re never going to get burned purchasing through you .
[00:37:28] Andy Schectman: 100%, not only that, where U S mint resellers who have never had a customer complaint and we’re licensed and bonded and, reputation in this industry is really everything.
[00:37:38] And I think you only get one chance to make a good reputation. If you harm somebody in some way, word gets out very quickly that, Hey, stay away from these guys they’re selling counterfeit product or whatever it may be. Yeah, we we’re very proud of our reputation and we take great care at, not only really buying from reputable sources.
[00:37:59] We do buy [00:38:00] from the public, but if the public sends something in, we have a protocol of check-in that will guarantee authenticity before we’re even just put away in the vault. So we’ll know immediately, if it is something that is not right, but like I said, it’s not something we ever.
[00:38:18] Seth Hicks: So I’m going to switch tracks here just for a moment, Andy, and given the foundation that you laid in the first podcast and some of the discussion we’ve had about a stock and bond equities bubble, a real estate bubble.
[00:38:32] Potential devaluation of the us dollar. And then I heard you mentioned that, portfolios may have a 0.5% and at the highest mark in 1980s, inflationary period, 8%, to me that seems insufficient. And in fact, all available cash in my mind, considering all the things you’d like foundation worth.
[00:38:55] Anticipation, it would be, it should be much higher than that. [00:39:00] Do you have an opinion on when you have enough precious metals?
[00:39:06] Andy Schectman: No I like, I choose to answer that a different way. I would ask yourself what exposure do you want to occurrence? You’ve that by the government’s own admission?
[00:39:14] It’s over a $100 trillion in debt, which, you’ve got a $30 trillion debt, but things that are off balance sheet, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and the government and military pensions will all exceed a $100 trillion at the lowest interest rates in human history. That indebtedness becomes a real problem as interest rates rise.
[00:39:33] So I would ask yourself not how much gold should you own. How much do you want to own in the way of dollars? And when people think they’re diversified, they’re really not, a portfolio of stocks and bonds in one respect is, has diversity, but in another respect, it doesn’t because it all comes back to the dollar.
[00:39:51] I think it is important to maintain diversity outside the dollar as well. And this was, it would be cryptocurrencies and precious metals and [00:40:00] foreign currencies and whatnot. But really for me, that is the way to do it. If you are, if you think everything will be fine with the U S dollar, ultimately you probably don’t need as much diversity in the hard assets.
[00:40:13] If you’re concerned. About where the dollar is heading and the ramifications of the things we talked about in the first podcast, then the question should be phrased differently. What exposure do you want to that? And if the answer is not as much as most people would typically recommend exposure to the us dollar or the us dollar traditional assets, then where else do you put it?
[00:40:37] And I think your choices will narrow and narrow very quickly. Look, if I told you what I really believed I would lose credibility, but if I were being completely honest with the public, without being honest, like you’re my best friend telling you what I own. I would say 25% of your investible assets and precious metals is not enough.
[00:40:58] Look, I’ll tell you straight up. I [00:41:00] don’t tell people to do this, but I have been nearly 100% invested in metals for 30 years or 25 years anyway, and I own one of the largest precious metals companies in these United States. So I am not the poster child for finance 1 0 1, but I have become increasingly concerned.
[00:41:16] Over the years as to where we are going. My curse is, I see things far too ahead of when it happens and I think I’ll be right. And everything we’ve ever talked about as a company over the 33 years, we’ve done this it’s come true. All of it. Never when I thought it would always way later than I thought. I went through most of my career with gold under $400 a night.
[00:41:36] I thought it was woefully undervalued for years and years and talked about gold going to over $1000 in the nineties. People thought I was crazy, but I just employed mathematics, economics and logic, and I think. Got it from that perspective. Yeah. What exposure do you want to Kenzie unbased debt ridden solvent system and work backwards [00:42:00] from there.
[00:42:00] And I think it’s easier question to answer.
[00:42:04] Seth Hicks: I think in most of our listeners are wanting to minimize that risk entirely. Well that Andy, this has been another fabulous time with you, just a wealth of knowledge. We, I can’t thank you enough for bringing your wisdom and expertise to our audience.
[00:42:21] And just really glad that you’re out there to help folks like us.
[00:42:26] Andy Schectman: Well, that’s fantastic. And I appreciate it. Honestly, I do. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and I’d be more than happy to come back anytime. And I am sorry that I have a propensity to run a little too far with the questions.
[00:42:41] It’s just that honestly, I feel that there are so many people that don’t understand where we’re going and what’s coming. And I think it’s really important that people open their eyes and you don’t have to focus on the federal reserve instead. I think you focus squarely on what’s happening with Saudi Arabia, with Russia, with China, with [00:43:00] India, this is our future.
[00:43:01] And. I think this is when you talk about inflation, when you talk about the value of the dollar, when you talk about investments, when you talk about just about everything that has been the American way of life, which has been granted to us by the graces, the good graces of our foreign creditors, those days are coming to sadly coming to an end and you have to keep your eye on that ball.
[00:43:24] Not the federal reserve, they’re just a piece of the puzzle. And so I appreciate being here and if I can help any of your listeners, send me an email personally at andy@milesfranklin.com. That’s andy@milesfranklin.com and in the subject line it’s it’s important that. We have the name of your company or this podcast and they will get my personal attention.
[00:43:52] I will answer questions and I will make sure that your listeners get the best service and the best prices in the United States. That is my [00:44:00] promise to you.
[00:44:02] Seth Hicks: Awesome. Folks if you’re in the precious metals market or need consulting from Andy rest of your portfolio and the things he’s discussed with you send them a direct message to andy@milesfranklin.com and reference private banking strategies.
[00:44:18] And Andy is there for you.
[00:44:22] Andy Schectman: Yeah, I’m in look forward to chatting with. Any of your any of your listeners and hopefully with you guys again, real soon, I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you, Andy pleasure.
[00:44:34] Aric Johnson: Gentlemen, this has been a fantastic podcast. Again, Andy, thank you so much for coming back for part two. And of course, Vance and Seth, thank you so much for facilitating this and bringing this information to the audience.
[00:44:44] I really appreciate it. I learned something every time we get together and I know the audience does too. And speaking of the audience, that’s you guys, thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the private banking strategies, podcasts with Vance Lowe and Seth Hicks. If you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, please click the subscribe now button below.
[00:44:58] This way when Vance and Seth come out with a new [00:45:00] podcast, it’ll show up directly on your listening device. This makes it really easy to share these podcasts with your friends and family. Again, thank you so much for listening today for everyone at private banking strategies. This is Aric Johnson reminding you to live your best day every day, and we’ll see you next time.
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