Fun on Friday: Back to the Beginning

Confession time — I couldn’t find a darn thing “fun” relating to gold this week.

Honestly, it wasn’t exactly a fun week to begin with unless you’re into political theater. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not.  We certainly had all the political theater we could ever want with the inauguration and all. About the only thing I can say about that is it reminded me of the Hunger Games movies, especially Lady Gaga singing the national anthem decked out with that massive gold dove broach.

Come to think of it, Gaga’s broach was gold. I could talk about that. But it wasn’t really fun. So, I’m going to pass.

I’ve been doing Fun on Friday columns now for over three-and-a-half years – pretty much every single Friday – so I guess at some point it was inevitable that I would wake up one Friday morning and think, “Dang, I don’t have anything for Fun on Friday this week.”

Today was that day.

I tried. I did the old Google search. I have several staple topics that almost always yield ideas — gold scams, gold smuggling, gold-covered food and dumb politicians. (Obviously, they aren’t gold, but most of their inane policies are good for gold, so there is a connection.) I’ve also written about gold and silver trophies, holidays, economic ignorance, and general societal inanity.

This week – I got nothing.

So, as I was sitting here contemplating what to write, I started wondering how I started this series in the first place. I honestly couldn’t remember. So, I dug back in the archives and found the very first Fun on Friday post. It was published on June 30, 2017.

After reading it, I still have no idea what prompted me to do Fun on Friday.

But it was kind of fun looking back at the first incarnation of this series.

The funny thing is that original fun on Friday wasn’t even about gold. It was about silver – silver paperclips to be precise.

So, being the dedicated public servant I am, fulfilling my commitment to entertaining you each and every Friday and feeling guilty leaving this Fun on Friday at a mere 373 words – I give you the very first Fun on Friday in all it’s glory!

You can buy a box of 100 paper clips at Staples for $2.29.

Or you could buy a single paper clip from Prada for $185.

Now, why in the world would anybody plop down than much money for a paper clip?

Because it is made of sterling silver, and it has Prada engraved into it.

The “paper clip shaped” money clip measures 6.25 centimeters long and 2.25 centimeters wide. It pretty much looks like a standard paper clip, other than the Prada brand-name engraved on the left side.

Unsurprisingly, the world of social media heaped scorn on the pricey paper clip. One Twitter user declared, “$185 for a paperclip? This thing better be able to hold my life together.”

Lindsay tweeted, “Sorry my resume is on notebook paper, but it was all I could afford after buying a Prada paper clip to hold it together.”

And Brown Suga lamented, “By the time I buy the paperclip, there won’t be enough for it to hold ”

Most people probably agree that $185 is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a paper clip, although apparently, not everybody thinks so. At one point, the paper clip was sold out at Barney’s New York. The company has since removed the Prada clip from its site and replaced it with its own generic version. The Barney’s silver paperclip will only set you back $150. But alas, you don’t get the Prada branding.

This paper clip lunacy actually reveals an important reality – the inherent value of silver.

Think about it. Would Prada be able to demand $185 for a plain old metal paper clip – even with its label emblazoned on it? Would Barney’s be able to get $150 for a standard paper clip with no branding on it at all? Of course not. The paper clip has value because of the metal. Silver is inherently valuable.

Of course, buying a Prada paper clip is probably not the best way to invest in the white metal. Nevertheless, there are excellent reasons to buy silver. It is both a monetary and industrial metal. Like gold, silver provides an excellent hedge against inflation. It also can be extremely valuable during a monetary crisis because it is easy to barter using silver. You can learn all about the amazing properties and potential of the white metal in Peter Schiff’s free report, The Powerful Case for Silver.

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature. We dig up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Click here to read other posts in this series.

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