In Jim Cook's Archive


I always wanted to make a lot of money in my life. I’ve done ok, but the big score that I envisioned has always escaped me. In 1970 I moved to Miami and started a drinking water business. Once the business got profitable, I sold it for $130,000. That was a lot of money for a young man, but if I had kept that business, I would have made millions because drinking water sales literally exploded.

I came back to Minnesota to start Investment Rarities and after some tough years, began to see profits. In 1980 things were booming. Two big companies, including General Mills, wanted to buy the company. Three guys flew out to see us from New York and they were ready to write a check for millions. I was making good money, so I turned them down. The coin business slowed way down after that.

In the early 1980s an inventor came to me for money. He had developed skates that worked on land. I turned him down. His Rollerblade company turned into a huge business. I kicked myself for missing a ground floor opportunity. In 1994 I was buying junior gold mining stocks. I had 60,000 shares of a company named Bre-X and I had an order in for 40,000 more at 50¢ a share. Then an analyst I knew in Vancouver met the principals at a breakfast meeting and told me they smelled of booze. That alarmed me and I sold the stock. Over the next two years, Bre-X went to $280 a share before a scandal erupted and the stock fell to zero. My stock would have been worth $28 million before it collapsed.

So, how am I planning to reach my multi-million dollar goal now? I’m almost totally invested in silver. For one thing, it’s cheap. It’s one of the few things selling at its lows rather than its highs. It’s the ultimate contrary opinion investment. Industry requires it for its many unique qualities and over the years, industrial demand has dramatically reduced the above ground supply. Investor buying of silver increases on bad economic news and goes into overdrive when the price starts to rise. That kind of demand can lead to a silver shortage that sends the price up many times over. One of the world’s biggest banks has been buying up massive quantities of silver for years because they think it will become far more valuable in the future. I’ve watched silver go up ten times or more twice in my lifetime. There appears to be more reasons than ever for it to do that again. For me, silver offers the possibility of reaching the financial goal that eluded me in the past. I can’t see anything else that can do it.

Late last winter, I told my wife that I was going to let my hair grow until I made 10 million in silver. The other evening at dinner a friend told me I looked like General Custer. I like the look so I’m not in a hurry to get it cut. Based on the advice I got from silver analyst Ted Butler, I think I’ll be heading to the barber shop sooner rather than later.

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