GOLD

[ER]

OK, so we've established gold and former German currency are worthless, so if anyone wants to get rid of theirs, I will take it off your hands and not charge you anything. 

[lester1/2jr]

https://fxopen.com/blog/en/top-10-worlds-most-worthless-currencies/

3. Vietnamese Dong (VND)

1 USD = 23,255 VND

The economy of Vietnam is still recovering from the wars, and the transition from a centralised to a market economy has greatly affected the country and its activities. Investors are still very cautious about investing in the country, which restrains the value of Vietnam’s national currency.

After the reunification of Vietnam in 1976, the government faced many challenges. In two years, a new monetary reform was carried out, and the Northern dong and the dong of South Vietnam were merged. Due to the increase in inflation in 1987-1991, new banknotes of 20,000 and 50,000 dongs were printed, and in 1994, a 100,000 VND banknote appeared.

The currency pair rate reached the highest rate of 23,679.375 in 2022, compared to a record low of 0.976 reached in 1983.

[ER]

I think America used to have several different bills...

Yes, states would, in defiance of the US Treasury, issue their own money for many years. (Not the Confederate states, I mean earlier on in the history of the nation.)

Years ago I went to an estate sale in Florence, Kentucky and found a book I hope I still have somewhere, called A History of Boone County, Kentucky, by Professor A.M. Yealey, and he said when Kentucky was the frontier, only dollar coins reached the interior there, no lesser denominations, so when people needed to make change, they'd chop a silver dollar into four parts, and that was how you arrived at a quarter-dollar. Ten cents was done by splitting a dollar into ten parts, etc.

Man, I need to go find that book, it was a real find filled with obscure facts about the region from the 1700s and 1800s.

[Alex]

Alex- ahh but the new currency is new because it is now backed by gold!! so we're back where we started

I mean an ounce of gold today is only worth what, $500 more than it was 4 years ago?

oil is worth more or less the same as it was 4 years ago / pre covid.  gold is commodity not a stock

it's something you would have in place of cash not like owning Tesla or something

it's not any kind of great investment it's just crazy that it's going up again. or slightly interesting or not at all depending on your perspective

You don't need to change your currency to have it backed by something different. I think its a different currency because the previous one was so little trusted. I wouldn't agree with you that we were back to the start simply because all I did was answer your question to choose between gold or the Zimbabwean currency. Had you offered a choice not connected to gold (just for the sake of argument, Scots whiskey caskets) and I'd chosen gold or the currency then you would have had a point there, but not in a closed-loop argument like that.

As someone who has previously dabbled in a very minor way in the currency markets (as well as stock markets, futures etc), and made some money out of it (fifteen years of investments paid for a two-month-long holiday with enough left over for new computers and laptops, so a nice amount but hardly enough to live off), I do find it interesting and I've been watching how countries have been semi returning to the gold standard, but not fully.

As a couple of side notes did you know the gold standard was started by accident? Also when we used it, you could take a banknote to any employee of the Bank of England and they'd have to give you its value in gold (banknotes in the UK aren't actually legal tender, they are just promissory notes. Only coins are. It is written on notes "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of..., whereas I believe American bank notes do have something written on them proclaiming them to be legal tender). Anyway, I digress there.

[lester1/2jr]

As a couple of side notes did you know the gold standard was started by accident? Also when we used it, you could take a banknote to any employee of the Bank of England and they'd have to give you its value in gold (banknotes in the UK aren't actually legal tender, they are just promissory notes. Only coins are. It is written on notes "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of..., whereas I believe American bank notes do have something written on them proclaiming them to be legal tender)

and that's bad? that's more like how it should be. trust but verify

[Alex]

As a couple of side notes did you know the gold standard was started by accident? Also when we used it, you could take a banknote to any employee of the Bank of England and they'd have to give you its value in gold (banknotes in the UK aren't actually legal tender, they are just promissory notes. Only coins are. It is written on notes "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of..., whereas I believe American bank notes do have something written on them proclaiming them to be legal tender)

and that's bad? that's more like how it should be. trust but verify

Didn't say it was bad or good. Just mentioned it.

[zombie no.one]

you could take a banknote to any employee of the Bank of England and they'd have to give you its value in gold (banknotes in the UK aren't actually legal tender, they are just promissory notes. Only coins are.

think because the currency is 'Sterling' as in Sterling Silver it might have been silver not gold?

also I just checked and confusingly banknotes are legal tender in England and Wales but not Scotland or N Ireland apparently.

[Alex]

you could take a banknote to any employee of the Bank of England and they'd have to give you its value in gold (banknotes in the UK aren't actually legal tender, they are just promissory notes. Only coins are.

think because the currency is 'Sterling' as in Sterling Silver it might have been silver not gold?

also I just checked and confusingly banknotes are legal tender in England and Wales but not Scotland or N Ireland apparently.

From the House of Lords library:

This meant that any holder of banknotes issued by the Bank of England could present the note at the Bank and demand immediate payment in bullion at a fixed conversion rate. Under this regime, the Bank set interest rates to ensure that sufficient gold was attracted to London to maintain convertibility.

[zombie no.one]

fair enough... wonder if anyone ever demanded 1p worth of gold. just to test the theory out

[Alex]

If there has ever been a 1p note then they could have.

[zombie no.one]

[lester1/2jr]

^ it's still going up

[LilCerberus]

Right wing joke that come around every few years that goes, "Don't buy gold, buy ammo."