Precious metals

[basuragomi]

The LLM refused to give hard numbers, so we can do some math. An adult male can generate about 10 kPa of pressure from resting tone in their sphincter. If this solid gold buttplug has about a 1 cm shaft passing through the sphincter (thinner means less retaining force, butt gold is pretty soft), then that equals about 17 kPa in radial hoop stress (sphincter muscles are about 3mm thick, but they're probably thicker with resting tone).

If we assume the sphincter acts as a pulley, redirecting radial force upwards, then over a typical 30mm long sphincter that's about 17N of retaining force. 17N of gold is about 1730g (or just about 90 ml of gold, coincidentally the same functional capacity of a male rectum), or about 56 troy ounces, which is currently about US$165,000. A lot of value, but not really enough to fund one JAFI. Experimental validation is left as an exercise for the reader.

Interestingly, it seems that despite the density you can carry pretty much as much gold in your butt as you can stuff in there, so any prospective buttplug makers can rest easy.

[mountainFrugal]

Gold has the added bonus of being soft enough to etch your 256 byte crypto cold wallet key into. WOG of WOGs and all that.

[7Wannabe5]

Luckily, those of of capable of giving birth to 9 lb infants who have kept up with our Kegel exercises have better options.

[chenda]

Luckily, those of of capable of giving birth to 9 lb infants who have kept up with our Kegel exercises have better options.

I have never given birth but I reckon I could conceivably front load an additional $40 000 or so.

[7Wannabe5]

Well, infant head is about size of softball, so 8.4 lbs. of gold! Although, some women have survived breech birth and conjoined twins, so maybe twice that with the application of some sutures and an adult diaper to deal with the pressure on the bladder. Also, a whole lot of morphine to inhibit the urge to push. So, worst case scenario, could maybe carry close to a half million, at risk of severely compromising future sex life.

[Jean]

@7w5
the limiting factor isn't the size but the weigth.

A big turd sized gold ingot would be worth close to a million, but you might risk to rupture tissues everytime you move.

[7Wannabe5]

@Jean:

Yes, I get that. Research reveals that set of two 2 inch diameter XL Geisha Yoni Ben Wa Balls weighs in at 24 oz total. So, that would likely reflect near maximum muscle retention capability absent my suggestion of sutures. Obviously, in terms of volume alone, vaginal tissue is evolved to stretch to at least accommodate large infant head. Generally, the pelvis structure is limiting factor, not the canal tissue. In terms of force resilience or tensile strength, I think human mouth cheeks would be fairly similar, and I think the vast majority of those who have had male partners would agree that vaginal canal can accommodate more volume and force than human mouth. So, in horizontal position, vaginal canal could likely accommodate more gold than you could fit in your mouth cheeks and hold in place with tongue. In vertical position, gravity might require sutures beyond 24 oz.

[chenda]

Diamonds might lend themselves more readily to such transportation methods. A man could conceivably keep a few under his foreskin, provided he didn't get excited during his exodus.

[7Wannabe5]

Yes, but very few men in the U.S. have intact foreskin.

[Henry]

Was this an independent research project or like a USA Today thing?

[AnalyticalEngine]

Figured I'd add my experience to this as I have been collecting silver coins lately as a hobby.

As @jacob mentioned in the beginning of the thread, transaction costs are going to eat much of any potential profit. Silver has a spot price that fluctuates with the market (it was $30 when I bought everything, now it's $35) and then dealers will tack a premium onto the spot price depending on how desirable the coin is. A generic silver round from a private mint might only cost $1 over spot, whereas the American Silver Eagle (standard coin to stack in America) will be anywhere between $3 to $4 over spot. Note that the premium can change with market demand too. American Silver Eagles were charging ~$8 or so over spot a few years ago before coming down.

When you go to sell, the dealer is probably going to offer you $3-$4 below spot (unless it's a desirable coin like the Silver Eagle, which you can usually sell for spot). This means you're losing $3-$6 as spread over the entire transaction. This is about 6%-8% for many silver coins. This means silver has to appreciate significantly to make up the loss. You're looking at needing silver to appreciate pretty much over 10% to make this worth it, and even then you probably could have invested that money in something else (like a paper silver ETF or what have you) and made more money.

Now one reason people like silver in the US is that many coins minted before 1965 are 90% silver. So you can buy bags of dimes/quarters/half dollars minted before 1965 and collect silver that way. In my experience, transaction fees are even worse for this type of silver because of the coin age and the demand. You can also buy special dimes/quarters/half dollars minted later that are 90% silver, but it's only for special proofs. (Like you can get the state quarter series in silver and it costs about the same as the pre-1965 silver coins)

I've seen some people stick to buying generic silver rounds only, as these have the lowest spread to minimize all the transaction problems I talked about. Likewise, some people will only buy Silver Eagles because they are easy to resell and have a more liquid market.

Buying any specialty or foreign coin is not really worth it unless you know what you're doing. Many coin shops don't have much demand for a small lot of five random European silver coins so you won't get much more than what they pay for generics. (Exception seems to be the Canadian Silver Maple, as that's a desirable coin in America too, followed by the Mexican Libertad)

You can, of course, bring down transaction costs if you buy and sale private party, but there is a risk with this as silver counterfeit coins are very much a thing. Many people who are really into this will become small time dealers themselves to try to offset their own collection costs.

The gold market works basically the same way except of course gold is significantly more expensive. I'm seeing American Gold Buffalo (the favorite American coin I see people collecting currently) for sale at Costco for $3,479.99, whereas gold spot is $3,380.80, so you're looking at $100 to buy (pretty common premium) and then probably $100 to sell, putting you again at around 6% in transaction spread (and this is if you're getting good deals).

However, one thing I see people do is that because you can buy silver/gold at Costco (or the many legit dealers who list on Walmart) with a credit card, you can flip these for free credit card points. You just need to be careful the spread is less than the credit card reward points. I personally do not do this.

And then obviously, things like flood/fire/theft are a threat to any expensive collection at home. Home owner's/renters insurance usually does not cover this, so you have to find a special policy for your coins or else consider the storage implications.

Overall, I would not recommend this to anyone unless you like collecting coins (which is admittedly an addictive hobby).

[zbigi]

Overall, I would not recommend this to anyone unless you like collecting coins (which is admittedly an addictive hobby).

One evidence of the above:

[AnalyticalEngine]

@zbigi - You do get to feel exactly like that, which is half the fun.