By James Lomuscio
They came to Sam Sloat Coins, Inc. in Westport Tuesday to cash in on record gold prices in uncertain times.
Busy times for Westport retailer. Contributed photo
With everything from $20 gold pieces to silver Morgan dollars to Franklin halves with a few Indian head cents thrown in to silverware, serving trays and jewelry, they lined up inside 606 Post Road East. Here they seemed confident of making better trades with precious metals than Wall Street had over the past few days.
As the stock market gyrated up, down, and up with the trading day ending with a more than 400-point bounce in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the line at Sam Sloat remained steady. Co-owner Bob Walter did not catch his breath until the day ended at 5 p.m.
“We have a lot of people selling silver and gold because they’re taking advantage of really high prices,” said Walter.
On Tuesday, gold closed at $1,743.50, per ounce, its highest price ever. Silver, which had flirted with $50 in late April, was $38.01.
In addition to selling, Walter said many people routinely come into buy gold “because they need a safe place to put their money.
“It’s been busy and steady here for the past couple of years,” he said about transactions at the 50-year-old Westport businesses. “But the past couple of weeks with the debt ceiling and with the bond rating drop, it has been very heavy. It’s because when people don’t know what to do, they historically turn to gold.”
In the process, a lot of “numismatic value has fallen to the wayside” as the emphasis has been on bullion.
“And the casual collector hasn’t been buying for the past couple of years,” Walter said.
The same can be said of the shop’s baseball memorabilia business, as customers have focused on gold and silver, a frenzy Walter says he has not seen since late 1979 and early 1980 when there was a perfect storm of inflation, spiking interests rates and the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market.
“But in order for gold to match where it was in those days (upwards of $800), it will have to get to $2,400,” he said. “I hope not because our country will be in dire financial straits then. It will be bad times.”
Gold prices rising, he said, “is just a reflection of a lack of faith in the U.S. dollar.”
“In 1911, I could walk into a men’s store and put down a $10 gold piece and walk out with a nice set of clothes,” he said.
“Today, I could put down the same $10 gold piece and walk out with a nice set of clothes worth about $900. The coin hasn’t changed, and the value of the suit hasn’t changed. Gold just measures the value of your dollar.
“That’s pretty simplistic, but it’s petty accurate,” he added.
Asked if clothier Mitchell’s of Westport might go for the gold coin idea, Walter chuckled.
