What The Gold?!

DANO WEIR: All right, Daren, we are looking at the hottest meme stock. This is a meme stock, right? This is like a GameStop, right? That I'm like, this chart is a GameStop or the...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's funny because two weeks ago on our other podcast, I pulled this chart up and I clipped off the gold part of it. And I said, hey, Chris, who's our more conservative investor in the group. And I said, Chris, what meme stock is this? And he was like, uh...

DANO WEIR: Well, this is, no, sorry. This is a tech stock. That I'm looking at. Oh, this is tech. This is the newest AI. Gold, Dan. Quantum compute. No, no, this has got to be a crypto. This is a crypto?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This is gold, Dan.

DANO WEIR: This is a coin?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: This is gold.

DANO WEIR: This is a coin coin.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's not fart coin. A heart coin? It's not fart coin. A real coin? This is real coin. This is gold coin. This is gold coin.

DANO WEIR: Financial confidence for your hip pocket.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Money is really just energy. Make sure you check in at It's All Money.

DANO WEIR: Welcome to It's All Money. My name is Dan O'Weir. I'm the Marketing Director for Sonoma Wealth Advisors. We are in the Sonoma Wealth Advisors conference room in the city of Sonoma, just off the square. And we are talking about gold.

DANO WEIR: My co-host is Daren Blonski. He is the CEO and Managing Principal of Sonoma Wealth Advisors. And we're very excited to have our guest today. He is the owner of Napa Gold And Silver. Jason Bowman, welcome to the show.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Thank you.

DANO WEIR: The price of gold, guys, just this year alone, is up 52% per ounce.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know what I actually just saw in the last five years, that gold, the price of gold, has surpassed the performance of the NASDAQ.

DANO WEIR: That's talking. I have later in the data, depending, you can slice these things a million ways, I have gold outperforming AI chip makers in some cases.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What is going on?

DANO WEIR: So we thought, hey, this is like the most underreported asset right now. And there's just there's no machine behind it that's cranking all the news media about it. So let's sit down with Jason. Let's sit down with Daren.

DANO WEIR: Let's talk about gold. So you both approach gold in different ways. So depending on how you hold it, depending on how you're buying or selling it. Jason, let's start with you. Tell me about your business, which is Napa Gold And Silver.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: There's a lot of different parts of my business. I help people liquidate their, you know, heirlooms, their items, their, you know, old jewelry, things like that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And then I also help people invest in physical coins and bars and rare coins as well.

DANO WEIR: So I can have, you know, the classic case, it's an estate sale and you've got the box of jewelry and what do I do with this? And there's some gems and it's been crafted into different ways. People in Sonoma, Napa, Marin County, they can come to you on Jefferson Street at your shop and you can turn that into a bar of gold.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, I can turn it into cash or I could trade them for a bar of gold if they wanted.

DANO WEIR: Wow, that's incredible. That's cool. How do you end up in that business, Jason? There's got to be a story behind that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I mean, you know, when I when I was a kid, I used to go gold mining with my dad used to take me in the summertime up near Sacramento. And I kind of had an appreciation for gold just because we'd work our butt off to try to find just the tiniest little bit.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And I remember as like a 10-year-old kid wondering, you know, why is this only $300 for an ounce when we spent way more than that trying to get a fraction of an ounce? So I just growing up, I always just kind of had an appreciation for what gold was. So I think I saw it a little differently than a lot of kids growing up. So, and. Here I am, fast forward, you know, 40 years later, still doing it.

DANO WEIR: So as you said, this is 300 an ounce when you were a kid. As we record this today, Daren, it's past $4,000 an ounce.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Pretty crazy. I just, the way this gold's going up right now is very curious. And wow, could we dive into the macroeconomics and what this could mean and what it might mean? None of us know. And that's what we're here to talk about.

DANO WEIR: So in your business, Jason. So you've been doing this for how long?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, I've had my own store for a little over 15 years now.

DANO WEIR: Okay, just getting started.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DANO WEIR: It's a joke, Jason.

DANO WEIR: How have you seen the price appreciation change your business? So the price of gold, the rise, especially recently, has anything changed or is it still the same?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, there's a lot of new customers coming in, people that, you know, maybe they see the price rising. And They just want to know more about it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, so I have my regulars that I've known forever that they've always been coming in. And then recently there's a lot of new people. Whether they want to cash in, you know, old jewelry or something, or they want to, you know, get in on the price rise and buy coins and bars.

DANO WEIR: It's interesting because just as you're describing, it's like when it hits a certain level, here comes this new wave of people. Daren, you see that all the time. We saw that last summer with NVIDIA. Like all of a sudden, people who would never, ever speak to you about a stock are like, hey, you just, you can see at certain price thresholds, you can just kind of see the like. Suddenly it's the topic at the barbecue.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You know, I wonder, but that's the interesting thing about gold is I feel like people at the barbecue won't talk about gold at the barbecue. Like I hear it all the time, like, oh, let's talk about NVIDIA. I guess it depends which barbecues you go to.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: But I always use my gauge for my bubble gauge, I call it, for what are like the 20 somethings that just got into the markets or where do they come talk to me about when I go to Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner or one of those. And they're like, oh, have you seen this?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And then I know we're in a bubble. So I wonder if this year they're going to come up and like, man, have you seen my gold coin? I just don't think it's going to happen, but we'll see. And I think that's what makes it unique about an asset class. It's like this under the current kind of thing.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And there's this whole community of people who appreciate gold, whether it's extracting out of the ground, whether it's trading it for value, whether it's collecting it for hobbyists. There's a very large community out there that I think is not.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Appreciated perhaps by the general public more so with the people in that environment i think that's what makes it unique about it as an asset class because i mean how many other asset classes do you have that there's a hobbyist culture and an investor culture yeah all in one i guess maybe cars like really nice cars like porsches i learned the other day porsches are kind of like that but right Jason can you describe that your customers i mean what what can you describe the gold community?

DANO WEIR: I mean, is this someone who's, you know, is it Is it really diverse? Is it like the same type of person over and over? For people who want and hold physical gold or cash and gold, what kind of people?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, hard to describe.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: There's a lot of different types.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I think in general, people, the world that we're in now is kind of a fake world. I think a lot of deep in our DNA, in our soul, we kind of know it just seems like there's a lot of fakeness out there. Like, look at our debt. It's just astronomical. You could never pay this stuff back. And there's just more digits added all the time.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And I think people, I think, want something that's real. And I think for thousands of years, that's been gold. And when somebody holds a one ounce gold coin or bar or something in their hands, maybe for the first time, they kind of, you can kind of tell it's special.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And there's just something about it. I was telling you, you know, I started doing this, you know, when I was really little, I was like 10 years old with my dad. We would go gold mining. And when I found my first nugget, it was, it was the first week we went gold mining. It was the most boring thing I'd ever done in my life.

DANO WEIR: Dad.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah.

DANO WEIR: Why am I doing this?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah. And then I found my first gold nugget and I got gold fever.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: How big was it?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Probably like half a gram. Okay. Like a tiny little thing.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Man, a half gram gold nugget.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Oh, it was like, I found this in a creek that's just out there and anybody can find this, you know? And I'm going like, what the heck? So anyway, there's something inside of us. I think that gold is a special thing. Silver too, but especially gold.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I think it's in our DNA. They call it God's money. It's like, there's something about it that it's stood the test of time for thousands of years.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's like golden fever is a real thing.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Oh yeah. It's definitely real.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But yeah, I think when people discover that for the first time, I mean, what is money?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's hard to say. I mean, I didn't learn what money was in school. I mean, is a dollar really money? You know, it's currency.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So let's talk about that. What is like, what makes that valuable?

DANO WEIR: Well, let's, let's hit some important dates here. Cause you're talking about the history. I didn't know if we'd use this or not, but I'll hit this. Okay. So The history of gold probably goes back further than can be recorded. But I've got about seven dates here.

DANO WEIR: 1500 BCE. This is before zero. So we're going negative years here. Gold becomes recognized as a standard medium of exchange for Egypt. 1284, England issues its number AD. England issues its first major gold coin. 1787, the first U. S. Gold coin is struck.

DANO WEIR: Gold standard which is every dollar has a corresponding piece of gold backing it The gold standard becomes official in 1900. In 1913, they then reduced that to 40%. So they went from 100% backing of gold to 40%.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So why they have to do that? Let's stop there for a SEC, because I think that's an important point. So initially, the dollar was all backed by gold, meaning they couldn't print dollars unless there was gold to correspond to it. Then they reduced that to 40%, right? So what year was that?

DANO WEIR: In 1913, World War I.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Why? Why do you have to do that? Well, because you can't print more money if you can't get off the gold standard. And then you go to the next important date.

DANO WEIR: Which is 1933. They've got the banking panic and Roosevelt actually prohibits private holdings of gold. Ok, then 71, Nixon gets the United States completely off the gold standard. And then in 74. Gerald Ford actually signs an executive order that allows again to privately hold gold. So those are some just kind of important dates in gold history. And I've got footnotes for all that if you want to check it in the show notes.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So I want to dial into that 1971 date because it's so important to see what's happening right now. This is the U. S. Debt clock. Right. So you can see we're at 37 trillion. We are 19 trillion when COVID hit. We're not back to the gold standard anymore. And you can't do that if you're any politician that wants to survive through the next election.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: In 1971, when Nixon pulls us off the gold standard, he effectively opens the floodgates to print baby print. And thus now we're at $37 trillion in debt. So you go back and you can surmise, well, why is gold going up?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Because there's a general acceptance now that two things, one, that the government can't stop printing. And this is a little thing. I think we might have talked about this in our last podcast when Putin invaded Ukraine. Right. What happened when Putin invaded Ukraine? What was the threat that was so important to changing this game?

DANO WEIR: So it was it's 2022 and Putin invades Ukraine and the United States freezes 300 billion. I want to credit Mike Philbrick, who was on our podcast on the markets. He tipped us off to this. And this is.

DANO WEIR: You know everything with a grain of salt but he threw out this idea that the United States freezing russian assets in 2022 as a result of the war just let the rest of the world know like hey the dollar is can be frozen at any time and so he suggested that that might have been a result of the the huge spiking so they freeze the dollar the russian dollars right and at the time i remember it happening i was talking to some other macro brains.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Out there and we're like whoa this is big and I don't think people realize how big. The fact that what we signaled in the Biden administration signaled to the rest of the world was that if you don't play our game, we're going to take your money. And guess what? We control these things. So it became a stick they use.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The strategic mistake of that is and they push the rest of the world into the BRICS system. Trump comes in, says no BRICS, you play BRICS. I'm going to shove tariffs on you all over the place. We've still got those Russian dollars frozen and we're threatening to give them to Ukraine to then fight off the Russians.

DANO WEIR: So now you have an environment where you have all these government have to stop you and just say not political statements. This is not playing necessarily right or wrong, but crazy enough, when you start really looking at all these aspects, when you see a huge spike like that, you have to start looking at why. And these are some of the reasons, perhaps.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Why perhaps why we don't know why right no one right or what we find with the markets is is the markets do what the markets do and then we all construct meaning and narrative for why it did what it did so let's be clear about that so one possible scenario is that now governments are realizing we need to convert this into gold because they might take it if they might take it if we don't play the game we tick them off in some way that's right that's right and we're seeing that in Jason in your world if you imagine all of us individuals as our own you know government or nations coming to individuals like Jason saying hey i've got to convert some of this to some of this this is a John mary coin it's not gold but do you that's an interesting point Darren so so Jason in your store.

DANO WEIR: We got way at a global tangent there but it actually impacts it ends up impacting you know we should just call this show money tangent i know i know just go off and tangents the whole but it ends up flowing downstream to to what happened what comes across your desk. Are you finding people bringing in gold to turn into dollars or are you finding more people bringing in dollars to turn into gold?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, the last month or two, there's been a lot more buyers that have come in.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I was saying before.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Define buyers. So if I'm a buyer, I'm bringing you this for that, right? Assuming that's a gold coin, which it's not.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You're buying metal from me.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now, you know, about a year ago, there was very few buyers. There was a lot of sellers for whatever reason. Now it's evened out a lot. So I have both now.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So in that, so this is interesting, right? So you say a year ago. So if we look at the charts.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And let's look at the weekly chart. And so we're looking at, so this is right now we're in almost 26. And so it was, say, a year ago. So that's give or take us 25. So we're right about there. That was a year ago. That's what's happened to the gold chart.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah, pretty much straight up. Yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Crazy. Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah. It's crazy times.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We were talking before this show and I saw it. I saw that I introduced Dan and Jason to a new term called grok. I grok a post on X. I still hate that name, but Twitter X, whatever.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And this person said every other time in history when gold has done this in price action, it has been the end of that fiat currency, which is the dollar. And so I grok it and I said, grok, is this true? And grok says, yeah, it's kind of true. So is this time different, Jason?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I wish I knew.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I don't know.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's above my pay grade. Yeah. Mine too. I'm just a little shy. Mine, mine.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We don't know.

DANO WEIR: Yeah, and I think it's important, again, at this point, you know, we are a diversified, in general, we look at a diversified approach to investing. So sometimes Darren gets excited about de-dollarization arguments.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I mean, don't get me off on Bitcoin. So let's just. So.

DANO WEIR: I think what we're really trying to do with the episode today is we're trying to say, hey, like it or not, this is happening. This is a part of people's portfolios and why and how is it happening both in the physical space and also in the digital space, Darren?

DANO WEIR: I think that's maybe what some people don't realize is you can actually buy gold from both of these people. So, Darren, how I don't sell gold, but but you can. What about a gold ETF?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, that's true. So that's what I mean. Let's bounce that back to Jason. So. Jason, you've got gold ETFs, which is our expertise, right? And our clients generally have a position in gold in all of our portfolios.

DANO WEIR: What is a gold ETF, Taren?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's basically more or less an index that tracks the price of gold. There are some gold ETFs that you can actually buy shares of that ETF and take physical delivery of that gold, which I don't recommend usually. But if you're going to track the price of gold, then you can buy a low cost index like IAU.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Which is one of the etfs which i'm not advising you do but that is one of the options out there so you're just tracking the price versus owning the physicality okay Jason deals in the physicality world so contrast that for me like why would i want to own a gold coin versus the etf well i would say i would never want to own an etf because i don't really own the gold that's what i would Fair.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I mean, and there's a place for everything. I mean, I own Bitcoin ETF. People say the same thing to me because that's just easier to buy. Right. It's easier to trade it. But if I one of the reasons people buy gold, one of the big reasons is that you you don't have any third party risk. I mean, you own a piece of gold. It's in your pocket. It's in your hand. You look at it. You know, there's you don't have to worry about.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Somebody else delivering it to you if you want it or if the world you know gets even worse you don't have to worry about getting delivery or or being able to find somebody to you know for anything you own it so that's the whole beauty of it you know you work your butt off your whole life for your money or what you think is your money and it's digits on a computer screen or it's you know whatever it is but when you own gold and Silver You hold it in your hand, you get to look at it and hold it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So, you know, that is the appeal. I mean, to me, it's like, you know, yes, you pay a little bit more in a premium because there's a cost involved.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's plain premium for the viewers.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So let's just say you have a gold price of $4,000 for an ounce of gold. You know, that's generally what a refinery and a miner would trade at. Then the, you know, once it's all refined. To be pure. It needs to be poured or made into a coin or a bar or whatever. And that would be the premium. So there's a cost involved.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So let's just say, you know, if a gold is $4,000, you may be able to buy a one ounce American Eagle coin right now for roughly 3% over that. So by the time the U. S. Mint takes the gold and makes it into a coin and ships it to a dealer and then gets it in your hands, it's roughly 3% right now. That can change. Sometimes it's 1%. Sometimes it's 10%.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So do you find that 3 is kind of middle of the road for premium?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's pretty normal. I mean, for like an American Eagle coin. Now, I have other things that I like right now that I'm selling for the spot price of gold.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's just more junk.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, they look nice, but they may be something that in this area, like for instance, like a hundred Corona coin from Austria, they've been making these since 1915. I've sell those for the spot price of gold because, you know, people come in asking for an American Eagle coin or a bar or something. They don't think to ask for a coin like that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Like that particular coin has just a little bit under an ounce of gold in it. And they. They don't know to ask for it. So therefore, if when I get them in, in order to entice them to buy it, I'll give it to them for the spot price of gold. And for a lot of people, they just want the cheapest price they can get.

DANO WEIR: So when you say the spot price of gold, that's that's what the price per ounce is right now.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah, right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It's exactly the market.

DANO WEIR: Yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So let me ask, I'm going to ask like three or four questions around that, because I think there's some really important points here when it comes. So premium, right? So premium is the carry cost of. What it more or less takes to transact that piece, right?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So if I go in and I buy gold from you, and then I turn around next month and I'm, Hey, I got to sell this. I got to make my mortgage or whatnot, whatnot. Then do you buy at a discount or at a premium?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It depends. Let's, we, let's back up a little bit. Pre COVID, you know, generally, let's just say if on a one ounce gold bar, I might've been paying the spot price of gold minus $20 when you would sell it to me. And I'd probably sell it, be selling it for the spot price plus $20. So that $40, you know, that's my spread.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now, after COVID happened, there was a lot of demand and very few people sold anything. And so spot prices were much lower, but premiums were much higher. Like we had, you know, one ounce Silver Eagles were trading for, I think spot price was around $20. They were trading for like $15 over that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So almost double the Silver price, which was crazy. But, you know, I was paying like $12 over and selling for $15 over, something like that. And that was really out of whack. Now, as time went on and that's because the mint shut down and there was a lot of demand and there wasn't any supply.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So the spot price didn't even matter. I mean, it was just, it was crazy what was happening. Now it's just, you know, like I said, for the last. Year or two, there has been a lot of selling. So there's a lot of secondary market product coming back into the store.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Define secondary market product.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: That's when product comes back to me from the public and I don't order it from, say, a mint or a wholesaler. So if there's a lot of that coming in, I only have so much money to spend. So if I have a lot of inventory and I'm running out of cash, then I'm going to lower my premiums to get it sold to the public.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Or I have to move it onto a wholesaler or a refiner or something like that. In which case I'll probably get less for it. So for me, it does me, it's better for me to lower my premium and sell it cheaper to the public and entice them to buy it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So, you know, so right now things are more normal. You know, there are some things that I'm selling for the spot price of the metal. Some things are just a little bit over that. But generally the premiums are pretty cheap right now. But spot prices are much higher.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So it sounds like because spots going up, it's compressing premium now.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And then it's about the demand for physical coins and bars.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: The demand is starting to come back now. So premiums are starting to come back a little bit. There was a while there I was selling Silver product, a lot of Silver product for under the spot price. Because If a wholesaler is going to offer me, say, spot minus a dollar, if I can get spot minus 50 cents from the public, I'd rather do that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But now I've noticed just in the last week or so that at the wholesale level, the premiums are being raised, which means to me they either anticipate higher prices or their inventory levels are getting lower.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They're raising their bid to get more inventory in. So, yeah. So during COVID you paid this high premium.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now if you came to sell it, you're going to get, you're going to get less, you're not going to get that full premium back. But the spot prices are so high and most people don't care. It's just so much more money.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now, that being said, if you're buying something today, say American Eagle gold coin for 3% over spot price, it could be two years from now that I might be paying 5% over spot price and selling them for 8% over something like that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So just because you pay a little bit over the gold price doesn't necessarily mean you're going to lose that money. Because the market might be different later on for the physical coin or bar that you're, you bought. So what's.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What's that?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Mercury dime.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. Tell us what a Mercury dime is and why people use them or not use them or.

DANO WEIR: Well, Aaron brought in his coin collection.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So yeah, I grabbed a handful.

DANO WEIR: I was supposed to bring mine and I forgot.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: This kind of goes back to what you guys were talking about. I mean, back in the day, a dollar, according to the constitution was supposed to be so many grains of Silver. That's what a definition of a dollar is supposed to be. And then over time, you know, people are people, humans are humans, and we tend to fudge with things like that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And now we have a, you know, it's not backed by anything. So our coins, our quarters, dimes, and half dollars all the way up until 1964 used to be made of 90% Silver, which is what this coin is here. Mercury dimes they made from 1916 to 1946. And so this is kind of a piece of history. I mean, it's not rare. I mean, in my world, it's not rare.

DANO WEIR: Is there Mercury in that?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They call it a Mercury dime, I think, just because of the design.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The face of that.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: The coin itself is 90% Silver. So they may say, yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It actually is Mercury.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: No, it's that's just a name that we call it. But anyway, yeah, it's cool. You can tell right away that it's an old design. Coins. So you immediately, for me, I know it's 90% Silver. So this is kind of a cool thing to have.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So there's something called constitutional Silver. Yeah, they would call that. So define constitutional Silver for us and why people collect constitutional Silver or use it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Okay. So our quarters, dimes and half dollars all the way up until 1964 were 90% Silver. Over time, You mentioned the... The gold standard in 1971. Well, according to Nixon, that was supposed to be temporary. If you look at the video when he's announcing this to the world, he's basically saying, we're just going to temporarily not convert gold into a dollar. Which was BS. Of course.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But anyway, constitutional. It used to be called junk Silver because they would put these coins in bags, thousand dollar face value bags. And they call it junk Silver because collectors didn't really want it. It was too common for a collector. And maybe it might be a worn coin or something like that. So they say, oh, it's just junk.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And people back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, you know, just bought it as for Silver weight. Then this product actually got really popular. And people, they like that it's fractional, that, you know, the U. S. Mint actually made these coins. And the premium was literally nothing. So they started calling it constitutional Silver because according to the constitution, this is what our money is supposed to be.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: The old school customers of mine still call it junk Silver. Yeah. Call it what you want.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We, in our business, we have junk bonds and high yield bonds. So when finance advisors are trying to sell junk bonds, they call them high yield. Same thing.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, it's 90% Silver. It's good Silver. You know.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. So, so that's an interesting kind of one philosophical approach out there is like, if, if I think there's a lot of different reasons people buy gold and buy Silver. One of the reasons would be like, Hey, this is, you know, if you look at the dollar this year, it's been absolutely plummeting in value. And that's part of the reason that gold's going up.

DANO WEIR: Do you have any way you can show that dollar value?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Well, we can show kind of on the DXY chart. You can see this, the DXY chart effectively shows you. Juxtapositioning of all the other currencies, fiat currencies to the dollar. So like 10% down this year is DXY is the dollar.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So as the value of dollar goes down in theory, well, of course, gold's going up because gold's going up, but also the dollar's going down. So it's becoming worth even more comparatively.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So that's what's going, partially what's going on. And that means that there's less demand for the dollar, which is arguable. But At least that's what seems to be playing out in the charts at the moment. So we go back to this and I say, OK, if I've got a bunch of these in the bank account and if these are going to be worth less because the value of it's going down.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: U. S. Is not as interested in forcing these globally as the reserve currency of the world, then maybe I want to have in my safe some constitutional Silver because or junk Silver because it in the event of the dollar collapsing or total de-dollarization world, we could go buy and sell bread and whatever with these smaller increments of Silver.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Right. So that's one of the reasons that people are collecting these. Sure. Type of things, because it's obviously you can see on these the face of this is really.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So to that end, Jason, if someone says, hey, you know, I want to have some gold and Silver. There's a lot of debate about how you should own that. Right. The the the commercial at 12 o'clock at night that says buy Silver in our fort warehouse, blah, blah, blah. And we'll hold it for you. Why is that a good or bad idea?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, how do I even get into this?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Buying gold and Silver, I believe, is a great thing. And I tell, I just say this a lot to people. If people come into my store and they don't know and they just are honest and they say, hey, I don't know what I'm doing.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I will bend over backwards for that kind of person because that was me. That was my own family.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I'll say, hey, if you were my mother, this is what I would tell you to do.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: What would you tell your mother to do?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: That's a great question. Well, if she wanted to buy gold and Silver, I would put it in her hands.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We have lots of moms on this show. Yeah, of course. Mom, listen up.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Okay, so some of these companies, people don't realize the margins on this, they're not a lot. And it's very volatile. So it's really hard for a dealer to make money, make a living, buying and selling precious bullion products only. Because you know, you might have a collectible that might have like a 20 or 30 percent margin. Define boring, define collectible.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Like if you, let's just say you have a collectible coin that, you know, has a Silver value of $40. I had a Silver dollar recently that came in. A lady had a group of Silver dollars, like 150 Silver dollars. Most of the time they're common and they're going to trade very close to the Silver value. She had one in there that was an 1889 Carson City. That we sent off to have graded.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I pulled it out. I, you know, I paid her $8,500 for one coin, that, you know, and then once it was certified and graded, it sold for about $10,000. So, you know, something like that, that's, that's a really nice margin. And you wish that you could, you know, you know, that only, that's only happened to me twice in 20 years where I I pulled out a, you know, a really expensive coin.

DANO WEIR: Where the collectible value of it. Yeah. This customer had no clue.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They had, they just had, you know, a few coins that they brought in.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And I tried to do that to Jason today and he busted my bubble.

DANO WEIR: What is it? Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're cutting him. We got to let him finish.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: No, this is his exact moment, right? I bring this coin to Jason and say, I think this coin is worth something.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, that's, this is how normally go. It's like, sorry, but this one isn't real.

DANO WEIR: What is it?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's well, it's they they they call it a pillar dollar, but it's not a real coin. Some of this was like made after the fact that, you know, it's like a copy of it, but it's not real.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So but how did you tell that right away? Like he didn't.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, I've seen that coin a lot. So, OK, it's like it's like, you know, you learn counterfeits by studying the real thing.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. Right.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So if you've dealt with the real thing every day for the last 15 years. Then it's easy to, I mean, some counterfeits are better than others, but that's just not a good one.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I'm going to buy a real one of these from you, Jason. So if you got one to sell me, I'm buying.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I'm sure I do. I'm sure I do.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Just for the story is so good. And we, because this is kind of what we do in our business in financial services, because people walk in here with a portfolio and we're like, right, here's why. And they're like, what do you mean? I thought this was, I was going to. This is my equity.

DANO WEIR: It's got a cash value.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Right. Yeah. So same kind of deal. So mom walks in. So like this lady walks in with Silver dollars and they're like, we grade these things.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I mean, I hate to even tell this story because it's like it's so rare. I mean, most of the time it's not like that at all. But I'm just saying there's more margin in something collectible like that that might take a while to sell it. But when you do sell it, you make a little more money on it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now, bullion. I mean, I have things all the time where it's like I do these large deals, you know, Silver deals that, you know, my margin like 50 cents. I'll buy it and then resell it and make 50 cents an ounce. It's hard to make a living like that, you know, when you have overhead and everything else.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So, you know, what happens is sometimes these companies that are trying to make more money, it's a good thing for you to sell to buy gold, but they sell you a gold product that. Either A is...

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You have, it has $4,000 with the gold in it, but they're going to sell it to you for $12,000, something like that. Like triple the gold price or way more, you know, the same product you could buy from me for way less. But if they get a good salesperson on the line, they're kind of, you know, their margins are massive.

DANO WEIR: And they got to pay for that TV. Yes.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And the first place. Yes. They have the salesperson, the commercial, all that, as opposed to me. It's like just me in a, in my little store that, you know, I keep my overhead low and I try to make. A little bit of money off of each deal, but I don't need to hit a grand slam on every deal that walks in.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So, you know, unfortunately I have dealt with that a lot where somebody has kind of been duped into that when they come into me and I'm like, Hey, you know, this coin has, you know, 0.2, three, five, four ounces of gold in it, like a British sovereign.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And they use coins like that. Sometimes that kind of confuse you. You have to do some math to figure out how much gold is in the coin. People don't really know how collectible it is versus how common.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And they end up paying these massive premiums. I'm not, I'm not talking two, three, 5%. I'm talking like 300% on a, on an item that they should have been paying 8%. And then gold has to literally double or triple just for them to break even, that I've seen that many times and people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes. And to find out, oh, gold's tripled and I barely got my money back. That's not cool.

DANO WEIR: That would be the equivalent of broker charging a huge upfront fee, would it not?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Or, hey, buy this annuity. You can have lifetime income with this annuity, but you don't realize there's all these fees built in. So the reality of making your money back is pretty slim. That's why I always say buying an annuity is great for the guy who's selling it. That's about it.

DANO WEIR: Jason, so can we get back to this for a second? Because you said, I felt like you said the advice that you would give your mom if she came in. So it would be what? Okay.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Let's just say somebody, you know, somebody had $20,000 to spend or something. They want to buy some Silver or some gold. I would say something that you can buy a nice product that's going to be easy to resell later.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Tell me about easy to resell. Like, how do you define that? Because that's a really important point, I think.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Okay. Okay, so... This happens a lot. Some people, if somebody's new, and they've never bought gold, let's just say they come in, they're talking to me. Usually the first thing out of their mouth is what are you charging for gold?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And it's like, well, and I say, okay, do you want a Pinto or do you want a Lamborghini? You know, it's not all gold is exactly the same. You have two, you know, like say the Royal Canadian mint in Canada, they make a, what's called a gold maple belief. And a lot of people have seen those.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You have one that's fresh out of the tube. It's a nice mint fresh coin. It's an ounce of gold. And you have another one that's beat up and scratched and, you know, it's been dropped on the ground. Since it's pure gold, it's soft and they tend to bend and scratch and ding really easy. You know, one, they're both, you know, call it $4,000 worth of gold.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But the one's going to be really easy to sell because it's pretty. It's nice. When people are going to spend $4,000, they want it to look nice. The other one, I may have a really hard time selling this one because most people spending that kind of money, they don't want to spend it on junk or something that looks like junk.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But when you have spikes in the market like this and there's all these new customers coming in, I mean, I don't have so much money to work with. And if, you know, sometimes, I mean, it's been crazy where, you know, I'm spending all this money in two hours and going like, what just happened? You know, I had all this money this morning and it's gone.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You ever just pause? Like, I got to pause. Like something's going on today. I'm just not doing transactions right now. Or do you just run like your hand?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I don't know. I try to never do that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I'm always moving.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You're talking about people just coming in the door, just gold, gold, gold.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Not every day is like that. But I mean, I'm just, it's kind of an extreme right now just because these prices have spiked. So there's all these new people coming in. And Yeah. So I just do the best I can with it and I'm as fair as I can possibly be.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But I always have to remember too, like, Hey, if I have too much inventory of this particular product and somebody's selling me, you know, $200,000 of this that I don't need, I know that this is going to have to be shipped off to a wholesaler.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And I know the turnaround time right now is probably three weeks to like, by the time I'm taking the risk of actually getting it there. And then once it's there, they have to process it and get me paid. And right now they're so backed up, it's like three week turnaround. So I have to factor that into what I can offer because.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, there's not enough demand right this second. You know, usually what happens to me is I'll wholesale it out. And then like five minutes later, somebody else will come in and want to buy it. And, you know, so I do my best to, to wait as long as I possibly can until I have to do that. But it's like a last resort for a small dealer like me.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But you know, you know.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Gold's been pretty stable as a price until recently. And that makes your job. Even harder because you don't know what's going to happen the next minute to the gold price.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But it helps because I'm kind of like a lifelong gold bug and Silver bug. So, and there is a little bit of a gambler in me.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So it kind of, I'm okay with it. Like I'm happy to keep buying it.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I look at it and go like my money has to be somewhere and I would rather have it in gold and Silver than anything else anyway. So I know that. I could lose. I mean, I was in business in 2011 when we had a big run up in prices and then a big deflation in prices. So a lot of people don't know this, but like gold lost half its value from, you know, 2011 to 2016, 2015. It lost almost 50 percent.

DANO WEIR: So so I'm so glad you brought that up when when you're in that moment, you're a gold bug in that moment. It's the exact opposite of this moment.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Exactly.

DANO WEIR: What types of things are you thinking? Because, you know, we... We always talk about investing as a three, five, 10 year proposition of really looking at that time frame. People have a hard time with that. You're a year into gold on a slide in 2012. What types of things are you thinking as an investor at that point?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, as a business owner, it's tough because I remember in 2000, I mean, I was, I mean, I have a lot more experience now. I've been through it. So. At the time, I remember, you know, buying, let's just say I bought a gold coin for $1,900. And then the next day, gold went down 70 bucks, you know, and I just paid $1,900.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And then the next, the customer comes in and let's just say my premium was 50 bucks. So let's just say, you know, gold was, you know, 18, 1830. And my premium is $50. So I'm selling it for 1880 the next day. And I just paid 1900 the day before. And then the, of course that customer's like, well, no, no, no, you can do a little better than that. You know?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So, and I understand.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, I totally, and I understand. I mean, I want to get, I'm that way too. I want to get the best deal I can, but it's, it's, it's tough for a dealer because it's like, man, I, I'm literally losing $20.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And, now he wants another $10 and it's like. You know, and sometimes, you know, and I've had to learn because it's in my nature as like, because I buy and sell a lot. So it's in my nature to always try to, there's a balance between you want to be fair with the customer. You want to be fair to yourself and kind of figure out, you know, where that middle ground is.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Now I've learned that it's been, it was a great life experience living through that period because I sold so many things at a loss. And I had to get used to it and just have to keep it moving. You just have to be, know that, Hey, I'm going to sell this one. I'm losing money on this, but the next person that comes in the door will sell it to me at the new price.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And I'll be able to keep going and keep going and not, not get caught up in, well, I'm not selling it today because it's, it's too low and I paid too much. And it's like, that's just very short sighted. And, I've learned I'm not perfect with it all the time, but I've. Definitely better with it now of like, Hey, this is a, it just is what it is. And, try to put myself in other people's position.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And, you know, like the other day, somebody came in and they said, well, what are you charging for this product? And I told him, and, they said, well, when gold goes down a hundred dollars, are you still going to be charging the same price over spot price? I'm like, you know, and I kind of have to laugh because I'm like, I don't know. I literally, I have to, every morning I get.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Sheets from wholesalers all across the country that they all just email to you i get emailed sheets every morning on different products what what the bid and ask spread is at the wholesale level and explain explain the bid and ask spread we get it because we're in this business and ask speed and ask spread well i mean it's just something say let's just say a one ounce American Eagle coin let's just say which is a very common coin yes let's American Eagle coin.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Let's just say their bid is for one particular old seller. Let's just say they're paying me the spot price of gold.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So what they're willing to pay you.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They're going to do business with me and pay me, say, spot plus 25. Let's call spot $4,000. So if they're paying me $4,025, if I want to order it from them, I'm going to pay $4,050, something like that. And different wholesale companies that they deal with local stores like me, they, you know, because we deal in more volume than say the, you know, a retail, most retail customers.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So we have all these, you know, a lot of these wholesalers, I've been doing business with them for 20 plus years. So they know me and we do, you know. We do a lot of deals on just make a phone call and settle up later and we're locked in and it just takes a lot of trust. So you have to kind of, yeah, totally.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So you got bid, we got that, what's ask?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So it's just, you know, so my relationship to a wholesaler, their bid is like what they'll pay me. Their ask is what they would sell it to me for. So based on what they're doing for me, I adjust what I'm going to do for the public.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And, there, there can be exceptions to it because if I do a large deal over here with a certain product, maybe I'll do a sale and just blow it out, you know? So if somebody wants to come in and buy, say they want to spend a hundred thousand dollars on gold and they are looking at say a one ounce gold maple leaf coin, and that's what they want to buy.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Maybe somebody just came in and sold me a hundred thousand dollars of gold Krugerrands. And, you know, they're still an ounce of gold, just minted by a different country. And they weren't thinking about that, but I can give them a better deal on that one if they buy that, because that's just what happened to have come in.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And I was about to send it out to a wholesaler anyway, so I can give them a good deal. So if people are flexible like that on what product they're buying, I can really help them.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, now, as opposed to some people are very, they're very specific in what they want. And a lot of times I'll have what they want. But if I don't, and I have to place an order with a wholesaler to get that product, I have to pay their markup and then they're going to end up paying a little bit more.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So, and some people don't care. And no, the difference between a wholesale and a retail price is probably like one and a half percent, 1% difference. It is not much difference. So, you know, I'm happy to place orders for people or just do, you know, whatever. But Some people buying gold, they're very, I mean, they want the best deal they can get, which I totally understand.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But, you know, in the big scheme of things, it's like, you know, $4,050, $4,025, whatever. I look at it, it's crazy, you know? Yeah. So at the end of the day, when people are asking me what they should get, I always just say. Buy what you like. I mean, you worked your ass off for your money. You want to be able to look at this thing and go like, wow, this is cool.

DANO WEIR: Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: This is more than just a coin. This is like your time and your blood, sweat and tears that went into this. You want to look at it and go like, yeah.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So tell us the $2,000 rule, right? Because there's a taxation and buying more or less than $2,000 when you're walking into a retail. Tell us how that works.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, that's the state of California.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Okay. So I live in the state of California. So therefore.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So California in their infinite wisdom decided.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Wait, they're wise?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah. What do you know?

DANO WEIR: Are you saying there's an outlier law in the state of California?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, okay. So in California, if you spend $2,000 on your invoice on coins and bullion, there's an exemption on sales tax. So you don't have to pay any sales tax as long as you're spending $2,000 or more. But if you do under $2,000, they have, you have to pay sales tax, which is 8.75% Napa.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So if you're worried about your 3% premium. Yes. You should buy 2,000 plus. Oh yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's, it breaks. I mean, it's, it's frustrating. Well, that's, that is the Napa sales tax. But, you know, the, the single mom that wants to come in and buy an ounce of Silver a month for their kid. I have to charge them 8.75%. But like somebody that can afford $2,000 or more, they don't have to pay it. It just seems crazy.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Wait, I thought we cared about the little man here in California.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah, right. It's frustrating because it's kind of crazy. I don't know if they just consider under $2,000 a collectible and then over $2,000 an investment. I don't know what their reasoning is, but it doesn't seem right.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It was some bean counter bureaucratic.

DANO WEIR: If someone was going to buy $1,825 worth of gold from you, you would say, why don't you make it $2,000? Of course. Because I can actually give you more gold. Because if they bought that exact amount, they would still end up paying $2,000 because of the tax.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They could literally buy that extra gold and then sell some back to me right now. And my margin's like 3%. And, you know, way less than theirs.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We probably should edit that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So, okay.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: I think that's a really important point if you're a buyer in California. Let's go back to, you know, we've got the American Eagles, we got the Canadian Maples, we got the Australian Cougarans.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Why would I buy an ounce of gold, though, versus like a gram of gold? And what's the difference in the premiums between those?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, that's, it's a moving target. Now, as a general rule, the larger pieces have a smaller premium, as a general rule.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Why is that?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Because the manufacturing cost, I mean, if you're making, there's 31.1 grams in a troy ounce. So let's just say if you, if you, if you had to make 31 pieces of gold and put it in a little assay card and all that, it's more expensive to do that than it is to make one coin. So stamp out one coin. So as from the very beginning, the manufacturers of these products, they have, their cost is more to make the smaller pieces.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So then of course that trickled down. Two or three different people before it gets to the public. So now that being said, I, there are times when somebody might sell me a large group of smaller pieces of gold that I got, you know, I was able to buy them for the gold price are very close to the gold price.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And you, you don't have to pay those premiums on like a new product would be like a one gram bar. A lot of these premiums are like $20 on one gram. So that's, you know, that's... $600 an ounce more, you know, if you buy it new, but if you buy it secondhand and, you know, if I happen to have them, I might be able to give it to you for way less than that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. So why would I want a gram versus an ounce if I'm a buyer? Like what would be the motivation?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, a lot of people, they just want fractional pieces because if they think that, let's just say worst case scenario, the dollar does keep going down and people don't want it. Then they could barter smaller pieces or they could sell smaller pieces at a time.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: They don't, I mean, who knows if gold goes way higher, it goes to 20,000 an ounce or something. I mean, maybe you don't want to sell $20,000 worth of gold. You know, you only want to sell a couple of hundred dollars worth of gold.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And so that's my issue with going back to like, why you don't buy gold online and store it in a warehouse in Texas. Why? Because it's not your gold either, right? Like at the end of the day, if the government started to...

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Decide to go we're going to take all the gold back they could which they have done they have done they go in there they take your gold and that's their thing with owning like larger bullion size things that go like get everyone has preferences but like if we really hit the armageddon that people worry about or the de-dollarized world you're not going to walk around and be like here's my bar can i have a piece of bread you're gonna be like here's my Mercury yes dime can i have a piece of bread so if you're collecting for armageddon then you need to stay small denominations.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: It just doesn't make any logical sense. If you're collecting to store and to build wealth and to preserve wealth, then yeah, you use bigger sizes because it's a lot easier to handle than a bunch of small coins that, you know, are difficult to deal with.

DANO WEIR: Jason, we've talked about it a couple of times. Can you get me the Silver chart there, Darren? Let's talk about Silver because you are Napa Gold And Silver.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: So is the Silver portrayed any different than any of this or is it just kind of like gold's second place cousin i mean like what you talked about for barter or things like that Silver is definitely way better you know you can go well you know Silver let's just call Silver 50 dollars an ounce right now which in my world is crazy high but maybe going forward that's not high anymore but you you know a one ounce piece of Silver you know a one ounce Silver round has a low premium you're not going to pay much more than Silver price for a one ounce round, and you know, as opposed to gold, if you buy a $50 piece of gold, you're probably going to pay, you know, where's my, where's my, yeah, it's tiny.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's tiny. Exactly. And you know, that's just better for barter for, you know, smaller amounts to be, to be sold.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So when we buy gold and Silver, like there's the Mercury dime, like, so the idea of the, with a Mercury dime is that. It's widely recognizable. I can hand that to you. You know exactly what that is. I know what that is. Anyone who understands what a constitutional or junk Silver is knows what it is. So it becomes a medium of exchange because we have trust in this piece of metal.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Why do we like dollars right now? Because we have trust that it's worth something. But as soon as that trust is eroded, like we're seeing right now, then people start to look at different types of fiat. Right. Or they go back to gold, they go back to Silver, they go back to Bitcoin, whatever the choice is.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: The beauty of holding like an American coin is that it's more widely recognizable, right? Versus that Australian Cougaran, which is like, I think that's gold. Right. But I'm more likely to get duped.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, that's the problem, right? I mean, you kind of have to know what you're doing.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: For me, it matters that it's real. I mean, the chances that we're going to go back to barter.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Say this loud, Jason, because we hear this from clients all the time. The chances we go back to barter are pretty slim, right?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I personally don't think it's, it's highly unlike, you may do a transaction here or there and trade somebody for gold. I remember in 2011 when the price spiked, there were people, I, that was Craigslist was a big thing back then. I was always on Craigslist, right? Yeah. And I remember people selling their house saying like, I'll sell you my house for gold.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I remember seeing all that. And I have a friend of mine that owned a store at that time. It was probably 2009 ish. He actually bought a house with gold in 2009. So, yes. And, so yeah, there are people that might do something like that, but 99% of us are probably never going to do that.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And, why though, like why, why would the government give this up or why wouldn't they give this up?

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Well, they probably are not going to give it up. It's just, as it loses more and more value, you know, you may not want to hold it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, so that's, and that's the thing too. It's like, you know, you, you may want to hold, you know, have some walking around money in gold and Silver, but you know, you want to buy something today, you go sell a little bit.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You know, the spreads are very low, so, you don't lose a lot by doing it that way. And you generally, the price goes up more than the spread would have been anyway. So, you know, and having Silver, you can do smaller amounts.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So this is nickel. These are all junk, basically. You said that's got 10% Silver in it, right? So what I'm demonstrating here is like, in order to go back to barter, we all have to then understand all these new rules to the game.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: Most people are just not going to know. And they don't really know even when they hold something, if it's even real. Because I mean, I literally see fakes at least a couple of times a week. People have fake coins.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: People that don't know it's fake are people trying to pull one over and you don't know.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: You don't judge. No, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I had, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it happens a lot. There's a lot more fakes out there than you'd think, but, and people have been duped.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But yeah, it's, I've never seen a fake that was that good that I was like, wow. Usually I know pretty right away that it's, it's probably not good.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah. So I think that's an interesting, like, as we go through this. Perhaps a fiat transition, perhaps not. I don't know. Are we going to print 70 trillion? Are we going to stop at 40 trillion? Who knows? But as we go through this fiat transition, the question comes, what's next?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Right. And I've been analyzing it, looked at this and said, you know, it makes sense to have some understanding and utility in gold and Silver, whether you're a gold bug or Silver bug, like having knowledge of it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So you know how to deal with having knowledge of different crypto, having knowledge of how the dollar works. All those things give you, we had a client yesterday asked me, he said, well, how much work do you guys help us in the black swan event? Like, how do you know we're going to make it through the black swan event?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And like, I don't know, any of us are, but you're more likely to the black swan event is, is that thing that comes out of nowhere and hits us. And all of a sudden the dollar is worth nothing. And we're in This Armageddon Event and we're trading Mercury dimes for.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Bread and like that's that would be a black swan moment like the armageddon moment to survive and a lot of clients will go to the worst case scenario they'll go right there to like oh i gotta have gold and Silver because the world's ending i gotta have it and that's probably not going to happen what's more likely to happen is this fiat transition where something will come online it will slowly transition why and this is what i ask all our clients to absolutely think about Do the rich want to stay rich?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: And if you can wake up in the morning and say the rich want to stay rich, gold's going to stay worth something. Stocks are going to stay worth something. And the dollar is going to hang on as long as it possibly can, because we'll just keep getting bigger guns to make sure it does.

DANO WEIR: Well, Darren, how do we've obviously spent a whole double episode talking about this.

DANO WEIR: We gold ETF is a part of some portfolios. It is something that we advise on. So through all this conversation, whether it's physical or whether it's an ETF or whether it's even gold mining stocks or something like that, how do we as a firm in general, every case is unique, but in general, how do you how do you see it? How do we see it as a firm?

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: We go back over and over. Diversify, diversify, diversify. Go see people like Jason. Talk to them. Have some of that physicality, gold, physical Silver.

DANO WEIR: Especially if it makes you feel a certain way. Yeah, if it's worth it.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, like I think it can be a great thing for people. But we also think that you should own some of everything, right? Like we believe in diversification, broad exposure to all these different asset classes. Because at the end of the day, we spend our life studying these things and we don't know. Nobody knows. And anyone who says they know they're lying.

DANO WEIR: What about among just anecdotally, because this is I think it's in my experience, I haven't seen a lot of advisors talking about this issue. So among financial advisors, you know what? There is a certain some people still have their nose up about crypto. Is there something similar about gold? Yeah, I see that a lot of advisors are wise to it or no.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: No, I think so. So in the broker world, like we're not big fans of brokers around here, right? So we're RIAs, independent investment advisors for our clients. So we only act in their best interest. The brokers are selling product. The broker world actually has a rule called selling away.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So if a client came to a broker and said, go see Jason about buying gold, he could be basically kicked out of the industry for doing that. That's called selling away. He can't actually say, go buy Bitcoin, go buy physical gold. That's selling away. That is not allowed in the broker.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So they've created a rule to stop advisors from advising people to hold physical gold, which in Silver, which to me is asinine and why anyone would ever work with a broker, given that knowledge base that they are like constricted on what they can advise you to do is crazy to me, but nonetheless, lots of people do.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: So, in our world, in an independent advisor space where we act only in the best interest of the client, Yeah, you should own some Silver.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You should own some gold, some physical stuff that if that one-off possible Armageddon event happens or that black swan hits us like a Mack truck, you got something to use, right? But if you're really into it and you want to buy lots and more, then I think there's a lot of value in that, right? And clearly it's done pretty well.

DANO WEIR: I was going to say, could you imagine your advisor saying, no, don't take any part of this? Or the other huge, massive candlestick for gold. I don't know. You don't want any of that. You want some of this mutual fund on my company shelf.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: You say that in jest, Dan, but the truth of the matter is they do it every single day. I know. Every single day. I'm not saying it in jest.

DANO WEIR: I mean, I'm saying it with a bit of a smirk, but I mean, that's really literally what they're saying.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Yeah, exactly.

DANO WEIR: Which is interesting. So you're talking about a fiduciary duty, of course, as an RAA. Jason, I love this. I grabbed this from your website, so I'm going to quote you. Okay, you ready? This is on Jason's website, which is NapaGoldAndSilver. Com.

DANO WEIR: Quote, I believe finding a good coin, gold, and Silver dealer is a lot like finding a good mechanic. If you find one that is fair with you and treats you right, you stick with them forever. That's exactly what I intend to do for my customers.

DANO WEIR: Why is that important to you, and what do you feel your duty is as a gold dealer? To your customer.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I mean, I grew up in Napa. I've been here almost my entire life. And most of my business is like either somebody I knew or one of their neighbors or one of their friends. We're like one person away from knowing each other already anyway. So for me, this is a lot more than just making money.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: It's a means to be able to feed my family and support my family. But, ultimately money is important, but it's not everything. And, so relationships to me are more important. So I, you know, I, it works for everybody.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I think people need somebody that's going to be fair with them, obviously, but they, I just, I just want to be able to, stand before a God one day and say, have him say, well, done good and faithful servant so that's my goal more than the money are there deals that you've passed on and there's the people who come into your office and they put something on your desk and you either could have taken a particular road or you just said no i'm not going to do this yeah yeah every day right it's not every day but i mean there's just there's been some reasons oh yeah well you know when you do the same thing so much, you tend to get a good eye for things.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: And definitely there's been people that have come in with items that just don't seem right. And I just say, yeah, it's probably not for me. Move on to the next one.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: But thank you. I'm, I'm in a pretty good area though. So that stuff doesn't really happen that much.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: I have other friends of mine that have, you know, in Sacramento and Stockton and other places that. Shocker. That stuff happens like all the time for, for me, I'm, I'm pretty insulated from that, but yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: There's deals that have turned down. Sure.

DANO WEIR: Yeah. Should we leave it there? I think we should. Yeah.

JASON BOWMAN - NAPA GOLD AND SILVER: That's a lot.

DANO WEIR: That's a lot.

DANO WEIR: The looking at the meteoric rise of gold today on both from an ounce from a price standpoint, whether it's the ETF, whether it's what's coming across your desk at your shop.

DANO WEIR: It's definitely been an interesting past five years with an asset that doesn't have a huge media machine behind it so we wanted to take a chance today and try to demystify a little bit about what's going on in the space talk to someone who deals with it every day, talk to someone who's got passion for it. And we hope you really enjoyed it. Jason Bowman is his name, is the owner of Napa Gold And Silver.

DANO WEIR: NapaGoldAndSilver. Com is the website. It is linked up in the show notes. And thank you so much for checking out the episode today for educational purposes only. We hope you found it educational and perhaps give you a new perspective on something you may not have thought about recently.

DANO WEIR: Wherever you're listening or wherever you're watching, make sure to subscribe. That is a great way to help the show. If you want to learn about how we help our clients, we're at Sonoma Wealth.com. You can take our free wealth analysis and we'll see you next episode. Thanks.

DAREN BLONSKI CFP®: Take care.

DANO WEIR: Thanks for watching and listening to It's All Money. We hope today's episode shared information to increase your financial confidence. Now is the time in the show for the voiceover with a bunch of words at the end. Listen close though. You might find out something you didn't know.

DANO WEIR: It's All Money is powered by Sonoma Wealth Advisors. Sonoma Wealth Advisors helps individuals and families in Northern California and across the country with building, managing, and sustaining wealth. Sonoma Wealth is a comprehensive, holistic finance solution offering financial planning, asset management, tax planning, 401k solutions, and appropriate insurance.

DANO WEIR: Take our free wealth analysis now at sonomowealth.com. If you haven't already, like and subscribe to It's All Money on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. It's All Money features human hosts, musicians, editors, video crew, and voiceover talent.

DANO WEIR: Video production by Forz Media in Roanoke Park, California. Online at forzmedia.com. Music by Neon Beach, Sparkle Rising on Soundstripe. Voiceover by me, Dano. Thank you for listening to the very end. We appreciate diligent viewers and listeners.

DANO WEIR: Fermata Advisors LLC is registered as an investment advisor with the SEC and only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. This content was produced by Fermata Advisors LLC, DBA Sinema Wealth Advisors, DBA Fermata 401K, DBA Fermata Tax.

DANO WEIR: The opinions expressed by Fermata Advisors LLC on this show are their own. Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed.

DANO WEIR: Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but are limited to the dissemination of general information. A professional advisor should be consulted before implementing any of the options presented. Information presented is for educational purposes only.

DANO WEIR: And does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual.

DANO WEIR: Viewers and listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.