About a year ago a friend of mine saw an infomercial...it told him that now is the best time to buy gold.  The economy is a mess and the only safe place to keep your money is in gold coins.  It's the best investment you can make!  So my friend went to a coin shop and dropped $1000 on a pure gold coin with a buffalo on the front.  It must be a good investment...a buffalo is a hard worker and is sure to do plenty of work to make some money.

So for a year this lazy buffalo just sat in a drawer.  It didn't go out to work in the farm, it didn't plow any fields, and it didn't sell anything for my friend.  It couldn't even have a bake sale to make a few dollars.  So for a year now this lazy buffalo has just sat around and has not made a dime.   And surely no foreign person called wanting to buy the coin to pay for imports.  It just sat there on its fat buffalo butt. 

What now?  Maybe there's a bigger fool out there now who would be willing to buy this lazy buffalo coin?  There are plenty of infomercials telling us that now is the best time to buy gold.  There are about twice as many as last year.  Are they right?  That lazy buffalo surely proved that the best time wasn't last year.  Maybe my friend needed to buy the one with the Indian on it.  Maybe the Indian coin is better at making money.  Or perhaps a vase of tulips will make more money.

My friend's best bet?  His best bet is probably to wait around to find a bigger fool who believes that a buffalo coin will make money for him.  My friend learned that a good investment is not a piece of metal that serves little practical purpose.  The gold standard ended in 1971.  If you want an investment whose value dates back to the 1960's you're better off buying stock in a company that produces peace signs and bell-bottom jeans.