Just a few years ago, you couldn’t drive a few blocks without seeing a “We Buy Houses” sign on the side of the road. Some of these signs were professionally printed, but many of them were simply scrawled out on poster board or cardboard with whatever ink-producing device was handy.

I can’t imagine that those hand-written advertisers were very successful, but it must have worked since the signs littered our utility poles for a few years before the Great Recession hit. The easy money went away went house values plunged, and the signs disappeared.

Now, those signs have been replaced with “We Buy Gold and Silver”. This time, most of the road signs are full-color and rival the real estate signs for design quality. Most of them are violating the cities’ sign codes, but no one seems to care.

So where were these gold and silver buyers three years ago? Many of them weren’t in this business; they’re in it now because the uncertainty in the economy has driven up the prices of these metals to double and triple their value just 18 months ago. Much like the housing bubble, the roadside signs are showing us the next investing bubble.

One silver dealer in Kent has watched the price of raw silver triple in price in the past 18 months. In the past two years, he’s noticed that 4-5 calls per day are from people looking to sell their silverware. He’s not buying, though; he’s only selling. Prices are too high to buy from individuals, and he is waiting for prices to drop again.

There are plenty of reasons why the prices had been going up, and if you listen to business news, you’ll hear a new reason almost every day. Inflation fears. Nervous investors. Weakness in the dollar. Real estate prices are in the tank. Stocks dropped. Stocks rose. Obamacare. The debt ceiling.

But the biggest reason is because many small investors follow the wave of hysteria while larger investors take advantage of them. These small investors get hysterical when prices start to rise, and mistakenly think that they will continue to go higher.

Housing prices were in a bubble too, and one that was easy to get caught up in. Real estate prices were always supposed to climb gradually. Prices surged in 2007, and people kept getting into it. I wish I had noticed it enough to sell my house at its peak, but now I’m probably going to be stuck with it for a few more years.

Gold and silver are probably going to follow the same path for another year, but I’m selling my silver and gold while prices are at record highs. The silver dealer asked me two weeks ago what I thought would happen to silver prices, and I said that hedge funds were probably going to drive the prices up on the little guy, and then “short” the metal to take more profits when prices go down.

That’s pretty much what happened last week, so I guessed right for a change (please don’t use this column for financial advice; I’m certainly no savvy investor).

But when I do sell the rest of my tiny stash of gold and silver, it won’t be with the road sign guys. You usually won’t get paid the actual value, since they are often middlemen. The unique thing about gold and silver is that there is a market price to tell you what it’s actually worth.

As I’m writing this, gold is selling for about $1,500 per troy ounce. One troy ounce is equal to about 1.09 standard ounces. If you have a 1 ounce, 24K gold coin, it’s worth $1,500. If you have a 1 ounce, 14K gold necklace, it’s worth about $875 (1500 times 14, then divided by 24).

Reputable precious metal refiners will usually pay at least 90 percent of the daily price for silver, and 92 percent of the daily price for gold. You can sometimes get a higher percentage, so there’s no reason to ever take less than that, unless you’re absolutely desperate for cash and you can’t wait 10 days for a check to arrive from a metals refiner.

Do your homework before you consider these guys, but be sure to thank them for helping point out the next investing bubble.