When Gold and Silver are Repricing… Talk to the Cows…

Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:

Gold and silver are in the first stages of repricing.

That’s why you need to talk to the cows, even the sheep. They’ll give you a solid understanding of where your investment stands, and where silver could be going in the future.

The story starts just over 100 years ago – in one of the most recent examples when gold was going through a hyper-inflationary repricing process. After World War I, Germany was blamed and made to pay reparations to the “winners” for their losses.

So, in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles imposed substantial reparations on Germany, initially set at 132 billion gold marks in 1921. The big problem was that these payments had to be made in gold or foreign currency, not in German marks. This was the result: enormous pressure on Germany’s balance of payments and currency.

As the pressure pushed on the German government faced an escalating fiscal crisis: it had large budget deficits from war debts and reconstruction needs, plus the new reparations to pay. Rather than raising taxes sufficiently (which was politically difficult in the unstable postwar period), the government increasingly relied on printing money to cover its expenses. A vicious cycle began…

As the Reichsbank printed more marks, the currency depreciated on foreign exchanges. This depreciation made imports more expensive, fuelling domestic inflation. More importantly, as the mark weakened, it became progressively more expensive in mark terms to acquire the foreign currency or gold needed for reparations payments. This required printing even more marks, further accelerating the depreciation Germany’s paper money.

A bit different than attempting to pay the debt service costs of a sovereign debt, but the depreciation process is the same at what’s happening to the US Dollar right now.

The repricing of gold and silver, and the introduction of a new gold-backed currency may be the result of both.

As the mark collapsed, gold’s price in marks rose astronomically. Gold that might have cost 100 marks before the war required trillions of marks by 1923. The hyperinflation was finally ended by introducing a new currency (the Rentenmark) in November 1923. So when a new currency is formed we need also need to start looking at real assets to determine their value. Because once the money printer starts going, it gets harder to predict price movement, and your profits. As the percentage change in gold and silver prices shifts up and down, you obviously want to take a profit some time, but in the beginning stages, like the stages we are in right now, gold and silver are still incredibly underpriced.

How do you tell?

Since gold and silver are centuries old hard-assets, you can look back and see how much people paid for commodities using gold and silver. Especially, during periods when currencies were stable. Then you compare those prices with the prices of today.

That’s what you’ll learn in these takes from the Rational Rancher.

I stumbled onto his newly posted videos the other day, and I think you might find them valuable.

The first video explains the relationship between Cattle & Gold (posted Jan.20, 2026).

The second video looks at the relationships between historical sheep prices and silver (posted Jan.27, 2026).

The last video is the most recent. It is on the relationship between cattle and silver (posted on Feb.2, 2026).

Enjoy!