The 5 Dumb Things Pirates Do With Their Gold

Pirates and gold. They go together like barnacles and ship hulls, like Captain Jack Sparrow and booze. The crazy thing is, though, that even though pirates seem to be quite good at acquiring gold, once they have it, it’s a hapless free-for-all. What is the deal, pirates? Why can’t you get your act together? Blame it on the lack of an Ivy League education (or hygiene, take your pick), whatever it is, pirates are serially bad with holding on to their gold. Here’s a list of the 5 dumb things pirates do with their gold. Arrrrr.

1. Horde it. I can sort of see the logic here: a little bit of gold is okay, more gold is better, and so much in one place that you can swim in it? Clearly the best. Yet hording all your gold in one place is one of the worst things you can do, unless you happen to be Fort Knox (things have worked out well enough for them, I suppose?). Instead of hording, pirates should spread it out a little and, who knows? Maybe actually deposit it in a bank or sell their gold instead of keeping it in a cave somewhere. I’m pretty sure most secret hiding places fall outside of the FDIC’s jurisdiction.

2. Bury it. For some reason, this is a typical pirate reaction to having gold. As if the ground acted like an automatic safe that will be impenetrable to anyone with the X-marked map they conveniently made (and always made one copy too many. Doh!) Pirates, this is the opposite of liquidity. If you need to sell your gold fast, you don’t want to have a deal with a shovel brigade. Try keeping it on this side of the ground’s surface from now on.

3. Get it cursed. It never fails. Things are going so well, there’s literally piles of gold spilling out of chests like waterfalls, and what happens? Inevitably, that gold gets cursed by some arcane hex. Try trading that on the commodities exchange, I dare you!

4. Use it to buy everyday things. Yes, gold is pretty much a universal currency, but that doesn’t mean you should use it as such! Instead of plunking down doubloons for each and every little thing, like rum and wenches, try a rewards credit card. As least then while you’re racking up your pirate street cred, you’ll be earning cash back.

5. Bite it. If you need to chomp down on gold you receive from someone, perhaps in a hostage exchange of some sort, there’s a good chance you shouldn’t be trusting them anyway. You don’t use the gold to get a good group dental plan for your mateys anyway, so why would you endanger the few teeth you have left?

So if you happen to run into a pirate about to do something entirely foolish with their gold, give them the name of a good financial planner (and then get out of their way, they aren’t known to take criticism well).

Image courtesy Sk8ngDad on Flickr.

Adam Bowers is a writer living in Atlanta interested in all things gold. He gets paid in gold bars as a contributor to the Selling Jewelry Blog.