This year they are offering to purchase up to 2,400,000 shares at a cash price equal to 98% of the NAV per share at the close of regular trading on the NYSE on July 11, 2008.

The maximum number of shares that the company will purchase in the tender offer represents 25% of the number of currently issued and outstanding shares.

This thoughtful offer will permit tendering shareholders to liquidate at least a portion of their shares at a price per share equal to 98% of the NAV while preserving the Company as an investment vehicle for long-term capital appreciation for shareholders who remain invested.

There are many reasons a closed-end fund company does this, and one is to encourage investors to keep investing regularly in ASA in spite of the fact that the shares often trade at a discount to their NAV.

The board of directors announced recently that ASA will proceed with a subsequent tender offer in 2009 and 2010 only if its shares have traded on the NYSE during a selected 12-week measurement period at an average discount to NAV of greater than 10%.

This practice also equates to the fact that the shares of ASA currently trade below their book value and in the most recent quarter the shares were trading at a price-to-book ratio of 0.86, which value investors can appreciate.

The company does pay a fluctuating dividend, sometimes structured as a capital gains payout, and has been known to do special cash distributions as well.

So here's an investment in a company that has a trailing-twelve-month Return-on-Equity of over 31%, a Profit Margin (ttm) that is an incredible 1,792% and an Operating Margin (ttm) of 69%, run by directors who want investors to get more than their money's worth.

Now I guess you could say the same thing for The Gabelli Gold & Natural Resource Income Trust (NYSE:GGN) which also operates as a closed-end fund, by if you compare apples to apples you can see that ASA has better results and more shareholder friendly policies.

ASA Ltd. makes sense to those of us who believe that gold and silver will be going much higher from here during this supercycle of stagflation. It isn't meant to replace investments like Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX), Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) or Pan American Silver (Nasdaq:PAAS), but it certainly is a useful and potentially lucrative compliment.

We are also continuing to accumulate the Central Fund of Canada (AMEX:CEF) as a proxy for ownership of gold and silver bullion, but currently CEF is selling at an NAV premium of over 12%. We prefer NAV discounts to premiums any day.

So take a close look at ASA and see if it fits your investment objectives. It certainly has a lot going for it and has rewarded investors for many decades.