I hold physical gold, silver, and other precious metals.
A few years ago, I decided that I needed a collecting hobby of some type to make it easier for friends/family to buy a gift for me. Otherwise, I am stuck with random items I do not want and they insist on giving me something. So I chose coin collecting. Coins are easy to transport, they build wealth, relatively easy to liquidate, and vary in value for any gift giving occasion.
The next step up from there was bullion. My degree is in Materials Engineering, so I have a good understanding of engineering uses of materials. Because of that, I see the value of Palladium, Platinum, Silver, Gold, Rare Earths, etc. as a commodity/non-renewable resource whereas most people look at the materials in terms of "stored value" or "traditional money".
I am long on physical metals. I am not a big fan of buying electronic gold or ETF's with management fee's etc. You can find near spot on Ebay for all precious metals at times. You can find below melt value on sterling silver on Ebay, Craigslist, Rummage Sales, etc. a decent chunk of the time. In fact, my best 'value' buy was an entire drawer of silverware at an estate sale for $3. The melt value of the silver pieces (which were buried amongst the silverplated pieces) was around $90.
The reason I am long is 3 fold:
1) Most common reason: people cherish gold for historic, intrinsic, artistic, numismatic value. This could make it a collectors item.
2) The supply of precious metals is limited and the usage (with the exception of silver in photography) is expanding. Satellites require gold components. Space ships require gold components. Submarines require platinum components. Many modern and growing technologies consume a little bit of precious metals. As big ticket items grow in the future, demand should rise. So it is my belief that technology will continue to grow in our lifetime and the next and the next. Space mining is not feasible within our lifetime at current projections and definitely not within the next 15 years.
3) The future. Earth is expecting 10 billion people by 2050. In 30 years, there will be 3 billion more people. These people will have interests per reason (1) (this is also why I like land away from a coast/sea level rise) and demand more technology. Right now, there is virtually one cell phone per person on this planet (and only around 2-3 billion estimated phone users). Most people get a new phone within 2 years and very few actually recycle the old phones. It is estimated that one cell phone contains around 0.001 ounces of gold (plus additional metals). There is less than 1 ounce of gold for every person mined in human history (around 6billion total ounces). Just one cell phone with current technological consumption for the additional 3 billion people would result in 3million more ounces of demand. If recycling doesn't occur, then every two years, 10 billion people will need 10 million more ounces of gold that has a finite supply.
And that is just one of the dozens of products this applies to for only one of the precious metals. Nations are building more submarines, private ventures are building more satellites and space ships, more and more solar systems use some type of precious metal (to include silver paste), gold is used in beauty projects, virtually all advanced electronics, jewelry, some glass on high rise buildings, in paintings/rugs/artistic work and dozens of other uses beyond its "financial status".
In short, I am long on precious metals due to basic economic conditions of supply and demand.
