Silver vs The Dollar: The 100-Year Ranch Audit

Añadido: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]Today on the Rational Rancher, we're going to be talking about a story that I heard back in Kentucky. And the story involves buried treasure, buried silver, and buried dollars. And it was just a really interesting story that kind of helped me keep stacking silver. And so I wanted to share it with you all today.

[00:00:20]So if you like buried treasure, berry or far barn finds, this story, you're going to love it. So stick around. Here we go.

[00:00:31]So the story goes like this. We used to buy silver at a couple places in Kentucky. And one time we went in to the coin dealer and he had just this huge box full of silver dollars much like this right here.

[00:00:50]And I asked him, "How did you get so many?" And he said, "It's a really funny story." He said a farm in the area the K it got passed down to a new generation and those kids that generation was tearing down the barn and they had a bulldozer and they were knocking it over and they kicked up these cans and they jumped off the dozer and opened the cans and in the cans were a bunch of dollar bills, $10 bills, $20 bills and a over a thousand silver dollars.

[00:01:24]And I couldn't believe it. And he said, "Yeah." And those kids, they brought those silver dollars to me. And at the time, a silver dollar was going for like $20. So they got 20 times the value of what their grandpa when he buried those silver dollars. And they were ecstatic.

[00:01:41]They were so happy. They thought they won the lottery. And then I went and I bought a couple of them.

[00:01:47]That story just made me start thinking about money, about silver, about the US dollar. And then so in today's video, we're going to analyze a,000 silver dollars. If my great-grandfather would have buried, this isn't a thousand. There's only about 60 of them. I don't have a thousand. But if my great-grandfather in 1926 would have buried a thousand silver dollars and $1,000 in paper, what would that look like today in 2026 if I went and unburied it? So that's our little study today on Rational Ranchers. So let's dive into the numbers of silver dollars and paper dollars. In 1926, $1,000 was a lot of money. So, just for comparison sake, what did it buy? And I thought, since this is a ranching channel, let's put everything we're buying in kind of ranching needs and ranching terms. So, in 1926, $1,000 bought you three Model T Ford trucks. Three of them. And you still had money left over. I think they were around $260 a piece. And so you still had about 200 bucks left over for tax, license, and fuel or whatever. So $1,000 1926 bought you three Model T's. $1,000 in 1926. Land was between five and $20 an acre. So you could buy 50 to 200 acres with that $1,000. Wow. And then since we love cattle here on the ranch, how many cows could you buy for $1,000 back in 1926?

[00:03:29]It's about $40 to $50 ahead. So, you're looking at 20 to 25 cows. Wow. $1,000 back then really went a long way. So, that's our baseline when they buried those two jars. You know, this is just an example. So, a jar of $1,000 in change, $1,000 in silver dollars, and a jar in paper money. Fast forward to 2026.

[00:03:55]You're out there. You unberry those jars. What are they worth today? The paper money and the silver. Here we go.

[00:04:02]I want to take a minute to thank our channel sponsor, Summit Metals. If you're thinking about burying a jar of silver for your great grandkids, check out Summit Metals. You'll be able to buy some silver right off the website. And you never know, maybe you'll make your grandkids really happy one day. So, let's start. If the paper money survived a hundred years buried in the dirt. This is $1,000 right here in this jar.

[00:04:28]So you unburied it a hundred years from now if I'm back in 1926. It's 2026. I unberry this jar. Wow. $1,000. I'm all excited. That's awesome. Thanks, great grandpa. What are we going to buy with this jar of $1,000 today? Paper fiat money. What can it buy?

[00:04:46]Well, let's start with the cows this time.

[00:04:49]Will this buy a cow? Nope. Sorry. Will it buy a baby bottle calf cow? Probably a sickly one. At the sail barns around here, a bottle calf is going for well over $1,000. But we're going to give it the benefit of the doubt. We're going to say that grandpa's $1,000 he buried a hundred years ago in paper money will buy us one bottle calf.

[00:05:13]It won't touch any piece of land. So, let's go to fencing. This $1,000 will buy about three rolls of woven wire fence. It helps. It's great. That's good. How about a truck? I don't even want to see the money. The truck you can buy for $1,000 today. But we just put tires on my wife's car and or SUV. And $1,000 bought two tires. So, congratulations. That $1,000 over a hundred years buried buried up today buys you two tires. So, that's what the fiat paper money did. Now, let's look at what those silver dollars did. So, now your great-grandfather a 100 years ago buried a thousand of these babies. Peace dollars. 1926, they were minted peace dollars. And that's what he buried for you to find a hundred years later. Let's just go over some math. They're not a full ounce of silver. In a,000 peace dollars, you have about 770 ounces of silver. Today, silver is about $80 an ounce. That comes out, if you do the math, $61,600.

[00:06:24]That's what your grandpa buried $1,000 a 100 years ago. And in today, in fiat US, these $1,000 of silver coins are now worth $61,600.

[00:06:41]I think I wish my grandpa would have buried silver and not paper money. I don't know about you, but what does that look like in comparison? Let's look at today what a thousand silver dollars can buy compared to what a thousand paper dollars can buy. We got a really cool chart. Let's throw it up there. So today, a,000 silver dollars doesn't buy as many cows as it did for grandpa back in the day, but it'll still buy you 15 bread heers, which is a lot more than that,000 paper dollars buying you a bottle cath. As far as transportation, that 61,000 in silver, you can buy yourself a really, really nice truck.

[00:07:23]You know, a 3500, a one-tonon DY diesel.

[00:07:27]It's not going to be brand new, but you're going to get yourself a really nice truck for 61,000.

[00:07:33]And then fencing because 61,000 still not going to buy you that 50 to 200 acres as it did for your grandpa, but it'll put up about three miles of fence.

[00:07:44]That's a lot better than just three rolls of fence that the $1,000 paper did.

[00:07:50]I hope what you can see from this little scenario, I know most likely nobody's grandpa buried them $1,000 that they're going to find today. But it just proves my point that silver holds its value.

[00:08:06]Not just holding it, it's increasing its purchasing power compared to the US dollar. A $1 bill a 100 years ago today is still $1 and it hardly buys anything.

[00:08:18]This $1 coin that was a dollar back in 1926 today is worth over around 6568 somewhere in there for a piece dollar.

[00:08:33]That's a lot better than just one paper dollar. That's kind of my point with silver. I know there's a lot of silver haters out there. I don't think you should cash in all your money, but I think if you buried a thousand of these or a thousand paper dollars, your grandkids are going to be a lot happier with a thousand of these in the future.

[00:08:55]Just some food for thought out here looking at the beautiful pond, just thinking about silver and my great-grandfather.

[00:09:04]Something to ponder. I hope you all like this story. I really appreciate everyone subscribing to the channel and uh YouTube's just been a fun journey and we hope you all still like it. If you have some more silver ideas for videos, please leave them in the comment section. I want to make videos for the audience. Whatever you guys want, we'll try to make a video on it. Thank you all for watching and spending a little bit of time with me this morning out at the lake. you later.