Gold is for everyone

This week’s Numismatic Newspoll question about participants’ willingness to buy the new Donald Trump gold, silver and copper medals is so far registering 94 percent against.

Respondents are undoubtedly motivated by the present election contest.

What results will be in the real world when actual sales are made and tallied, I cannot say.

However, what I can say is that such pieces do not help make the idea of investment in gold more mainstream if they are the only ones to be made.

It would be better if every candidate of every party had a set of bullion medals for their runs for the White House.

Why? Well. I am a collector and collectors collect issues like that.

But more generally should the idea of investment in bullion become firmly attached to just one candidate or to just one party, it raises the threat level to how bullion investment might in future be treated in the U.S. tax code.

Politicians are good at counting votes and making promises to their own supporters, including passing out tax favors.

If bullion investors skew to just one party, the other party basically is given a free vote to stick it to bullion investors the next time tax policy is reviewed.

Now sticking it to them is far milder than the apocalyptic warnings of future gold seizures by a desperate federal government struggling in dire economic times.

These warnings are made today to scare people into buying bullion. That is not a frame of mind when most intelligent investment decisions are made.

So let’s put apocalypse aside and simply consider times that fall into the normal economic growth and recession cycles that mark American history.

Gold has gone mainstream in that regard.

In recent years Wall Street has created Exchange Traded Funds so that anyone with a broker or brokerage service can buy them.

Commodity exchanges offer futures contracts and have done so since gold was legalized at the end of 1974.

Gold had a good first quarter of the year. It was up 16.5 percent. It was recommended by mainstream advisors.

Those who followed the advice to buy at the beginning of the year were rewarded.

The most popular gold coin has the image of Saint-Gauden’s Liberty design on it.

Anyone who regularly gives investment advice can give advice to buy gold. Anyone can take the advice to buy. In short, it is a regular market.

Through the years, gold’s value has fluctuated along with the economic cycles. It has highs and lows. It is charted by market technicians.

Making investments at perceived low points and selling out at the highs is the goal of most buyers.

That is a good thing insofar as it is always helpful to have broad support for the idea of bullion investment.

While putting one politician’s image on a gold medal is just fine. It would be much better if the idea is copied by many others.

The true risk comes if it is seen as just one politician’s stamp being put on the idea of gold investment.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper has twice won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog and is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."