How Do You Keep Track Of Your Gold/Silver Holdings

[uncletonoose]

I am a newbie, and have purchased gold and silver for the last couple of months, and wondering how other members keep track of their purchases, and values. Excel spread sheet? Or any other financial program?

[Bigjon]

I have made a couple of starts at programing excel, but bogged down and lost interest.

I use http://www.stockhouse.com/ to keep track of my stocks. I just use the free service, although they do have a pretty good paid service. I just don't trade as much after the crash in 2008. I made the mistake of sitting on the sidelines in November 2008, when I should have re-entered the market. I kind of got burned out, as it takes a lot of work to keep up with all the miner's and haven't got up the gumption to read all those mine reports.

[horseshoe3]

I don't worry about it much. From time to time, I'll count a portion of my stash and write it down on paper AND KEEP THE PAPER WITH THE STASH. I don't want lists of PMs laying around giving people a hint of what to look for.

[joe_momma]

I suspect most board members do not maintain a purchase/sale sheet - mostly because they tend to fall into two categories

1) Those who'll never sell
2) Those who've lost their stashes in a series of boating accidents.

(Personally, I have a hand written log stuffed in with stash.)

[Bigjon]

I don't worry about it much. From time to time, I'll count a portion of my stash and write it down on paper AND KEEP THE PAPER WITH THE STASH. I don't want lists of PMs laying around giving people a hint of what to look for.


What stash, I had a boating accident and lost it all.

edit;
I see Joe has it covered...

[k-os]

I use an excel spreadsheet. I list the days and spot price of my purchases, number of ounces, and add it all up. Then I plug in the current spot price every now and then - maybe once a month or so, to see the current value of my stash.

It took me 15 minutes to set up, and it took about 10 times using it, to perfect it.

I also have a spreadsheet for my preps. It helps with rotation, and to remind me of areas that I am deficient.

I just realized that I don't have a spreadsheet for ammo. I think I should do that too.

[Bigjon]

seriously I can't see selling my stash, as it is for the end of the world, or until we get a stable system with some sort of sense to it.

Like who is going to pay capital gains using toilet paper as a yardstick?

@k-os
with excel you can put in url's and track the live market prices... no?

[k-os]

seriously I can't see selling my stash, as it is for the end of the world, or until we get a stable system with some sort of sense to it.

Like who is going to pay capital gains using toilet paper as a yardstick?

@k-os
with excel you can put in url's and track the live market prices... no?


I am not sure. Perhaps. The last time I used Excel on a regular basis was in the mid 1990's so, I am sure I am not up to date on it's capabilities. I am fine with just plugging in two numbers (spot silver / spot gold) whenever I feel like it.

I am not selling (or buying for that matter) at this point, so . . . I am not too invested (punny) in the daily price.

[Book]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MyQfJ-YCE-E/Sy8oyCHTl1I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/XGHT8yBTGZI/s400/gold-bars1.gif

Tim in the storage room gives me an updated spreadsheet once a month. I'll ask him what software he uses after he comes back from lunch.

[1970 silver art]

I have a spreadsheet that I use to track my silver art bar purchases. I keep up with the purchase price, name of the silver art bar, when I bought it, where I bought, and the premium that I paid for it. I also keep track of my cost basis on the spreadsheet. It helps me a lot because it helps me know what I have in my collection.

There was a time that I did not keep track of what I had and what ended up happening was that I bought a bunch of duplicate art bars that I ended up selling them locally because I did not want them. There were, however, certain silver art bars I liked so much that I bought 1 (or 2) bars of the same type for either a very low premium over spot or at spot.

[SLV^GLD]

Spot prices can be loaded from URLs in Excel (see Help->External Data). Kitco is a good one although they occasionally change the page format and you have to point your cell references to a different cell on the linked worksheet.

That said, I keep tabs on my holdings with a depth sounder.

[sirgonzo420]

Spot prices can be loaded from URLs in Excel (see Help->External Data). Kitco is a good one although they occasionally change the page format and you have to point your cell references to a different cell on the linked worksheet.

That said, I keep tabs on my holdings with a depth sounder.


I've been wondering about this capability.

The other day I tinkered with my worksheet to show my stash "value" in various currencies (Euro, Pounds, Zimbabwe$ :D, etc), but I have to input the values manually as I wasn't sure if excel could grab data from a URL or not.

Now I might have to tinker some more.

:)

[Trinity]

The amount of soil that is displaced.

[97guns]

bullion tracker from northwest territorial mint


http://bullion.nwtmint.com/mybulliontracker.php

[SLV^GLD]

Kitco is a good one although they occasionally change the page format and you have to point your cell references to a different cell on the linked worksheet.
To accomplish a worksheet update for formulas that contain cell references that must be changed press CTRL-~ (tilde) to show formulas then do a find and replace where you find the offending cell reference and replace with the new reference. CTRL-~ again to revert back to formula results display and you're off and running again.

[madfranks]

A few years ago I put together a junk silver value calculator that tracks the following silver coins: Dimes, quarters, halves (both 40% and 90%), dollars (40% and 90%), and even silver war nickels! You enter in the amount of each coin you have, add a wear factor depending on your estimate of how worn your coins are, add the spot price of silver and it gives you the total dollar value of your coins and the weight in troy ounces. It's an xcel spreadsheet, and I've attached it to this post. Download the file, change the extension from .txt to .xls and there you have it!

[bellevuebully]

Directly proportional to the width of my grin. ;D These days, the grin is wide indeed.

[gunDriller]

i have a gold pinkie ring on my left hand.

is it still there - CHECK.

did the stone (blue star sapphire) fall out - NOPE.

taking inventory is easy. ;D

[palani]

I keep it in my wallet. $5. Minted 1878. The only cash I carry to keep from vagrancy charges.

[SilverMagnet]

I have a Pet Fish that travels to the bottom of the lake to take inventory.

[Silver Rocket Bitches!]

Here's a quick tutorial for anyone who wants to add the daily spot price into their Excel spreadsheet. This applies to Excel 2007:

1. Click on cell and select Data -> From Web.

2. In the address bar, enter a url for a page that contains the spot price and click Go. I use http://bullion.nwtmint.com due to the low overhead on the page though Kitco and any other page works as well.

3. Once the page loads in the window, click on the arrow that points to the table containing the spot prices then click Import.

4. The data now loads in your Excel spreadsheet. To update, right click on the original cell and select Refresh.


Hope someone finds use for this.

[osprey]

I suspect most board members do not maintain a purchase/sale sheet - mostly because they tend to fall into two categories

1) Those who'll never sell
2) Those who've lost their stashes in a series of boating accidents.



This!
Darn leaky boat. :-[

[Trinity]

I suspect most board members do not maintain a purchase/sale sheet - mostly because they tend to fall into two categories

1) Those who'll never sell
2) Those who've lost their stashes in a series of boating accidents.

(Personally, I have a hand written log stuffed in with stash.)


You forgot the third category.

3) Those who are going to throw it out because all they wanted was to be right.

[milehi]

I use triangulation. Lighthouse, harbor and, well, something else.

[solid]

I use triangulation. Lighthouse, harbor and, well, something else.


I second triangulation, it is the best way. GPS coordinates aren't entirely accurate. Also, keep track of the water depth and tidal information. Like Capt Ron would say..."yeah, the tides. They can either work for ya, or against ya."

[SLV^GLD]

I heard a neat method of connecting a string to 2 distant fixed objects and then again to 2 more distant fixed objects. Where the strings cross is the spot.