Coins are latest merchandise launch by Republican, who raised a third of the amount brought in by Harris in August
  • NateNate60@lemmy.world
    23·
    9 hours ago

    I saw these being talked about on r/silverbugs, Reddit’s silver-collecting community. There is definitely a higher-than-usual concentration of Trump supporters there and even they were lambasting it for being a dumb thing to buy.

    The thing is, these can’t even legally be called “coins”. A coin is only called that if it’s made with sanction from the state. Privately-made coin-like objects are “rounds”. Silver rounds are pretty common and are basically all worth melt value. I have no doubt these “commemorative coins rounds” will meet their end five or ten years from now in someone’s backyard kiln who will unceremoniously melt them down and cast them into some nice jewellery or a silver figurine.

    Edit: I actually have some Trump design silver rounds. Not official Trump products, of course (or maybe they are, IDK). They are very common and worth nothing more than melt value. I paid melt value of these two. I traded one of them to my former roommate who’s a Trump supporter for a cod.

    Definitely going to keep the “never surrender” round that has his mugshot that they took after he surrendered though.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      261·
      7 hours ago

      It’s not money laundering to sell dumb shit to idiots, like coins to magas, or bathwater to thirsty teenagers, or dogecoin to me

      • nemonic187@lemmy.world
        61·
        3 hours ago

        It is if someone from outside the US, who can’t legally donate to Trump’s campaign, buys 100 of these.

      • rbn@sopuli.xyz
        22·
        10 hours ago

        I have no clue if there’s indeed any proof for such a claim, but the theory that I read elsewhere is that it’s a way to obfuscate money flows.

        If a foreign nation (Russia, China, North Korea, whoever) would like to engage in the election, they can’t just donate to the campaign officially. But instead, they could buy a couple thousands of these coins in smaller transactions.

        TBH I’m rather with you. I think the majority of these coins is just bought by some MAGAs. For foreign nations there’d be probably more efficient ways to transfer money like shares etc.

      • nemonic187@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 hours ago

        Foreign investor buy dozens of these coins. People that probably shouldn’t be “donating” to American politicians cuz they want something in return.

        • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
          3·
          3 hours ago

          Ah, I don’t think this is money laundering. Most politicians do this but with books. I guess a book was too much work for old don.

    • Irremarkable@fedia.io
      8·
      12 hours ago

      To be completely fair, this is the sort of thing he’s done for forever now. A significant portion of his wealth comes from simply licensing the Trump name

  • BlueÆther@no.lastname.nz
    71·
    11 hours ago

    If I could get one for the actual price of silver (~31 USD/oz) I think I might just get one - for the “remember this dipshit?”

    • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
      6·
      9 hours ago

      Check a local coin dealer/show.

      Silver ounce rounds come in infinitely many designs, and there are a lot of right-wingers in those interest groups.

      I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them done up with his ugly maw on. I think sometines as copper too.

  • Mister_Feeny@fedia.io
    6·
    11 hours ago

    “1oz .999% silver medallions”

    So the coins weigh 1 oz, and are, for all intents and purposes, 1% silver? According to a quick google, silver is worth $31.07 an ounce today. So these coins have 3.1 cents worth of silver in them.
    And he’s selling them for $100 each.

    Or is the decimal used differently here because the Guardian is British and in this context it means 99.9%?
    In that case it’s $31 worth of silver sold for $100, but that seems a downright generous investment when it comes to Trump merchandise, so I’m still guessing it’s 3 cents worth of silver.

      • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 hours ago

        Except, the article has it in quotes:

        “1oz .999% silver medallions”

        Which suggests to me they are quoting the announcement.

        Given the nature of the person selling them, it would be safer to assume they want you to believe the percent sign is misplaced so that you buy it, but then when you realize it’s less than 1% silver you can’t get your money back.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    4·
    12 hours ago

    Why does he think I would buy a $90 coin? I mean, who in their right mind needs a $70 coin? I’m definitely not buying an $8 coin.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      There is a reasonably large silver community who prefers physical coin or rounds rather than certificates, shares or other more virtual/abstract forms of wealth.

      There is a visceral and instinctive feeling when the value is purely in your hands and you can feel it.

      Still, silver collectors/traders don’t give a shit about the design. Commemorative coins are fine if they are roughly the melt value (paying a few % over melt value is common MSRP) but anything beyond that is fully bullshit.

      Official silver coins (American Eagle) have government guarantees on the purity of silver, size of the coin, and other attributes. So those are far easier in practice. But silver rounds or bullion are still common.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
      9·
      9 hours ago

      Trump designs are a dime-a-dozen in silver rounds. I’ve come across at least two just from buying random amounts of them in bulk from billion dealers.

      They are sold to suckers for way too much money and then are sold back to bullion dealers for a dollar fifty under their melt value so that the sucker in question can make the interest payment on their Ford F150. They eventually meet a gnarly end in someone’s furnace after a few years and are cast into some actually desirable silver jewellery or silver bars.

    • aramis87@fedia.io
      1·
      10 hours ago

      He doesn’t. His base might, depends how much they have left. The people who definitely will are the Russians, Chinese and Saudis.