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I reacted that way because you stated "check24 is great" and I wanted to emphasize that the prices are only valid in the first year of the contract.

Yes, but that's true regardless of where or how you make the contract.
You can always bet that they'll raise prices on you after year 1, unless you make a 2-year contract in which case they'll raise your prices after year 2. So it would be silly (and irresponsible) for Check24 to make any claims about how expensive your contract will be after that.
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Author: Ttabts

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I don’t give a damn about some nazi „respect“ standard, if I get a business call in Russian, English or Chinese while traveling, you can bet your sorry incel beta cuck polite ass I will respond and talk to my business partner as long as I need it. And if a nazi loser gets offended by it, it’s his or her problem. It’s a public space - a street or a tram. It’s not a court of law or a dentists‘ office. If the call were in German, they wouldn’t „mecker“.
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Author: Kuroslav007

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That's definitely a reusable bottle that you can return in any Pfandautomat (well, at a supermarket that stocks this type of bottle). I bet it says "Mehrweg" somewhere in the fine print on the label. There is no symbol necessary, unfortunately. The bottle with the arrow someone else linked is only on single use bottles or cans that still have Pfand (and get shredded by the Pfandautomat right away). Regular reusable bottles don't have to have a symbol which leads to confusion for a lot of people...
By the way the symbol/emoji in your title isn't the Pfand symbol but the recycling symbol.
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Author: binned_alaska

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In NRW we have no tuition fees for foreigners, the FDP/CDU coalition is still thinking about it, so you can bet if it comes, then not before next winter semester. If you start before they intoduce them you will be very likely save, probably only people who start after the introduction will have to pay.
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Author: bontasan

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Oh nice, I bet you are happy because you can save money with that connection. Is he going to sign it in German so everybody can read it?
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In germany you can have your kids abducted for your political opinion. Dont love your nanny state? -> they snatch your kids. Dont agree with immigration -> say bye to your kids. Dont like to be ass-raped? -> be raped anxway.
Is norway different? I bet the Czech have a reason to act this way.
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Author: Blocher

Why is energy still the play and why will it let you retire in the few years?
General: During a recession energy consumption always decreases relatively, and even more so with Covid, due to lack of office spaces, lack of recreation, and lack of travel / commute. You can look back at the ‘08 ‘09 crisis and view how energy and c02 emissions skyrocketed after Michael Burry got famous. [1]
Next, we have the catalysts, Joe Biden. According to his administration there are only 9 years left to stop the worst consequences of climate change. Biden will act quickly, and aggressively. He’s working with Congress to enact in 2021 legislation and plans that will put America on an irreversible path to economy wide net zero emissions. While also rallying the rest of the world to pursue clean action through leadership and action. Not really lastly, but also make $400bn as ONE part of a broad mobilization of public investment in clean energy and innovation (relatively old news, but relevant) All while creating 10,000,000 new jobs in clean energy. This is within his “Biden will make a $2 trillion accelerated investment” which also pertains to the auto industry such as EV gov vehicles, see WKHS as an example.[2][3]
Energy has already gone up alot this last 6 months. It's too late! False. So has everything, even giants like Apple are up over 100% since March lows. Clean energy has been supressed these last 4 years, and are only going back to where they belong.
Hydrogen: Recently Mercedes-Benz spins off it’s truck unit due to ever changing landscape in industrial and commercial vehicles. While premium sedans have largely been adopting the EV mantra, commercial trucking has seemed to go the way of hydrogen. “..while the truck business is investing in hydrogen fuel cell technology. [6] Recently Ballad power Systems $BLDP signed a deal to make the hydrogen fuel cell for hydrogen power boats as well. [7]
Nuclear:: Now, we have Solar, Wind, Hydrogen and what else? Well, reasonably speaking you also have Uranium to Nuclear energy. Did you know that The world has largely put most of their uranium mines on hold and in maintenance mode? Right now there are 442 Nuclear Reactors operating within 30 countries, primarily in US, France, China, Russia and Japan (rip) this consume 200 MILLION pounds in Uranium per year. We are currently sitting at a 20 million pound deficit and could reach as high as 50 million pounds.
Utilities have been underbuying Uranium since 2014 than they need to produce nuclear energy, the difference (or deficit) between what they are buying and what they need to produce Nuclear energy has been filled by drawdown of existing inventories. We also have Elon Musk talking about Nuclear Bull case https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKH-uVqg9OI [4][5]

If I had to choose a single ticker from each, I would choose $FCEL for Hydrogen, $NXE for Nuclear, $ENPH for solar

The tides in energy have changed, we are seeing huge pushes globally to adopt these new technologies. If you rub your couple of brain cells together really hard, this shit is the future.
Tickers: $FCEL, $BLDP, $PLUG, $NXE, $ENPH or if you want ETFs, $TAN, $FAN, $PBW (shout out to $ICLN gang)
Final: This was way longer and harder than I anticipated to put together. We still have Energy Storage, Wind, and I didn’t even address Solar reasons, Biofuels or NatGas. But these are my big bets for 2021. I'm aware EV is beast, but so is everyone else, bringing new information to light that may be less represented. I'll do a part2: if you enjoy this expanding and adding extra details.
Sources: [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205140613.htm
[2] https://joebiden.com/9-key-elements-of-joe-bidens-plan-for-a-clean-energy-revolution/
[3] https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/
[4] https://josephcollinsul.medium.com/the-uranium-bull-thesis-ce6d49ebd219
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKH-uVqg9OI
[6] https://apnews.com/article/technology-environment-germany-54b2b7629539b2fb8f1383b83b490c42
[7] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ballard-introduces-fuel-cell-industrys-first-commercial-zero-emission-module-to-power-ships-301125226.html
Positions: people are asking my positions, I'm long on all this stuff in the boomerfolio. I don't have any active weeklys or options trying to pump. I'm just trying to spread awareness that Alt Energy is still in it's younger stages and it's truly not too late. NXE 3000 @ $3.17, CCJ 1,000 @ $13.84, BLDP 750 @ $29, FCEL 2,250 @ $17.50, BE 400 @ 37.76, TAN 150 @ $114, ENPH 150 @ $212, PBW 150 @ $113, ICLN 1000 @ 28, QCLN 200 @ $80

Second time posting this. Made it last night but other than a collab between CGC and APHA, news about the merger seems to be the same this morning.
This is my first DD so please bare with me in case I set something up wrong; I'm happy to edit if so but this took me a while to gather.
I just joined this sub about two weeks ago amidst the GME hype. I've been investing for a few years now ever since the Tilray IPO at $17. Bought, sold, and reinvested consistently (pulling out my principal each time) right up through the almost $300 peak and backed out. I left Tilray alone for a while until recently when the news regarding the merger with Aphria started popping up because I actually love Aphria and I've owned it for a while now, so I wanted to post some DD regarding the merger. Hope this helps some of you.
For the business: Reverse merger is taking place where Aphria is absorbing Tilray and will own 63% of the company, continuing to use the name Tilray due to better brand recognition and its nearly eponymous representation of the cannabis market. Aphria has a strong presence in Germany which is the only European country with medical marijuana, so Aphria has an advantage in that sector for if/when other European nations start following suit. With both Aphria's and Tilray's international relations along with slowly migrating into the US they may grow into the largest cannabis company worldwide just in terms of revenue.
Over the previous 12 months, Aphria put up $443 million USD in revenue compared to Canopy Growth's $377m USD. Tilray has put up $201m USD in the last 12 months, and which combined with Aphria is $644m USD, or markedly higher than the $377m USD posted by the "industry standard," Canopy Growth. (I don't hate on Canopy as a company whatsoever I just think they're overvalued and their stock should not be in the $40s).
Stats from the merger indicated a $685 million annual revenue, adjusted for combined sales, and the company itself, named Tilray, will have a roughly $3.5 billion valuation.
Also, many forget that Tilray has a business partnership with Anheuser-Busch and Aphria owns the craft beer company SweetWater. (Which, personally, is fucking delicious.)
For the shareholder: Each Aphria share will convert to 0.8381 shares of Tilray. As of today (Monday, 02/08/21) the closing price of Tilray was $30.09 and the price of Aphria was $18.98. In accordance to the 1 : .8381 conversion rate, the implied price of Aphria is $25.22, which has a 33% upside compared to the current share price.
I don't know the current borrowing rates (if anyone does please feel free to comment), but in January of 2019 the shorting cost for Tilray was above 900% and has been known to remain very high on this stock, as after it's $300 rally a couple years ago it became a favorite among the shorts. There is a way in which to capitalize on the merger by being long on Aphria and short Tilray, but the 30% profit may be outweighed by the crazy high costs of borrowing.
The two biggest risks appear to be the possibility that Aphria shares will crash days before the merger, or that that Tilray has simply been overvalued this entire time and its share price will fall. (The strategy is listed in the sources here https://seekingalpha.com/article/4404265-tilray-aphria-30-merger-arbitrage-is-tough-to-play & here https://seekingalpha.com/article/4401101-aphria-and-tilray-option-strategy-enhances-returns-and-mitigates-losses but you can only open the articles once without a subscription
For everyone: The general consensus on both stocks is bullish, however, more focus is placed on buying into Tilray than Aphria, seemingly just due to the belief that people may jump ship days before Aphria shares are converted into Tilray (even though Aphria still owns the operation). The company will also have easy access into the United States as our president restructures drug scheduling, so moving forward, I feel that Tilray is going to be a strong global competitor in the cannabis industry for some time
I try not to go balls deep on anything that has a lot of hype on it, but Tilray made me BANK right when I first started investing a few months before Canada legalized so I may be biased. However, as objectively as I can be, I do think this merger is both a very strong short and long option.
I don't really know if it's a necessary disclaimer or a joke but I'm gonna go ahead and say no, none of this is financial advice.
My positions: 100 APHA @ $11.13, 2 TSLA @ $408.66, 3 GME @ $165, 10 AMC @ $17.04, 100 SNDL @ $1.13, 100 22 RIGL @ $4.40
Calls: APHA $20 2/19, TLRY $37 2/19, SENS $4 2/19, CRBP $3 2/19, RIGL $5 2/19
I'm transferring both my RH and TDA accounts over to Fidelity so all my stocks are in different places atm, otherwise I'd post a picture.
Sources: https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/02/02/duplicatedoes-the-united-nations-decision-on-canna/(Jan 7, 2021)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4404265-tilray-aphria-30-merger-arbitrage-is-tough-to-play(Feb 8, 2021)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4401101-aphria-and-tilra
y-option-strategy-enhances-returns-and-mitigates-losses(Jan 26, 2021)
https://aphriainc.com/aphria-and-tilray-combine-to-create-largest-global-cannabis-company/?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Aarticle%7Csection%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link(Dec 16, 2020)
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-aphria-tilray-merger-shows-just-how-overpriced-canopy-growth-is-2021-01-07(Jan 7, 2021)
https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/02/03/could-tilray-be-a-millionaire-maker-stock/(Feb 3, 2021)
​
Edit: Fixed conversion rate typo from incorrect: 1: .08381 to 1 : .8381 (Thank you u/Stunna2018)
Edit 2: Added the following list below of supporting info for legalizing marijuana nationwide.
A trio of U.S. senators has given investors the green light to invest in marijuana stocks, an endorsement that suggests the volatile sector might finally blossom into something as acceptable and regulated as alcohol.
More details will emerge when Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Ron Wyden, (D., Ore.), and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) introduce legislation to legalize and tax marijuana.
"In the early part of this year, we will release a unified discussion draft on comprehensive reform to ensure restorative justice, protect public health and implement responsible taxes and regulations," they announced Feb. 1 in a joint statement.
The marijuana sector has, naturally, advanced higher. The sector proxy, the ETFMG Alternative Harvest exchange- traded fund , has seemingly entered a new, higher trading range. The ETF holds 35 stocks, including Aphria(APHA) , Canopy Growth(CGC) , and GW Pharmaceuticals(GWPH) . The fund has about $1.4 billion under management, which makes it the largest ETF that targets the global cannabis industry.
In anticipation of the pending legislation, and in an attempt to harness the momentum of other investors, aggressive investors can consider buying ETFMG Alternative Harvest. The ETF is trading near a record high, but an options strategy can potentially reshape the price.
With the ETF at $27.82, investors can sell the March $25 put option for $1.90 and buy the March $29 call option for about $2.80. The "risk reversal" -- selling a put and buying a call with a higher strike price but similar expiration -- positions investors for agreeing to buy the ETF at $25 and for participating in gains above $29.
If the ETF is at $35 at March expiration, the call is worth $6.
The trade's risk is predicated on the pending legislation. The trade obligates investors to buy the stock at $23, or to cover the put or roll the position, if the stock price is below the strike price at expiration. For that reason, only do this trade if you have the resources and willingness to buy the ETF at a lower price and a belief in marijuana's pending legalization. If something happens in Washington that derails marijuana legalization efforts, the trade falls apart.
Still, the trade is a good way for investors to gain exposure to the legalization of marijuana, which seems like a good bet as federal government contends with massive deficits caused by the 2007-09 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ETF was chosen over component stocks to potentially reduce the investment risk that is inherent in picking stocks in an unusual sector with companies that have a history of extraordinary price volatility.
During the past 52 weeks, the ETF has ranged from $8.81 to $27.90. The fund gained about 45% over the past year and is up some 67% this year. The percentage returns seem stellar, but it is important to remember that the fund has advanced off a low price, and that many of the components weren't much better situated. The sector could be facing a critical moment, and this trade puts investors into the center of the industry with a strategy that can be reset as each month passes. Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
Edit 3: Tilray short interest now at 51% https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/cannabis-stocks-why-tlry-cgc-apha-acb-and-sndl-are-climbing-today-1030061480
Edit 4: Thank you all for the awards, especially the tendies but go spend that money on pot/stocks!!

My dad is a lifelong republican. In 2016 he hated Donald Trump, and chose to vote for Gary Johnson, as he could not bring himelf to vote for Hillary. When the circus around Brett Kavanuagh's supreme court nomination came around, my dad thought the media and democrats in general were way to harsh on a man who's potential crimes could not be proven. From that moment on he became Donald Trump's biggest fan. My dad, who is in his 50s got an iPad for Christmas a year ago from my mom, and ever since he hasn't been the same. He started believing in all these wacky conspiracies. Covid really scared him at first, at first he was a prepper, 2 months later he thought it was just a flu. My dad every since last year has done nothing but watch right wing YouTube "experts" on the family room TV and browse his iPad. He does nothing else outside of work, and he works from home. He doesn't talk to anyone except about conspiracies, which no one else in the house is buying. He spams everyone in our house with SMS messages and emails, my brother and mother have threatened to block and have blocked him numerous times.
He sometimes thinks Bill Gates wants to push a vaccine that's real purpose is to wipe the "god gene" and make people lose their connection to god/religion. He sometimes thinks the COVID vaccine slows down or stops reproduction. He sometimes thinks the COVID vaccine is like AIDS, where it will weaken the immune system so another virus can kill you on purpose. He fluctuates between 1 or 2 at a time. When my mom got her vaccine (she works at a few hospitals), my dad blew up, saying she willingly "enslaved" herself.
Of course he bought the whole election fraud conspiracy. Hee thinks only a few Republicans and Donald Trump are standing up to save America from corrupt globalists like George Soros. He thinks George Soros funds and commands Antifa factions to riot and destroy America. He thinks Donald Trump actually has his interests in mind, and when pressed what Trump did for him, he replied "let me do some research and think about that." Of course he never got back to me.
The scariest conspiracy he believes to me is that Michelle Obama is a transvestite, that Barack Obama is a homosexual, and that his kids are adopted and/or stolen at birth. That one scares me, because all of that is undeniably false. There are so many hoops and requirements a man has to jump through to become president, how can someone think that if all that were true it wouldn't come out at any point in his 8 years of presidency and months of campaigning?
Now he has an inheritance from my grandmother that he did not expect to get, and it is rather large. He is convinced the stock market is going to crash down and the U.S. Dollar is going to become worthless, like in Weimar Germany. He is spending 60% of it on an online silver website recommended by several right wing YouTubers. He hopes online communities like /WallStreetBets are going to short it and make it worth 5 times the amount he paid for slver, so he can sell it and buy land.
Tl;dr, my dad talks to almost no one, spends all his time on Gab.com now that Parler is shut down, believes in anything his YouTube "friends" tell him, and is about to waste a couple dozen grand on a likely grift.

As I was just dicking around looking for numbers, I found this.
Relevant portion:
"Prior to the announcement from Porsche, and as the financial crisis was becoming more apparent, short interest in VW had been steadily rising. But even by October 2008, the short interest seemed not excessive, at just 12.8% of outstanding shares. But what the market failed to appreciate was that the true availability of tradeable shares to cover those short positions was actually far lower than what many understood.
Prior to October 2008, Porsche alone had already controlled 30% of VWs shares. Next, the government fund of Lower Saxony (the home province of VW in Germany) owned an additional 20% of VW as a strategic stake.
In addition, various index funds owned around 5% of VW due to VWs large weighting in the DAX index. These index funds were required to hold VW in proportion to its weight in the DAX, such that they would not be able to sell simply due to changes in the price of VW. Volkswagen alone made up 17% of the DAX index at the time.
Looking at the above, it is clear that heading into October of 2008, around 55% of VW shares were already unavailable in the market for any realistic purposes. As a result, when Porsche increased its stake by an additional 44%, it meant that the true available float went down from 45% of outstanding shares to around just 1% of outstanding shares. Suddenly the seemingly “low” short interest of 12.8% turned in to a massive supply and demand imbalance. Millions of shares needed to be bought immediately even though there were simply no shares available to be sold.
Just to ensure that short sellers fully understood the urgency of their calamity, Porsche made sure to include in its announcement a few words to address the short position.
Porsche stated that they had:
“decided to make this announcement after it became clear that there are by far more short positions in the market than expected.”
Porsche added that:
“the disclosure should give so called short sellers – meaning financial institutions which have betted or are still betting on a falling share price in Volkswagen – the opportunity to settle their relevant positions without rush and without facing major risks.”
Despite the disarming choice of wording, the statement from Porsche had precisely the effect that anyone would have expected. The announcement triggered a mass panic for the exits by anyone who was short shares of VW."
--
According to latest FINRA data, short interest as of Jan. 29 in GME was 78%. Well higher than VW's 12.8%.
https://preview.redd.it/xk4ovvmo74h61.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3cee350015f7119e3720c550a1d189074c74af6
According to Bloomberg data from a few days ago (2/7), % of shares held was 141.13, and percentage of float 177.2%. If short sellers need to scramble buy shares, will we have a supply and demand problem like the one that caused the VW squeeze?
https://preview.redd.it/zrqgp9wu84h61.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=130c38746f47ada93ae851fb2aeea494f6169ec7
But wait a minute. How is it even possible to have more than 100% of the shares held? My understanding is that via naked short selling:
"Naked shorting is the illegal practice of short selling shares that have not been affirmatively determined to exist. Ordinarily, traders must borrow a stock, or determine that it can be borrowed, before they sell it short. So naked shorting refers to short pressure on a stock that may be larger than the tradable shares in the market. Despite being made illegal after the 2008–09 financial crisis, naked shorting continues to happen because of loopholes in rules and discrepancies between paper and electronic trading systems." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nakedshorting.asp#:~:text=Naked%20shorting%20is%20the%20illegal,before%20they%20sell%20it%20short.
But wait??? Don't the naked short sellers have to cover at some point? As far as I know, they don't actually have to close out, due to an illegal options practice that the SEC actually identified called "synthetic longs". See a great post about this here. Another one here. Summary: By using a certain types of option trading, naked short sellers can create "phantom" shares that make it look like they covered.
There's actually proof of firms using options trading to do this, see this great about it here. Key takeaway: You can actually see all the calls / puts that firms have put on GME, presumably to create these "synthetic longs". See here: https://www.holdingschannel.com/bystock/?symbol=gme
--
OK guys, I'm freakin' tired and need to do dinner, so I'm gonna leave it here. This is NOT financial advice, and I am very much a noob at this, and I eat crayons. So PLEASE, I encourage anyone to poke holes in this and/or add anything that might be missing. My positions: 3 GME @ 115 average, and HOLDING. I like the stock.
​
TL;DR / SUMMARY / CONCLUSION - The VW '08 infinity squeeze happened at just 12.8% short interest. Why? Because there just wasn't enough supply of shares for short sellers to buy back once Porsche bought a 40% stake in the company. GME as of Jan. 29 has 78% short interest - much higher. Furthermore, it seems clear that the number of actual shares out there, and not "synthetic longs" or other bullshit, is quite low.
That means that any significant buying pressure SHOULD cause a horrible fucking problem with supply and demand, which will result in an infinity squeeze just like with VW. The problem right now is that things have settled down. Apes are holding, but we aren't buying like we were when GME first started mooning. Publicity has died down. WSB sub is lame.
Solution? KEEP HOLDING. At the very least we're taking shares off the market. If you can afford to buy more, buy more. But this is NOT financial advice, and please only buy what you can afford to lose. I cannot stress how inexperienced I am with this, and I could be completely wrong. I am just an ape.
But if I'm right, what we really need is a whale, like Porsche, to come in and blow this the fuck up. Will it happen? I don't know.
Other possible solution? The hedgies are bleeding out right now. They're paying interest on their real shorts, and they have to pay for the options trading they keep doing to create synthetic longs. Don't forget the money they're spending on their scare campaign. So it's a waiting game.
​
TRUE TL;DR - FUCKING BE PATIENT AND HOLD.
OBLIGATORY ROCKETSHIPS 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

Inspired by some posts asking this question, I reached peak offseason (and peak lockdown) and thought I'd make an attempt to go all out and actually put together a comprehensive list. I've really tried to research into these but as you'll see in some cases it wasn't easy, and I've also had to group a few races together. Please feel free to correct me if you are from said countries and know of a better answer. Enjoy!
2019 Calendar Races (Plus some others which would also use the same hat):
Australia – Cork Hat
An absolute no brainer to start us off easy. Corks would be strung from the brim of the hat so that when you swivel your head the swinging corks keep those pesky blowflies off you. Believed to have been worn by jackaroos or swagmen (I don’t know either), the genius was in the fact that cork’s lack of density mean that their weight doesn’t drag the brim down with them.
Bahrain/UAE/Saudi Arabia – Keffiyeh
If you’ve ever watched one of the Middle Eastern races, you cannot miss these being sported by many members of the crowd. What began as a practical piece of headwear and scarf has become popular around the world, and sometimes associated with Palestinian solidarity due to its wearing by notable Palestinian figures.
China/Japan/Vietnam – Conical Hat
Is it even a paddy field if you don’t see the farmers wearing these? Not only offering excellent sun and rain protection, but they can also be dipped in water to be used for evaporative cooling. Also well known to be a symbol of Buddhism, especially in Japan.
Azerbaijan – Papaq
A sign of prestige and dignity, these would never be taken off in public, to the point where doing so was considered shameful. If you really wanted to rile someone up, you could knock off their papaq.
Spain – Barretina
Very popular in Catalonia, the region containing Barcelona and our not-so-beloved Spanish GP, this floppy number is a symbol of identity. They became less popular in the 19th century but had a brief resurgence when Salvador Dali started wearing one. In the 2010 world cup final, a pitch invader tried to put one onto the trophy.
Monaco – Monegasque Military Helmet
I really struggled with this one. I think one of the best bets is to go with the white (in summer) or blue (in winter) custodian hat worn by the Prince’s Company. Brits will have seen a darker version of this hat worn by the bobbies on the beat (Police on street patrol).
Canada – Mounties Hat
As much as I think it would be cool to see a First Nations headdress on the podium, I understand that given the sacrality of these to their culture it is probably not appropriate to do so. So instead, I’d go for the hat worn by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police – the ‘Mounties.’ Originally formed in 1873 to protect First Nations territory from whisky bootleggers, they’re still functional today and are so iconic that at one point Disney were doing their brand management.
France – Beret
What else? We all have the same image – a Frenchman, riding a bike, with a curly moustache, stripy shirt, string of onions and of course a beret. Potentially dating back to the bronze age, the beret has always been popular in France and its fashion has expanded around the world thanks to colonisation and later social media. They’re also very popular with militaries and revolutionaries alike, most notably Che Guevara.
Austria/Germany – Tyrolean Hat/Jägerhut
While I have seen many a cheap knock-off version of these hats during our British attempts at Oktoberfest, they truly originate from the Tyrol region in the Alps, which is now spread across Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. After Edward VIII of the UK abdicated in 1936 he frequently stayed in Styria and wore this type of hat, making it associated with the region. This makes it even more relevant as Styria is where the Red Bull Ring is!
Great Britain – Bowler Hat
Created by the Londoners Thomas and William Bowler in 1849, it has been associated with the working, middle and upper classes across its lifetime, and also finding popularity on the American frontier – more so than the cowboy hat or the sombrero. Worn by countless real and fictional characters, it remains an icon of 19th and 20th century Britain.
Hungary – Shako
These are modified versions of the traditional stovepipe or top hats which were worn by Hungarian shepherds in the 18th century, before being adopted by the military and becoming a symbol of the Hungarian Hussars. Despite only really being used functionally for about 70 years, the style spread to armies across the world and can still be seen on parade today.
Belgium – Gilles Plumed Headdress
Now this is something I’d like to see. These aren’t really related to Spa-Franchorchamps, but they’re too impressive to pass up on. The Gilles are costumed participants of the Carnival of Binche celebrated every Shrove Tuesday. During the morning of the carnival they wear masks, but upon reaching the town hall they take these off, and some don these epic ostrich-feathered hats and throw blood oranges at the crowd - something I’d also like to see on the podium.
Italy – Milanese Fashion
Another tough one. Since Italy is such a young country, I struggled to find much in the way of traditional clothing. However, I have another idea. Monza is really close to Milan, whose fashion week is one of the most recognised in the world. Why not collaborate with some of the most famous designers to have a one-off hat reflecting each year’s fashion trends? As well as uniqueness, it’s a sponsorship opportunity, and if there’s one thing F1 loves more than racing…
Singapore – Slouch Hat
I don’t want to group Singapore with the three other countries using the conical hat, despite its presence in the region. The Slouch hat is worn by Singapore’s Gurkha Contingent and has become a marker from which they can be identified. Gurkha regiments are used in many countries and are known to be some of the most fearsome soldiers, with only 200 of the 20,000 applicants (1%) making it into Singapore’s GC yearly.
Russia – Ushanka
Even if these hadn’t already been used at Grands Prix before, it would still be my choice. The true Ushanka is inspired by Norwegian arctic explorer’s hats, and from Cossack interaction of central Asian peoples. After losing the Winter War to Finns whose hats were better at keeping their heads warm (this was not the only reason), the Red Army ditched their old budenovka hats and Ushankas became standard-issue, thus the relationship with wearing one and all of your friends calling you ‘comrade’ was born. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Russian GP would be seeing these make a comeback.
Mexico/Brazil – Sombrero
Simply Spanish for ‘hat,’ this is another one that’s seen the podium before. This hat is even wider than the Spanish version brought over by colonials, to give better sun protection from the more intense central American heat.
United States – Cowboy Hat
John Batterson Stetson is credited with the original design of hat we all know and love today. Depending on your age, you may associate this hat with John Wayne or Woody, but travel to a Southern or Western ranch and you’ll likely see them being worn. The Stetson got a free PR boost when, in 1912, the USS Maine was raised after being sunk for fourteen years and a seemingly undamaged Stetson was found in the wreckage.
Bonus Races
Portugal – Portuguese Sombrero
Typical traditional Portuguese clothing, this sombrero is only similar to its South American cousins in name. It would have a flat brim and top and is worn as part of traditional dress.
Turkey – Fez
Written into the history books by the Ottoman Empire, this hat became popular because of its practicality – it was easier to pray (with your head to the ground, as is done in Islam), wearing this than with a turban, bonnet or Keffiyeh. Ironically, in the late 18th century, political rival Austria held a near monopoly on the production of the Fez and they became less popular following a boycott of Austrian goods due to increasing tension between the nations.
Netherlands – Flat Cap or Wide Brimmed
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on this at all, it was one or the other. As such, I don’t have much to write here. If this idea were too boring, I’m sure we could change them for some sort of Windmill hat.
India – Turban
Common in Sikhism and some sects of Islam, the origins of this headwear are so old it’s unknown. There are many regional variants, all with their own name, each coming in different colours and sizes.
Malaysia – Tengkolok
Dating back to 1400, this hat was born of a need for Malaccan Malays to be expected to cover their head and present themselves neatly when seeking audience with the Sultan. Over time it became popular to decorate them in accordance with your wealth.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you made it this far. Now, what do I do with all this free time?

Eventhough the price has been stagnant for years, the real usage of GET has only increased. I believe it's only a matter of time before GET protocol is picked up by the crypto space.
But worst case scenario - it doesn't - the buybacks will still push the price up on their own. Here's why:
In 2020 ticketing volume in general was down like 90-99% due to corona. Yet GET managed to sell over 236k tickets. Or an increase of 27% compared to 2019.
2019 vs 2020 tickets sales & GET burned
How is this possible?
It's possibly because ticketeers recognize the advantages of smart tickets. Once big events are a thing again (hopefuly this year) scalping will become important again (which GET elminates) but for 2020 the main selling point was:
- Crowd control
- Interaction with the ticket holders
- Paperless tickets scanning & payment
- ...
This means that GET has conquered a lot of marketshare from traditional ticketeers. Well mainly GUTS actually but the advantages GUTS brings, other ticketeers using GET will have too.
Looking ahead
If GUTS was able to sell 236k tickets in a year where ticketing volume is down at least 90% then I think it's safe to assume that they'll sell over 3 million tickets once everything is allowed again (2022 most likely).
Add the new ticketing companies that integrated GET recently (getticket in Korea, Wicket Events in Italy and Tectix in Germany) and you'll understand that we'll be seeing millions of tickets processed by the GET protocol.
With the whitelabel added (every ticketing company can start using GET protocol very quickly and easely now) many more ticketeers will join.
Tokenomics & usage to push the price
The GET tokenomics are built so that for every ticket issued 0,28€ (or 0,34$) worth of GET is needed by the ticketeers. They buy most of this from exchanges and a minority they get subsidized from the User Grotwh Fund. In 2020 around 70% was bought directly from exchanges.
I'm willing to bet that we'll see at least 5 million tickets in 2022:

5 million * 0,28 * 0,7 = €980.000 in buybacks or around 1,2 million $

You can imagine what buybacks of 100k $ each month will do to such a smallcap, especialy considering that all this bought GET is burned after usage.
If the price would remain stable we'd see 5 million GET burned, or 25% of the entire supply (SF of 13 million will be burned soon anyway as it isn't used so I don't consider that as supply).
Of course the price will not remain stable as with such an increase in buybacks & burns, GET will be recognised as truely deflationary through real world usage.
​
As of this month all tickets issued by the GET protocol will become NFT's
Over 60.000 sold tickets (that haven't ben scanned yet for the event) will be minted as NFT's this month. This means that tickets, after scanning can become collectables. But so much more:
​
Here's my take on why GET protocol's smart and blockchain registered tickets becoming NFT's will revolutionize the ticketing industry.
After the DeFi hype we’ve witnessed last year, the next hype in crypto that seems to be developing are NFT’s. In this case it isn’t about riding the hype. Tickets being NFT’s on the blockchain really makes sense and it will change ticketing as we know it. Let me explain…
So what’s a NFT exactly? NFT stands for non fungible token. This is a token that’s unique on the blockchain and not mutually interchangeable. This in contrast to for example Bitcoin where it doesn’t matter which Bitcoin you have (1 BTC = 1 BTC). Every ticket issued by the GET protocol will become a getNFT.
Image explaining GET NFT's
getNFTs are indivisible, meaning that a getNFT can only be held by 1 address at the same time. This ensures that whoever owns a certain NFT will be the only one to decrypt the QR code.
Eventhough GET’s NFT’s will be the most used, bought & traded NFT’s in the crypto space the goal isn’t to ride the hype. Ticketing + NFT = a match made in heaven. And here’s why:
As every ticket on the blockchain will become a NFT and thus unqiue, it will allow non custodial ownership of the ticket asset. This gives many interesting advantages but 2 stand out for me personally: P2P ticket trading & DeFi event financing.
P2P ticket tradingNFT’s will allow P2P ticket trading and GET’s almost done building it! Peer to peer ticket trading means that everyone who owns a getNFT ticket will be able to trade it with another “peer”. This will happen in a closed and regulated ecosystem. This means that certain rules can be set by the event organizer. For example:

• The ticket can be sold for only x% profit
• x% of the trade profit goes to the event organizer
• a certain trading fee goes to the event organizer
• …

This will be the first and only ticketing system that will allow ticket trading while at the same time making scalping impossible. Regulators have been struggling for a long time to solve this problem and what seemed impossible to achieve will be made possible by smart contracts! The impact of this will be huge and will change the ticketing space for the better.Additionally and not unimportantly it will give the event organizer an extra revenue stream. The money that right now for a large part goes to scalpers (the secondary ticket market is worth $15B) will be tapped into by the event organizers.
Why this is important
The advantage for GET holders is twofold:

1. The P2P market will atract more users (artists, venues, ticketing companies) of the GET protocol (= more GET needed in the primary market)
2. every ticket exchanged in the secondary market is an additional statechange (= more GET needed)

Event financingWithout a doubt one of the most promising and exciting things to look forward to in 2021 is the introduction of decentralized event financing to GET Protocol.Event organizers often struggle to get financing for their events. This doesn’t only apply to starting artists, but even to famous stars. The artists need to have a lot of capital in advance as they have to pay for the venues, organisation, … upfront while only receiving the money after the show is over. Enter GET’s DeFi solution!

The pre-financing of events for event-organizers is not a solution looking for a problem; it’s a widely known and used tool that enables event organizers to make the investments needed to get their shows or festivals off the ground.In the past we have encountered Event Organizers who select their ticketing partner solely based on the amount of money and loan conditions that they are offered up front.

Thanks to getNFT tickets you’ll be able to pre-finance events of your choice. You can choose to finance new artists (more risk/more APY) or established kpop stars (less risk/less APY).
This is how it will work:
The technical side of event financing
If the concept seems complicated, here’s what you need to understand about GET’s decentralized financing solution:1.) Event organizers will be able to easily pre-finance their events. (Something they desperately crave.)2.) Investors will be able to invest in events of their choice, at a risk & reward level that they feel comfortable with.3.) The $GET token is an integral part of the financing process, as it is required for ‘skin in the game’ from
The advantage event financing for GET token holders will bring is again twofold:

1. As a GET holder you’ll be able to finance events and share in the profit of the ticket sales. This means that GET will allow you to profit without selling = passive income. An important note is that this is profit without inflation. While other DeFi projects give you returns by increasing the supply (and thus decreasing the value of the token) the returns here will not increase the GET supply, as the returns come from real profit(ticket sales).
2. As the GET token will be an integral part of this process, it will:- increase the buy pressure of the GET token (everyone who wants to participate will need GET)- decrease the supply (everyone who participates will have to locks his GET tokens).

For a deeper insight I recommend the blog below:
https://medium.com/get-protocol/decentralizing-event-financing-liquidity-x-defi-x-nfts-975f028135f5

If the bill is passed, it will establish a PUBLIC federal gun registry. That means, if you own a gun, everyone with access to the internet will be able to see your name, the date you bought the gun(s), and where it's being stored. ANYONE CAN ACCESS THAT. You're literally giving criminals a list of nice expensive guns and telling them where they are. Not only would having your guns stolen suck, but that puts more guns into the hands of criminals, the ones who are actually murdering people.
The bill would also establish a federal licensing system. You have to be at least 21, pass a NICS check, do a psych eval, do 24 hours of training, and pay $800. It would also require a license to own all “military-style weapons,”(MSW for short, defined as any semi-auto firearm that has a collapsible stock, a magazine that holds 15+ rounds, bayonet lug, pistol grip, or flash suppressor) things like AR-15s, AKs, G3s, FALs, etc, and a license to display antique firearms. For the antique license you need to prove your gun is an antique, describe how you will display it, and demonstrate “safe” storage. For the MSW license, you need to pass 24 hours of safety and live firing training, although it's unclear if you need that in addition to the 24 hours for a general firearm and ammunition license. In addition, the bill would ban “Large Capacity magazines” (10+ rounds) and .50 caliber ammunition. The bill also will not allow grandfathering, which means if you own or buy a gun before the bill goes into place, you still have to get the licenses/make it compliant, and register it.
The penalties are scary too. You could end up serving anywhere from 5 to 40 years in prison, paying anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000, or both, for violating the proposed laws. Those numbers are straight from the bill itself, although I mushed them together instead of listing each violation for each section. The bill is terrifying nonetheless. Not only is it terrifying, but it's stupid. This bill, and the people who wrote it, care more about how things look rather than what they truly are. Someone could cause just as much damage with 10 rounds in a Ruger Mini 14 as they could with 10 rounds in an AR-15.
History has shown us, multiple times, that when the Government starts implementing gun control like this, it is followed by mass confiscation, and usually a tyrannical government. In 1938, Adolf Hitler signed a new gun control act, disarming the Jewish population so they couldn’t fight back against the Nazi Regime when the holocaust came. In 1918, the Soviet Union mandated Soviet civilians to turn in their guns or face jail time, and I bet prison in the Soviet Union during the early 20th century wasn’t great. During the Cold War in East Germany, private gun ownership was banned completely, the only exception was farmsteads, but they could only use them on Government supervised hunts. On April 18, 1775, British troops were ordered to the cities of Lexington and Concord to seize and destroy any guns and ammo they could find. The citizens of those towns took up arms against the British, and the first shots of the American Revolutionary War were fired.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence, they included this phrase: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The United States was built on these 3 God Given rights, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. Bill HR127 would severely reduce the average American's ability to protect those 3 rights, which is completely unacceptable and bordering unconstitutional.
What our government seems to forget is firearms are tools, not weapons, and if someone really wants to kill or hurt people, banning guns won’t stop them. Violence is human nature.
“Removing tools doesn't prevent violence, it just changes how violence occurs. Motive will always create the tools, tools don't create motives. Before the forging of metals, men were killing each other, and it will never change. This is a wish given form, and a naive one at that.” - unknown

Callaway Analysis:
Topgolf Acquisition
Topgolf was acquired in an all share purchase value at 2 Billion in October 2020.
Topgolf will issue 2 Billion worth of shares once the merger is approved in early 2021.
(69 Million shares or a 73% increase in float based on current levels)
Topgolf was in talks with multiple banks for an IPO in January 2020 valued at 4 Billion prior to the pandemic. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/callaways-topgolf-acquisition-is-a-risky-bet-amid-the-pandemic-191136062.html
If top golf were to have been listed via IPO it could have easily fetched upwards of 6 Billion + with the recent IPO craze and explosion of growth in golf.
Callaway Golf landed Topgolf at a steal of a price with this 2 Billion dollar acquisition and the current stock price is undervalued based on this alone.
Callaway's market cap after merger will be 4.5 Billion assuming shares issued are based on today's price. ((94+69)*$28)
The combined company of Callaway and Topgolf is going for less than what Topgolf would of ipo'ed for alone.
Callaway all share transaction will prove beneficial for the company as it utilizes its cash for Topgolf expansion throughout 2021
Topgolf Breakdown
Topgolf's 2019 revenues exceeded $1.1 Billion
Topgolf has been growing at a annual Compound Growth Rate = 30%
http://press.topgolf.com/2020-10-27-Callaway-and-Topgolf-to-Combine-Creating-a-Global-Golf-and-Entertainment-Leader#:~:text=Topgolf%20generated%20approximately%20%241.1%20billion,compound%20annual%20rate%20since%202017.
There are currently 63 locations across the world, up from 51 in 2018
Top golf served over 23 million guests in 2019, with 50% of consumers identifying as non-golfers
Top Golf owns TopTracer - Top Tracer is a leading ball tracing technology that has been purchased and deployed by over 7,500 range bays in the last 3 years. Callaway is looking to install Top Tracer in over 8,000 bays in 2021 and 8,000 annually on a goforward basis.
World Golf Tour - Leading mobile golf game with over 28 million members as of 2019, helping to attract newcomers to the sport
Growth
Topgolf is in the early stages of its growth with more than ten years of planned unit growth opportunity in its U.S. venues business and just 2% addressable market penetration in international venues and 1% in the TopTracer Range business. The company has a proven ability to innovate to expand its addressable market and capture the potential of games and content on its interconnected platform.
New Topgolf Venues on the Horizon:
01/18/2021 - Lake Mary Florida http://press.topgolf.com/2021-01-18-Topgolf-Continues-Expanding-Footprint-in-Florida-with-latest-venue-opening-in-Lake-Mary-near-Orlando
01/13/2021 - Dubai http://press.topgolf.com/2021-01-13-Topgolf-Kicks-Off-2021-With-High-Profile-Venue-Opening-in-Dubai
01/06/2021 - Development plans for new Venues throughout Southeast Asia
http://press.topgolf.com/2021-01-06-Continued-Expansion-Topgolf-and-Franchise-Partner-Announce-Development-Plans-for-New-Venues-Throughout-Southeast-Asia
12/14/2020-Waco Open-Air Venue opening in Spring
http://press.topgolf.com/2020-12-14-Topgolf-Announces-Newest-Open-Air-Innovative-Venue-Set-to-Open-Next-Spring-in-Waco
11/18/2020 - Opening fourth Georgia Venue and Third Atlanta Venue in Spring 2021 http://press.topgolf.com/2020-11-18-Topgolf-Targets-Spring-2021-Opening-Date-for-Fourth-Georgia-Venue-Third-in-Atlanta
11/11/2020-Oberhausen Germany Venue opening in 2021 http://press.topgolf.com/2020-11-11-Global-Growth-Topgolf-Prepares-To-Break-Ground-On-New-Venue-In-Oberhausen-Germany
Topgolf 2021 Expansion
In the last 3 months 7 new venues have begun construction, which represents a 11% increase in total venues. Callaway has stated that they will look to expand rapidly with new Top Golf venues post merger. (Hence why they opted to do a share transaction rather then a mix to fund expansion) To put this in perspective, Top Golf only opened 9 venues in the 12 months prior to the merger. They have almost reached their prior years venue growth in the first 3 months post merger.
Top Golf is on track to open 20+ venues in the next 18 months which would represent a 31% increase in venues since merger. Many of these locations will be international, Asia, Dubai, Germany to capitalize on the untapped markets overseas.
Merger Synergies
Brands:
Callaway's products Ogio, TravisMathew and JackWolfskin brands will be promoted at Top golf locations and will strengthen Callaway's brands. There will be significant growth in merchandise sales and club sales as a result of this merger.
Used Clubs
Callaway buys back old sets of clubs from their customers, giving them a credit towards new sets of clubs, and sends/sells the old clubs to be used at Topgolf. This integration will significantly increase the bottom line of Topgolf as they no longer have to purchase clubs from third parties at a premium.
28 million guests that come through the doors each year will have a chance to test out used Callaway clubs. Over 50% of which are newcomers who will most likely opt to purchase the same used brand that they learned on/used at Topgolf. Existing golfers may look to switch their club set to Callaway if they see an improvement in their distance/accuracy. (any golfer knows that you always hit better at the driving range than on the course)
Overall Market Growth
The total number of rounds played in the US increased about 12 percent from 2019. This may not seem like a lot but considering that most courses were shut down until June, this growth in the late summefall was the largest growth since the Tiger Craze in 1996.
November Play Jumps 57% to Set New Record Rise for 2020 https://www.thengfq.com/covid-19/
October Play was up 32.2 percent over the same month in 2019.
That followed increases of approximately 14 percent in June, 20 percent in July, 21 percent in August and 26 percent in September.
NGF research shows the number of golfers ages 6 to 17 rose by as much as 20 percent this year. The number of newcomers is close to an all-time high, as is latent demand.
Juniors (6-17) and young adults (18-34) comprise about 35% of all on-course golfers
https://www.thengfq.com/2020/04/2020-golf-industry-report-available-to-members/
Growth in the market means more people buying clubs, and more golfers attending Topgolf during the offseason or their leisure.
Newcomer Growth and Callaway's Q4 Earnings
There has been an explosion in growth of newcomers golfing in 2020 thanks to the pandemic. Many of which went their first seasons using used clubs and hand me downs from friends. You can bet your mom’s Vicodin that Callaway is going to see a surge in their boxing day sales/black Friday sales as newcomers look to purchase new sets of clubs for their first time. In my group of friends alone we went from having 8 buddies in our regular golf group to over 30 thanks to the pandemic. The first thing most of them did after the golf season ended was purchase a new set of clubs. I am expecting a large beat for Q4 revenues with revenues of $380M+ which would represent a 22% increase from Q42019 and 16% revenue beat on estimates thanks to the influx of first year golfers looking to upgrade their used clubs.
Callaway's Future
Callaway has transformed from a small, profitable slow growing company to a large, high growth company and should be valued as such. The next couple years Callaway will be key as they continue to open new venues across the globe and integrate Callaway products in venues. Revenues will grow from $1.75 billion in 2020 to $3.5 Billion + in 2021, and expected annual revenue growth at 25%+ for the foreseeable future. If plans are executed properly and debt is managed Callaway is on track to exceed 7 Billion in Sales by 2025 as Topgolf continues to expand internationally as they currently only have 2% of the addressable market.
Price Target and Valuation
Price Target raise to $40 from Jefferies https://thefly.com/landingPageNews.php?id=3230379&headline=ELY-Callaway-Golf-price-target-raised-to--from--at-Jefferies
Price to Sales
2021 FY Revenue Forecast: $3.6B Topgolf 1.5B (30% CAGR) + Callaway 2.1B
= 28.95/(3,600,000,000/163,000,000)
ELY P/S = 1.31
GOLF P/S = 1.96
ELY P/S Fair Value = $43.31 (28.95*(1.96/1.31)
This P/S is compared to GOLF which has stagnant revenue growth at 3% YoY growth.
ELY should be valued at a much higher multiple thanks to its 30% CAGR which would label it as a “growth company and should be valued as such”. Growth companies have price to sales ratios ranging between 5-15. ELY price target in the $100-$300 range long term using these multiples. Short term it will climb to above $43 to be inline with its peers and will run to above $100 over the next year once Topgolf revenues are reflected.
Short Interest:
Callaway historically trades on low volume, averaging 1.6M shares traded daily in January. The current short interest is 19.34% of the float or roughly 16.77 million shares. With the recent climb from $24 to $29 over the past month 1.3 million share sold short covered and closed their position. As $ELY continues to climb and when earnings beats in February shorts will cover and send the price up faster thanks to its wide spreads and relatively low volume.
TLDR:
Callaway purchased Topgolf at a fraction of the price it would of IPO’ed for thanks to the pandemic. Topgolf acquisition is undervalued, bringing in CAGR at 30% year over year and will experience growth exceeding 50% in 2021 thanks to Callaway's aggressive venue expansion plans. There are multiple synergies that will benefit both companies as a result of this merger (used clubs, merchandise sales at Topgolf) Callaway will beat their upcoming earnings report thanks to the growth in new golfers during the year. Callaway will triple from these levels over the next couple years and is currently undervalued compared to its peers.
Position:
02/19/2021 30C’s + 02/19/2021 35C's for earnings play will roll them into long term calls after ER.
01/20/2023 40C Long Term play
We saw call prices rocket 50-100% on Tuesday when it rallied 5%, calls have come down since then and are ready to be loaded.

Hi all,
I'd like to explain why I believe LMND is currently overvalued, and encourage you to please poke holes in my arguments. Tell me what I'm missing please, particularly re. the path to profitability and the reinsurance topic.
Basics

• Lemonade says it's an insurance company that leverages AI to price risk better.
• Lemonade claims to "disrupt" the insurance industry by using AI, implying all others don't.
• Lemonade has a do-good attitude, borderline arrogant, to all of its marketing. This appeals to quite some folks primarily in the U.S., as their growing client numbers show.
• The company was recently discussed by a bearish outlet called "the friendly bear", and by Citron. The Friendly Bear article is worth a reading imo, the Citron video was absolutely weak and didn't attack the company meaningfully.
• From what I can tell, customers are either extremely happy or extremely disappointed with the company. The former are mainly - not only! - the ones that never submitted a claim and only experienced the sign-up process. My research is limited to reading reviews on the app store.

​
Bull case

• Lemonade's AI capability: If LMND does manage to use AI to price risk better than its competitors, this could result in lower loss ratios. However, note that AI typically needs a lot of data points; data points LMND has just started collecting. Heavy reliance on AI also reduces salary spending and should lead to low costs of adding incremental customers.
• Target demographic: Below 40 year olds, due to hipster-oriented marketing and your phone being the only distribution channel. The idea is to grow alongside those customers.
• Doing good: Parts of earnings go to the lemonade foundation and from there to charities pre-selected by policyholders.
• Founder: Founders have founded and grown firms previously (Fiverr).
• Growth potential: LMND is rapidly expanding its insurance offerings, having most recently started to offer pet insurance, life insurance.

Bear case

• Use of reinsurance: LMND cedes 75% of risks, and 75% of premiums received, to reinsurers. I think this is the main red flag here. Superior AI should allow them to underwrite only good risks, meaning they need less reinsurance - not more - than other insurance companies. The 25% ceding commission they gain is a small drop, it means they cede "only" 56% of premium, not the full 75%. Note that in addition to ceding 75%, they use even more reinsurance to manage the remaining 25% - meaning they probably retain about 20% of risk - and premium - themselves.
• Use of reinsurance 2: The S1 (July 1, 2020) announces the plan to start ceding 75% starting in Q3. So one quarter after going public, the company dramatically changes it's business model for it's core business which is providing insurance. This is suspect to say the least.
• Slight risk of misstating the truth: (Disclaimer: I can't judge as to whether this is illegal, nor do I want to enter that discussion). However, I believe that a) They might not actually pass the litmus test for being an insurance company. They are, at the moment, not more than a broker for reinsurers, that earns about 20 cents for every 1 dollar in premium.
• Political risk: The charities one can select do not resonate with less liberal folks, according to app store reviews.
• No path to profit visible: GWP in 3Q20 was 71.2, but ceded written premium was 118.6, resulting in NWP of -47.4. Losses and loss adjustment expenses decreased. Both is a result of the heavy reinsurance use. The gross earned premium figure in the 3Q20 can't be reconciled with prior quarters and the company presents gross earned premium of positive 42.9, but then another 32.4 are ceded to reinsurers, leading to revenue of only 17.8.
• Use of AI most likely overstated: a) The firm has no significant R&D spending - "technology development" is an own line item (5m in Q3) but it's four times less than sales and marketing, and half that of G&A. This is clearly not an indicator LMND invests massively into its AI capabilities. Rather they seek to push top line. b) If AI is so good there would be less need for reinsurance because the AI would be capable to weed out bad risks. Instead, LMND uses a shitload of reinsurance.
• Planned share issuance at 165$ - then at the all-time high, they announced the offering. A smart move that will bring in cash they need to grow (think advertising). And an indicator that mgmt thinks the stock is currently overvalued.
• Abroad growth is slow: In Germany, LMND is a very tiny (think <1% of market) player according to news by competitor wefox and by other articles. In France they won some lawsuit about the use of the color pink, but I haven't yet found any data on their market share there, I assume it's negligible.
• The company's stock price started jumping once the stock was a suggested buy by motley fool. Motley fool regularly issues bullish articles on the stock. In addition, the firm seems - to me - to be actively marketing its shares through social media like tiktok. This sheds in my view a very dubious light on the firm.
• Lack of insurance experience by chief executives. While they have succeeded founding companies and taking them public in the past, they have no insurance industry experience. I see this as a major red flag in such a complex industry.

My main issue / stuff that prevents me from going all-in on my bearish bet:

• No obvious catalyst visible that could trigger a big drop in share price - I'm afraid that if they keep growing customers, as top line grows, so will the stock price. I'm afraid investors see this as one of the only few "hot new stocks" in the insurance segment, leaving little alternative to investing if one wants to be part of innovation in insurance.
• Side note: Timing-wise, one problem might arise in 3 years when they will have to renegotiate the 75% reinsurance agreements. If their AI sucks, then their risks are not above market average, and if that's the case, reinsurers might raise premium / reduce ceding commission. I see this as one potential catalyst, but it's far in the future.

Positions currently held, albeit with medium conviction only, and planning to hold at least after Q4 release:

• 2x LMND Feb 21 (Feb 12 expiration) 120P, currently worth 232$
• 1x LMND Jan22 (Jan 21 expiration) 100P, currently worth 2900$
• Side note: all options seem thinly traded and bid-ask is huge

I'm not a doctor (yet), but my university’s medical school is ranked 4th in the US and some of this information is confirmed with peers from the Pharma Practice Department before posting. (Skip to section 3 if you are only interested in professional information)
Sterilization Allegation: Xinjiang Vocational Schools are labyrinths of which CCP uses to sterilize Uyghur Women to slowly wipe out the Uyghur Population. The main method of operation is through vaccination/injection.
Debunk LTDR: There is no point in sterilizing Uyghurs; The wrong people are being reported to have been sterilized; The wrong methods of sterilization are being reported.
I have briefly covered this allegation in my master post but decided to make this post due to the recent The Guardian article:
'Our souls are dead': how I survived a Chinese 're-education' camp for Uighurs
Of the countless alleged practices that CCP conducts within its Xinjiang Vocational schools, Sterilization seems to be the "heinous crime" people bring up when questioned as to what counts as Genocide. This allegation is supposedly backed up by mostly "previous victims." I don't have to explain why this is a moronic way to form any type of allegation.
I spent many hours reviewing these allegations, which is basically reading through many of these testimonies from supposed "former detainees." Apart from the aforementioned The Guardian article, I have found several other articles in which contains similar allegation.
Gulbahar Haitiwaji:

When the nurses grabbed my arm to “vaccinate” me, I thought they were poisoning me. In reality, they were sterilizing us.

Tursunay Ziyawudun:

She was injected until she stopped having her period, and kicked repeatedly in the lower stomach during interrogations.

Sayragul Sauytbay:

Prisoners who suffered memory losses and infertility after being given mysterious injections.

[This is just fucking hilarious. This is not SCP Foundation, there is no such thing as Memory Wipe Vaccine, and even if CCP can somehow wipe memories, how do they still remember "being given mysterious injections]
Qelbinur Sidik

Local officials insisted she must have an IUD inserted to prevent the unlikely prospect of another pregnancy. Just over two years later, at 50, she was forced to undergo sterilisation.

As one can tell, Minority+Forced Sterilization is a strong formula for instant attention grab, but the more you read about these posts, the more suspicious points rise.

Suspicion One: What is the point of CCP’s sterilization practice?

Many small brain Redditors would immediately jump out and say “because See See Pee wants to commit genocide but want to do it in a subtle way to let the Uyghur population die out slowly thus people wouldn’t find out.”
You must understand that genocide is a method, not a goal. No one ever committed genocide for the sake of committing it. Hitler’s attempt at genocide was to gain national support by capitalizing on Germany’s nationwide hatred towards the Jews.
Genocide is an expensive maneuver to pull off, and on a population of 12 million (Uyghur population), the cost can be astronomical.
What does the CCP gain from committing genocide? The only point that is ever brought up by the opposition is to ensure stability in Xinjiang, thus gaining regional control to lay roads for further developments in the Belt and Road Initiative. Let’s suppose that this is true, but why do it through sterilization?
You realize that it may take many decades for the effect of forced sterilization on a massive population to take effect yes? If the goal is to ensure regional peace, don’t you think committing mass scale sterilization is the opposite of what CCP should be doing to combat terrorism? If there is a local threat of terrorism from East Turkistan Islamic Party, a terrorist organization that is Directly Supported by Al Qaeda, doing mass scale sterilization to the innocent people would in fact be contradictory to ensure the short term stability of the Belt and Road Initiatives.
You also claim that these camps are for brainwashing purposes yes? Why is CCP doing the opposite of what they supposedly should be doing to gain the support of the people? It just doesn't make sense.

Suspicion Two: What is the point of CCP sterilizing THESE women?

Okay, let us assume that you have a hole in your brain and you decide to ignore the previous point, what is CCP doing wasting costly resources on sterilizing these 40-year-old women with children?
As harsh as this suspicion may be, I can not at all understand why CCP would ever sterilize the aforementioned "former detainees."
Mrs. Haitiwaji is a nearly 50-year-old woman with 2 children that are 27 and 22 respectively.

My daughters and I fled to France to join my husband in May 2006, just before Xinjiang entered an unprecedented period of repression. My daughters, 13 and 8 at the time

Mrs. Ziyawudun, a 41-year-old woman.

Ziyawudun, 41, is one of just a handful of Uighur Muslims who have made it out of one of China’s now-notorious camps.

Mrs. Sauytbay, another 43-year-old woman with 2 children.

Sayragul Sauytbay, 43, was forced to spend five months at one of the camps.
Where asylum was granted and where she now lives with her husband and two children.

Mrs. Sidik, a 50-year-old woman with a daughter in university.

In 2017, Sidik was 47 and her only daughter was at university.

This is not some heinous act to falsely portray the "former detainee" community, because I just don't think they are former detainees at all. Nearly all "reports" of sterilizations are from women who will likely never have children again, which deducts into 2 sub-points:
​

1. Why is CCP wasting resources sterilizing women who will never have children again?
2. Why aren't there young Uyghur women who are actually fertile coming out making similar allegations?

​
If there is any report from any woman under the age of 30 without children, PLEASE send them in comments, I would like to read them.

Suspicion Three: Why is the method of sterilization UNIVERSALLY REPORTED to be through Injection?

This is the part where I am the least confident and would not have included without discussing with peers from the related fields. If I get any information wrong please correct me as this is quite important.
Many people think sterilization is instant, where you lie down on a bed and you won't get pregnant for the rest of your life. It does not work like that. Only physical castration is supposed to be permanent and for the surgery to be effective, contraception medications need to be taken months before and after the surgery. If the method is through physical castration (which most of the reports describe otherwise), why aren't their descriptions of taking "mysterious pills" weekly during the camp detention?
What is important is that Injection Sterilization is NOT PERMANENT.
In case you forget, let's review the specific allegations again:
​

When the nurses grabbed my arm to “vaccinate” me, I thought they were poisoning me. In reality, they were sterilizing us.
She was injected until she stopped having her period, and kicked repeatedly in the lower stomach during interrogations.
Prisoners who suffered memory losses and infertility after being given mysterious injections.
Local officials insisted she must have an IUD inserted to prevent the unlikely prospect of another pregnancy. Just over two years later, at 50, she was forced to undergo sterilisation.

​
Depending on whether you are reading this from the perspective of a normal homo sapien, these reports do not describe bi-monthly injections. What is even more hilariously unsubstantiated when one of the reports says "injected until she stopped having her period," when that's not at all an effect of contraceptive vaccines as the female menstrual cycle is largely affected by hormone levels, not at all affected by what's inside a contraception injection.
The United Kingdom National Health Service specified that sterilization (surgical or chemical)

It does not affect your hormone levels and you'll still have periods.

Most (if not all) contraceptive injections needed to be repeated every 8-13 weeks or so, as these chemicals don't stay in your body forever, and there is no way that there could be enough remnant left within your body in just 2 years to cause permanent infertility. Even the newest Indian male contraceptive injections last "only" 10 years, of which it literally leaves radioactive particles in your seminal duct to infertilise the sperms before leaving your pee-pee.
There are no magical contraception injections that would just make you infertile after 1 shot, which is what these reports are trying to tell you. No description of repeated injections on top of false medical information that is inconsistent with medical evidence leads me to believe that these reports are indeed fabricated to appeal to the uneducated masses. The average people believe this crap because they don't do research before regurgitating the unconfirmed allegations to other people, and the western media is too irresponsible and money-hungry to care.

After Note:

I don't claim to be objectively truthful, but I would bet my life, your life, and the 50k+ lives on this sub against 5 dollars that these reports of sterilization practices are fraudulent, to say the least. You can probably find small exceptions to some of my claims, but they do not deduct away from my main point.

What with the current fascination with sea shanties and sea songs, I figured that some folks might be interested in trying out the musical instruments of Western sailors of the 1800s and early 1900s. While a classic shanty tended to be sung just with vocals, sailors played a variety of musical instruments popular in their eras, and in the Folk Revivals of the mid 1900s, lots of musicians did fine work adding instrumentation to the old tunes.
Maybe you’re an experienced musician looking to try a new sound after discovering sea songs, or maybe you’ve never played a note and hearing these great old tunes has inspired you to learn. In whatever case, in this little write-up I’m going to lay out some of the traditional instruments of the era which were favored by sailors, and explain for each how affordable and easy to learn they can be, and link you in some examples to listen to and places to learn more about each instrument.
I’m not a PhD musicologist, but I do have a lot of research background, been playing traditional music for over 30 years, and have a general handle on the scene and the era. And I have for over a decade done little projects online to encourage people to push their boundaries and break away from the mainstream by trying musical instruments beyond the most common ones. Being entranced by a new genre of music is a fine time to further expand your horizons by taking up an instrument and making music yourself.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WINDS * Tinwhistle * Flute (and piccolo and fife) * Trumpet
STRINGS * Guitar * Banjo (and banjo ukulele) * Fiddle * Mandolin * Ukulele
FREE REEDS * Harmonica * Concertina * Melodeon/Button Accordion * (Toy Accordion/Melodeon)
PERCUSSION * Drums * (Bodhrán)
NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES * Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer * Udu or Ibo drum * Bagpipe * Electronic Instruments
I will note before we begin, especially in the budget category, there are some real bargains but plenty of junk, so please use this article as a starting point, but read up a little on best buys. Don’t just say “oh, I dig Irish flute, and I see a new one on eBay for $50, sounds like a bargain!” and buy it without doing a little research, or you’ll get stuck wasting time and money on unplayable junk. All the more so for used instruments, which can offer great savings, but you really want to buy from a reputable dealer or a musician, or have an ironclad strategy for DIY repair, lest you get something too out of whack to learn on and too pricey to repair. Plenty of bargains, just don’t get impulsive, do just a little research before each purchase and you’ll be glad you did. There are online communities full of geeks like me for each of these instruments, who'd be happy to chat with you about choosing a good one for your money, and how you can best learn to play.
We’re looking largely at the instruments of seafaring European (and diaspora) folk of the 1800s and early 1900s, which you can note largely resembled the instruments of the working class on land, farmers and city laborers, just with an eye towards durability and portability at sea. Fortunately, many of these instruments are relatively affordable, intuitive to learn (they had to be, to catch on with a largely illiterate population that just wanted to get to playing music without fuss), and often rugged and compact for travel. I realized after I finished this article that all these instruments can be learned by ear and video without formal written study, and (with the exception of fiddle) beginner tutorials for them are written in “tablature” (numbers that say where your fingers go) rather than sheet music, making them even easier to learn for total novices.
WINDS
Wind instruments had the huge advantage of being relatively compact, simple, and affordable, and some of them had a dual purpose for signaling or for military music, or just being heard above the noise of work and waves to keep a rhythm for work or dancing.
Tinwhistle
A tinwhistle is a small metal pipe with six finger-holes, and a whistle-like mouthpiece that directs the breath onto a sharp edge that produces the note. Like a referee’s whistle but with control of the notes.
The great thing about tinwhistle is you can get a totally serviceable instrument for literally $9 or so; they’re just that cheap to make. There are professional Irish musicians who spend decades playing $9 whistles (often doing a little fine-tuning on their own to smooth them out), so they’re by no means just toys. Even if you aren’t in a hurry to learn, honestly at that price you might as well pick one up next time you’re shopping online, and give it a whirl. An instrument you could own for life for the price of a decent 6-pack. The subreddit tinwhistle can provide advice and resources, and off-Reddit there’s the specialized Chiff and Fipple Forum.
If you buy a tinwhistle as a beginner, absolutely get one in the Key of D (the most common key), because 99% of teaching materials are for D, the common key for Irish music. (You'll notice an Irish crossover trend in much of this advice). There are some tutorials for shanties online, but honestly best bet would be to use some of the tutorials for Irish tunes just to learn the basics, and then you’ll swiftly be able to transition to learning other genres by ear.
"Drunken Sailor" tinwhistle duet with concertina
Flute (including piccolo and fife)
The flute is of course a tube where you blow across a hole to make a note. Most of us have seen the classical flute in videos, silver with all those fancy mechanical keys, but the flutes of the 1800s were largely wooden and had few or no keys, just open finger-holes like the tinwhistle. In the modern day, such “simple flutes” are largely associated with folk music, especially Irish, so there are plenty on the market, including affordable ones made of synthetic materials or metals. Just don't be seduced by import "rosewood" cheapies, they're junk, one made of PVC pipe by an actual musician would be a better buy than those wall-hangers.
I made a post on Chiff and Fipple asking about affordable flutes and fifes, and got some good options under $50 for some really simple plastic tube instruments of decent make, and some finer Irish flutes turned from synthetics around $250. Flutes come in a variety of sizes, but like tinwhistles the easiest way to learn is using Irish music tutorials and then adding nautical repertoire once you have the basics down, so again probably get Key of D.
You can get a Low D flute about 2 feet long, or a High D flute (known as a fife or piccolo, or band flute) an octave above, the same rough size and pitch as a tinwhistle, just different method of blowing. The Low D instruments are pretty similar to each other, but for High D ("fife/piccolo/band flute") note some are "true fifes" made to play best at very high pitches for fife and drum music, others are meant to play smoothly at their lowest register, identical in range to a tinwhistle. So mind that distinction and ask the experts if you aren't sure which model suits your vision.
Dixon Irish flute duet with cittern (large mandolin cousin)
Modern high-quality Irish keyless piccolo
Trumpet
In my poring over old engravings and photographs, I was struck by how many showed sailors playing various trumpet-type instruments in the late 1800s, which kind of makes sense given the cultural crossover with military Naval traditions, and the volume of a trumpet which helps cut through wind and noise for signaling or dance music. I’m sure there are a zillion good write-ups on buying a basic trumpet (from $100-300), so I’ll leave you go google those or visit Trumpet.
But personally reading up for this article got even me thinking about trying my hand at a little brass. I'm honestly torn between getting one of the novel plastic "brass" instruments made for learners like pTrumpet or jHorn (around $100) because I like innovative design, or carefully buying an okay-quality used brass instrument (after consulting experts) for similar price. But I bet a whaler would've loved a plastic one if they'd been available in 1863.
"Wellerman" on trumpet
STRINGS
Guitar
In my survey of period imagery, I did indeed find some images of men at sea playing guitar, but do bear in mind that guitar in the 1800s and early 1900s was nowhere near as omnipresent as it is today, and in different forms. Plenty of other instruments were far more popular, up until the mid-1900s where guitar really became a go-to choice in the West. Note too that steel strings on guitars, as well as larger body sizes, didn’t show up much until the early 1900s, so for much of this period those who played guitar played smaller body instruments, with gut strings (nowadays nylon strings sound almost like gut but are massively more durable and affordable).
That said, tons of musicians in the Folk Revivals of the 1900s played a modern large guitar with steel strings and sounded great, so it really depends what tradition and sound you want to imitate. Again there are thousands of write-ups on taking up guitar, and plethora of new and used models, steel strings or nylon, all sizes, so I’ll leave that to you to Google or hit up LearnGuitar.
But I would encourage you to keep an open mind to guitar types to get a little more unusual flair in your musical stylings, break away from the crowd a bit. If you’re an experienced strings player, if you want to get that droning and modal sound you hear in shanties, try tuning your current guitar to the Drop D or DADGAD tunings (see DADGAD), also popular in Irish music, and I think you’ll like your results.
And if you’re a novice considering starting on guitar, I’m one of those people who believes that 2 months on a $50 ukulele and then four months on a guitar gets you further ahead than 6 months on a guitar alone, because uke is just so much more accessible for the total beginner. (Plus you’ll end up having a spare uke to carry where your guitar is inconvenient and left at home.) So if you’re considering guitar, check ukulele and ponder whether a uke of some sort could be an affordable and easy initial stage to launch your studies.
Irish jig on guitar in DADGAD tuning
"Drunken Sailor" on nylon-strung guitar
Banjo
The banjo is an instrument developed by American enslaved people, inspired by related instruments they’d known in Africa. By the mid 1800s, the banjo had crossed demographic lines and become hugely popular with European-Americans and spread to other countries, far more popular than the guitar was at the time. It was the go-to plucked string instrument for much of the 1800s.
If you’re looking to take up banjo, know that the banjos of this period had a different sound and playing style than the modern bluegrass instrument, so set aside your stereotypes and listen to some recordings of “Old Time” banjo rather than the bluegrass and country licks you’re used to hearing in soundtracks. These banjos were less piercing, mellower, and a more languid style. And much like on guitars, steel strings were less common, gut being typical and having a much softer sound (today we have nylon options). So when you go reading up “how to choose a banjo” articles or visiting Banjo (or BanjoHangout.com), look for an “open back” banjo rather than one with the heavy metal ring around the head (“resonator”) which makes it louder and sharper for bluegrass.
If you want to get really traditional, and sound softer and be easier on your fingers, spend $9 to get nylon (imitating gut) strings for a much less cliché and smoother sound. (Just note nylon strings stretch like crazy for a few days until they break in and stabilize, be patient.) Speaking of sound, absolutely don’t fall into trying to learn the modern “three-finger” or “Scruggs” style of play, which is a post-WWII styling, but read up on the old “clawhammer” or “frailing” style of play, which sounds entirely different and may pleasantly surprise you if you thought you don’t like banjo.
"Wellerman" on 5-string banjo, played clawhammer style
Nylon strings on a fretless banjo, just to show a very different sound
I will briefly mention some banjo variants other than the 5-string type we’re mostly familiar with. There is also the “tenor banjo” which has four strings, lacking that shortened fifth string off to the side on the currently popular banjos. A tenor banjo is tuned differently: depending on what strings you’re using (and you can swap the strings out for about $10) it’s tuned either like a violin/mandolin, or like a guitaukulele, so those skills cross over well, and is slightly shorter than the common 5-string.
Three Irish reels on a tenor banjo
And if you want a banjo that to one degree isn’t as historically associated with sailors, but to the other is actually surprisingly similar to the smaller and mellower banjos of the early 1800s, there’s the “banjo ukulele” hybrid which is quite affordable and easy to learn.
Frankly, if this is your first instrument and you want banjo, I’d get a banjo ukulele first rather than a 5-string, because they’re just so affordable (decent ones start around $100 new) and handy and easy to learn, and very mellow, not like the cliché sound you’d expect. And though they lack the fifth string, in the last decade or so a ton of YouTube uke experts have been developing the “clawhammer ukulele” style of play. It works impressively well on ukulele or banjo ukulele (which are played the exact same way, same online tutorials apply, they just have a different body and thus sound).
"Leave Her Johnny, Leave Her" on banjo ukulele, clawhammer style
Fiddle
The “fiddle” is physically basically the same as a violin, just played in a folk rather than classical style. There are probably millions of violins bouncing around the world, including plenty of used deals, but you really want to read up on how to find a good deal on a new or used one, because violins are a little finicky. I would also say that unless you’re extremely motivated or getting a Zoom teacher, I wouldn’t advise fiddle as your very first instrument. Because they lack frets and learning to use a bow is its own distinct skill, they have a bit of a steep initial learning curve. So you maybe want to learn a little ukulele or mandolin (which has the same fingering as fiddle) before jumping in. But that said, if you just love fiddle and are ambitious, or already have a little strings background, by all means dive on in. Learn it in standard tuning, but once you get the basics down, try "open tunings" for shanties and the like. Hit up Fiddle for advice.
The fiddle was a hugely popular instrument from the 1700s up to the mid-1900s before falling off sharply heading into the rock ‘n’ roll era. With fiddle you can cover a huge variety of historical musical traditions.
"Blow Boys Blow" on fiddle, while singing (something you don’t see classical violinists do)
Mandolin
This originally Italian instrument took on a wider popularity in the Western world around the late 1800s and early 1900s, again being more popular than guitar in many areas during that period. A mandolin has the chording ability of the guitar but the melodic dexterity of a fiddle, is nice and compact especially compared to a large modern guitar, and can be bought in a passable starter model as low as ~$99. Though if you can stretch to a budget of more like $300, you’ll really appreciate the improvement.
Plenty of used ones floating around, though buy those from a musician or reputable dealer, not from randos on eBay with something they pulled out of a closet from ages ago. Mandolins are under very high tension, and older ones that are low quality or mistreated can be warped or cracked in ways a novice can’t easily notice, but that make them unsuitable to be played. Don't jump on the first "bargain" you see, mando is common enough that you'll see bargains every other day, don't get impulsive, get advice from mandolin players online.
I will note that although mandolin had a narrower time and place of popularity than banjo or especially fiddle, it closely resembles even earlier instruments like the “English guitar”, “cittern” and “Portuguese guitar” that were more widespread, so can serve as a partial stand-in for a number of centuries and locales. Plenty of good information at mandolin awaits you if you want to take up mando.
Beginner mandolins are pretty affordable, and it's not too hard to learn, but it will take time for your hands to adjust and toughen up your finger pads. If you want to try mandolin tuning on an even more affordable instrument and with less string tension, you can get a basic starter ukulele and get Aquila's "Fifths" strings for ukulele (make sure to get the size that corresponds to the size of your uke) for $5-10 and string it in GDAE or CGDA, and then the fingerings would cross directly over to mandolin or mandola.
"Salt Water Shanty" tune on the mandolin
An example of the related "Portuguese guitar", shared between England and Portugal by the sea trade, played on the docks of Lisbon for "fado" music
"Bach 1st Cello Suite" on a ukulele re-strung to CGDA
Ukulele
The ukulele is based on traditional Portuguese small guitar-like instruments, and was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands in 1879 when the SS Ravenscrag brought over Portuguese immigrants in 1879. The instrument caught the imaginations of the local Hawaiians, and some Portuguse woodworkers who'd just arrived capitalized on that trend and began producing a local version. So certainly sailors coming and going from Hawaiian ports had a chance to become familiar with the instrument.
The ukulele is one of the easiest string instruments to play, and the skills cross directly over to guitar and other instruments. If you're new to strings I would highly suggest getting a $50-99 ukulele first to get used to strings, and then decide your best move. As noted above, a uke can be an excellent stand-in for guitar, banjo, or mandolin (especially if restrung in fifths).
"Wellerman" on a regular $40 ukulele, conventional strumming and sounding awesome
"5 Sea Shanties on Ukulele", a really great and crystal-clear tutorial for noobs by Destiny Guerra
Ukulele has a shanty contest recently, might want to check out the submissions by other Redditors of shanties on ukulele
FREE REEDS
The name “free reeds” might sound confusing, but it basically just means things like the accordion and harmonica (which despite looking so different, are close cousins). On common reed instruments like saxophone or oboe, the air tube has one reed (a flexible tongue that produces a note as it vibrates when air flows over it) that makes the core pitch, and by opening holes to change the functional length of the tube you change the note. In contrast, with free reeds, you have an array of individual reeds that always make the same note, and you choose which note(s) to play by directing air over them with a button (accordion) or by moving it against your mouth (harmonica)
Harmonica
I think most folks are familiar with the basic concept of a harmonica, so I’ll just note there are a harmonicas at every price range, all kinds of keys (and ones in minor scales and such), and a lot of harmonica players own a whole stack of them to have a variety. While there are playable ones for like $10, aim for about $25-35 or more for your first one, if able, rather than going totally cheap, just so you aren’t held back as you’re trying to learn. There are a ton of free harmonica tutorials online, and books you can buy, and harmonica to advise, so you can’t go too wrong.
The modern harmonica was invented in the 1800s (based in concept on centuries-old instruments of Southeast Asia encountered by travelers). Hohner started mass-producing barge-fulls of them in Germany shortly after the American Civil War, and exporting them to the US. While maybe we don’t think of harmonicas as a sailor thing, they were an omnipresent affordable and pocket-sized instruments, surely familiar to sailors of the period.
"Drunken Sailor" on a less-common minor-key harmonica
"Wellerman" tutorial on standard harmonica
Concertina
The association between sailors and concertina is so strong as to be almost cliché, due in large part to Hollywood portrayal, like sea shanty concertinist Alf Edwards cameoing in 1965’s “Moby Dick". The concertina is basically like a small hexagonal accordion, but a simpler and less raucous sound due to (usually) only one reed per note, and every button is an individual note rather than some buttons being chords.
Concertina is pretty intuitive to play, and there are some good free tutorials online. For a novice interested in sea shanties you probably want the “Anglo” style (different notes on push and pull, like a harmonica or melodeon). Commonly people buy the 30-button Anglo, because most concertina buyers play Irish music and you want 30 for that. But for shanties and other simple folk, you can do well with a 20-button (which can also play most Irish), which tend to be a little cheaper. I would really give a pass to the $150-200 China-made ones on Amazon and eBay, and go for at least $299 or so for a new 20b or used 30b. (Or hit up Cnet's sales subforum to ask if anyone has a bargain 20b for a noob).
While Anglo is hands-down the traditional choice of sailors, in the Folk Revivals, for whatever reason (lots of them cheap in pawnshops?) a lot of folk musicians took up the English-system concertina. The English externally looks similar but has the same note on push and pull of the bellows, so totally different playing style. Some of the most famous shanty players of the 1960s-1970s (like the fantastic Alf Edwards mentioned above) played English, which in the actual sailing days was the instrument of the wealthy, not laborers.
But y’all are in luck, because I’m a mod at Concertina and have written a pretty comprehensive Concertina FAQ and Buying Guide for novices, the sub itself can help advise with any questions, and for serious experts or to shop an active buy/sell forum for bargains, visit Concertina.net Forums.
Note for both concertina and melodeon (button accordion), “Appcordions” produces free or cheap apps for your phone or tablet which emulate concertina (Anglo, English, or Duet fingering systems) or button accordion. The apps take a little getting used to, but are fun to try out the concept before committing. Read the instructions or watch a tutorial for each to understand how to emulate bellows direction changes on an app, and they're better on tablet than phone, but passable on phone.
Modern shanty "Grogg Mayles" played on Anglo concertina (note the constant back-forth to change notes)
A. L. Lloyd singing “Off to Sea Once More” backed up by Alf Edwards on English concertina (Lloyd is my favorite shantyman of all time, and Edwards so gorgeous on English that I forgive him the heresy of passing up Anglo)
Melodeon (Button Accordion)
When modern people think “accordion” they tend to think the huge ones with a piano keyboard, such as played by Weird Al. But for much of the 1800s and early 1900s, the dominant accordion was the “melodeon” (Americans tend to call them a “button accordion”) which is generally smaller, and has one, two, or three rows of buttons instead of a piano keyboard. Like the Anglo concertina or the harmonica, a given melodeon button produces a different note when you change air direction, which means that notes that make a chord line up together, making it very intuitive to play.
There are hordes of melodeons on the used market, but ones hauled out of a closet after 40 years of no play can need hundreds of dollars of refurbishment by a skilled technician. So again don’t go buying from randos on eBay, but buy from an actual player, or reputable dealer (many of whom buy the tore-up rando ones cheap on eBay, fix them up and flip them at reasonable prices). Figuring out the good deals can be daunting to a novice, so I went to Melodeon.net and got a detailed discussion going resulting in somewhat of a novice buyer’s guide for sea shanties that you might find easier to digest.
With some hunting around the various reputable dealers, and Melodeon.net’s sales section, you can find a decent melodeon as low as $250-350 (easier still in the UK or EU where melodeon is more common). Also check out the small sub Melodeon (we may add a sticky or wicki to link dealers of affordable refurbished button accordions). Fortunately shanty players are less picky about specific keys and models, so can get some good deals on less-fashionable variants other musicians are slow to buy.
High Barbary on 2.5-row melodeon, voice and fiddle
"Bully in the Alley" tutorial on 2-row D/G melodeon
Addendum: “Toy” Accordions (Melodeons)
I will address one kind of intriguing and highly affordable option for learning the basics on melodeon. There’s a little 7-button job called a “toy accordion” made in China (the button kind, not piano kind), sold on all the major online retailers. It isn’t so much really a "toy" as it is a small functional instrument but of kinda middling materials and iffy quality control, but it is a genuine musical instrument. Funnily enough, a small and shoddy mass-produced melodeon was exactly what laborers and sailors of the mid to late 1800s played, churned out of factories in Germany at prices so low they were practically disposable. Ironically the “toy” is arguably the historically authentic option, in spirit.
I don’t want to sound like I’m shilling for Amazon, I don’t even have affiliate links to them on my YouTube channel (maybe someday), but I’m telling you now that Amazon or equivalent is a good place to get a toy accordion. That way you can buy a model and from a seller with the best reviews, and (this is vital) one with “free returns”. The QC on these is iffy, so if you get a lemon it’s great to be able to put it right back in the box, click “return” on the app, and it gets picked up off your porch or you drop it off at a local business that processes Amazon returns. And if you like you can even just re-order it with your refund until they get it right.
These “toys” run about $20-40 (I just bought an EastaMugig, and it seems pretty decent and ready to tweak), so just pick one with good reviews, ensure it has free returns, and give it a whirl. Or if you really want to cut to the chase, there are accordion “fettlers” (repairers) who will just gut a toy for you and put quality reeds in it. Currently Smythe’s Accordions is the main shop I know of doing this in the US, and will put in quality reeds in the key of your choice, into a Russian toy accordion (better quality), if you want to spend $200.
Now, if you get one into your paws that plays okay and you want to keep it, I suggest immediately opening it up and making some minor tweaks. This is one of those things all the melodeon folks casually mention and afaik nobody has bothered to make a proper tutorial on (I hope to shortly for my YouTube channel), but you can make these substantially better with very little skill. Basically put, you got seven buttons, with two notes per button, and two reeds per note to give it a tremolo/echo effect. The issue is those doubled reeds use up a lot of air, and your bellows are small, and one reed will always be more in-tune than the other. So you get some really basic tools and masking tape, pour a beer or soda, carefully open it (they’re pretty sturdy if you get a good one) and identify the two reeds for each note, lay down masking tape along one to silence it. While you’re in there, if you can identify any reeds that aren’t sounding properly, they’re probably clogged with dust, and you can google up how to carefully slide something thin like a dollar bill under the tongue to knock the dust loose and allow it to sound. Tape off one of each pair, assemble it and try it, and if a given note (now one reed per note) sounds off, make a note of which, disassemble and switch the tape from the other reed and see if the other one sounds better.
It’ll take some futzing, but no major skill and no permanent changes (do it carefully so you can still return it if it just won’t shape up). If you get it right, now it’ll be using half as much air so way easier to play, and if you like there are many other little tweaks to adjust button play, fix bellows leaks, and all that, all pretty low-skill. But fundamentally for $20-40 you can have a kinda shoddy yet effective little melodeon, much like the sailors of old, on which you can accompany sea songs.
Drunken Sailor on a decent yet stock toy accordion
Irish polkas on a toy accordion that’s been fitted with quality reeds
PERCUSSION
Looking at old sailor imagery, you generally see small snare drums and bass drums, and there seems to be a large crossover between those on civilian ships and similar ones played in the British and American navies of the era. If you’re a real stickler you can get “rope-tuned” old-school wooden snare and small bass drums (sold for fife and drum reenactors), or make do with modern used marching-band instruments.
I do want to note there is one kind of drum that’s relatively recent in tradition and wouldn’t really have been played by shanty-era sailors, but sounds absolutely amazing with shanties if you aren’t a stickler: the Irish bodhrán. It’s a relatively shallow circular shell with one drum head, held in one hand and the other hands holds a double-headed stick (like a little kayak paddle) and virtuosically skips it off the drum head in rhythmic patterns. It's pretty cool, but if you get one, learn it proper because eager noobs not bothering to learn skill and just whacking on it are a cliche in the Irish trad scene. Bodhran is tiny but has some good links, and you can always ask and see who answers.
Daniel Payne of Newfoundland sings “Wind Through the Window” while backing himself on bodhrán
NOT TRADITIONAL SAILOR INSTRUMENTS, BUT WOULD SOUND AWESOME WITH SHANTIES
I want to briefly discuss one instrument from each category that aren’t strictly historical to seafarers, but really fit in with the spirit of shanties. These would be great retcons, and one very modern wildcard at the end.
Appalachian/Mountain dulcimer
The dulcimer was likely a French or German instrument acquired by the rural folks in the Appalachian mountains of the US, and worked into the local tradition due to its simplicity. It’s a long wooden box played in the lap, tuned to open tunings, with only partial fretting, which makes it ridiculously easy to learn and accompany yourself on. I like to joke that it's the "Celtic sitar."
I taught quite a few workshops on the dulcimer for groups, and it’s about one of the easiest fretted string instruments to learn. They’re pretty affordable (you can get cardboard-bodied [seriously, they work] ones around $50, basic wooden ones around $100, ask around at dulcimer) and they have that droning and dark sound that would go great with shanties.
"Skye Boat Song" on dulcimer
Udu or Ibo drum
This percussion instrument, originating in West Africa, is a clay pot (some modern makers use synthetics) that is drummed upon, and capable of some really cool percussive sounds. Can produce a surprising number of tonal effects, I think of it as the "African tabla." Runs about $100+ for the basic synthetic models by Meinl, which are lighter and more durable than ceramic. LP makes durable ceramic ones from about $75. See the very tiny sub Udu for more info, or ask the larger community at drums.
Udu/Ibo drum solo
Bagpipe
Check your stereotypes, the Great Highland bagpipe associated with marching around in kilts (which is awesome in its own way) is only one of about 100 kinds of bagpipes, from Ireland to India and Sweden down to Libya. The Highland Pipe is loud and piercing, so not really great vocal accompaniment, but among the many other pipes are several which play at an indoor volume and lower pitch.
Among the ones I’d most recommend to someone starting pipes, in terms of affordability (roughly around $400-$500 for basic ones of these three, some bargains come in lower), availability, volume, compactness, versatility, etc. would be the Scottish Smallpipes (quieter and a full octave deeper in pitch than Highland), the Swedish bagpipes, and the German hümmelchen.
More than any other instrument on this list, for bagpipes I urge you to beware "too good to be true" deals. The reason is there is one specific outfit in Pakistan that has been turning out virtually unplayable bagpipes for export for decades, and they're all over Amazon and eBay for $100-200. They are not "well, I'll try a cheapie first and see if I want to get a nice one", they are total garbage, and the company is run by jerks because they could make a serviceable pipe in Pakistan by paying their workers 10% more and instead opt to turn hopeful noobies off piping forever with a "maybe it's a good starter" that's just trash. There are definitely good deals in piping (mainly some innovators working in synthetics, and some craftsmen in Eastern Europe with low costs of living), but the specific Pakistan pipes exported by a certain cynical company are omnipresent and a total waste. But the good news is with the slightest research you can avoid them and get some good starter pipes at reasonable price.
Give those three types of bagpipes (or others too) a listen, see what jumps out at you, drop by Bagpipes to discuss.
"Mingulay Boat Song" on Scottish smallpipes (bellows blown so the piper has breath to sing)
"Polska efter Nedergårds Lars" on Swedish bagpipes
"A Cascarexa" (Galician waltz) on hümmelchen
Electronic Instruments (maybe on your tablet or even phone to be cheap)
I’m sure many of you have seen techno remixes of "Wellerman" and whatnot, so though clearly in history those far post-date the shanty era, they do sound awfully cool (in some cases). So don’t be too shy to lay down some drum and bass lines and sing over them. There are various electronic boxes and knobs you can buy to do so, but these days a lot of what used to be $500 of fancy electronics are now emulated on your phone or tablet. Go mess with the free music apps, or read reviews and pay $10 for a good one, and get some beats going.
If you want to try out a free iOS app that's pretty intuitive for making beats, as a total novice in electronic music I've enjoyed the free phone app Figure.
Korg iKaossilator laying down drum and bass lines