Since gold is an alternative investment just as the Iraqi Dinar, I thought for a change we'd explain the process of gold extraction just for fun. Gold extraction is a complicated process that consists of many different methods of acquiring gold from mines. Upon mining, gold is generally sold for a cost that is relevant to its content, weight and purity, making the easiest type of mining for “free” gold, or gold that is not attached to rocks.
Free gold is affordable, because there isn’t a lot of expense put into production, making it much easier for miners and mining companies to get their money’s worth from free gold than from gold that has to be extracted from rocks and walls of a mine and from the ore found in the mine.
“Free” gold is extracted very simply from piles of dirt and rocks, using the simple concept of gravity. If you take a pile of dirt, and run it through a water bath on a screen, the dirt will seep through the screen, leaving the gold and other large rocks left behind on the top of the screen. Gravity plays a large role in getting gold nuggets out of dirt and rocks, because gold is denser than most rocks. This is the way that gold was mined by early miners, and this process is still useful today.
In a later post we will discuss the process of extracting gold from ore and cyanide leaching.
Think trading on the New York Stock Exchange is risky in its 2 to 3 year roller coaster ride? Try investing with the Iraqi Stock Exchange. Back earlier this year trading sessions were routinely canceled for suicide bombing threats (employees can't get to work when the city is locked down in these kind of events) and other simple things like lack of electrical power because of Baghdad's intermittent grid.
The Iraq Stock Exchange opened in June 2004 after replacing the Baghdad Stock Exchange being in place since before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by coalition forces. In 2004 the ISX opened with 15 companies being represented and at the present time there are now more than 100 companies on the exchange. When the exchange opened in 2004, trading was done th eold fashioned was, with pen and paper and traders yelling trades across the floor where brokers then wrote on whiteboards the current price of a company's stock.
Fortunately in February of 2009 that all changed and a computerized system of keeping track of trades, but not electronic trading itself, was put in place. On April 19, 2009 electronic trading was put into place and there are currently only 5 stocks available to be traded that way with more being added in the next several months.
The Iraqi Stock Exchange is small compared to the NYSE as in 2006 there were only 92 trading sessions held trading a total of 58 billion shares. The trades had a total value of 146 billion Iraqi Dinars or $146 million USD and were actually 38,000 individual trades made. Currently the trading floor is only open 6 hours a week.
There you have a simple run down of the ISX as a fledgling market. The market is currently dominated by very wealthy Iraqis and the trades are called in from outside the country. Is it worth your time to invest in this kind of market? Maybe you should just buy Iraqi dinars on eBay and hope they will go up some day.
One of the reasons many people look at buying the Iraqi Dinar is because of the volitilty of the US stock market and markets all over the world. Another alternative investment many people are looking at is gold coins as a store of wealth.
There are 2 kind of gold coins that may be of interest to particular kinds of investors. The first kind is bullion type gold coins. These coins are primarily for those investors who are looking for their investment to be stable or to follow the price of gold. Most true bullion coins will not have much more of a value than the price of gold. There are some gold bullion coins that do have collectible values, but most are only worth the price of the gold they contain.
The other kind of investment gold coins as what is known as numismatic coins. Coins that fall into this category have a value that is not so much related to the gold they contain but, rather the scarcity, age, quality, strike or some other unique feature. Some of these kinds of gold coins are valued far above the amount of the gold they contain. In fact, they are so valuable that they are usually not affected by the price of gold at all.
Listed below are a few select coins for your shopping. Click on the auctions below to have a look or place a bid on the coin of your choice:
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 St Gaudens Double Eagle Mini Gold Coin  US $1.04
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 2009 ULTRA HIGH RELIEF DOUBLE EAGLE ST GAUDENS 1OZ GOLD US $1,885.00
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 1924 $20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle CHOICE BU US $1,334.99
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 1924 $20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle CHOICE UNC US $1,259.56
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 1924 $20 GOLD St Gaudens Double Eagle CHOICE BU US $1,279.00
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 1924 St Gaudens $20Gold Double Eagle AU Beauty US $305.00
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