Krugers seems to be most popular in this thread. Is there any reason not to buy Britannias? I was thinking of getting one as a gift for someone but if it's not as good an investment for them I'd consider something else.

You'll pay a premium over spot for Britannias compared to a Kruger. Britannia is around 10% above spot, whereas Krugers around 5% - quite a difference.

I sometimes buy bullion grade sovereigns from a local dealer for spot price - he obviously pays well under spot for them, so still makes a tidy profit.

Regards,
crude

I noticed today that www.goldmoney.com now sell silver. I have an account there but never got round to depositing and buying.

Might be of interest to some.

Thanks. But when you sell a Britannia will it sell for that extra 10% again? In other words is both the buy and sell price higher than a Kruger?

I often find that a bullion dealer will only pay you thier standard price for any coin whether its a Kruger or a Britannia but selling to a collector, for example through ebay will normally produce higher prices for rarer coins like Britannias and higher still for Pandas and more hard to find coins. Whether you'd get the full 10% back though is hard to say.

It is true that on the international scene Krugers are the most ubiquitus. However, Britannias (and sovereigns) are legal tender in UK and thus not subject to capital gains tax. This may be of interest if you anticipate a long gold bull and large capital gains per coin. On the other hand I don't see how the Inland Revue is going to track how much money I made on a given coin. It is up to you, but may be worth bearing in mind.

IMHO Britannias are amongst the most beautiful of all the coins, beaten only by the Isle of Man Angel.

I was listening to an internet broadcast interview with Bob Chapman (very interesting BTW http://www.radio.goldseek.com/shows/18.02....hapmanchan.mp3). One of the observations Chapman made was that in The States in the gold bull of the 1970s numismatic gold coins (ie coins that have a significance perhaps a historical one that gives them value beyond their actual precious metal content) went up in value far more than standard gold coins.

Do sovereigns or Britannias count as numismatic?

Krugers, Maples and pandas presumably don't?

If one is buying coins as an investment and a safeholding, should one be bearing this in mind?

Hi

I own Krugerrands. I own them for a number of reasons.

* Paper investments in gold, such as gold shares, warrants and ETF are very dangerous in financial crises.
* Gold accounts, again not good.
* Cheapest way to own gold safely
* I believe we have entered the worst financial crises in history

Think about it for a moment, if the world banks are surpressing the gold price by lying about how much gold they have then you cant trust them to hold gold for you! Remember that ETF and gold shares are paper they are not the real thing, thats right guys you basically own an IOU from the very banks that, a lot of you say, are lying about how much gold they have! So when you cash it in I wonder if they will be worth anything?
Gold Accounts same problem: Have you seen your Gold in those vaults? Have you seen the paper work, does the amount of gold balance with their clients amount, or is it less as some seem to believe? Also remeber if currency goes out the window because the FED printed more money than it should, then how will your redeem your gold?

The point is if you believe that the majour banks have less gold than they actually have, then how can your paper, saying that you own x amount of gold of said bank, be redeemed? I believe this, thats why I own gold out right. However please remember what happened the last time gold went through the roof, it became political! So it might be wise to own gold in another country, never have your wealth in the same country when a financial crises hits. The good old government will try and take it from you LEGALLY! And when its gold whooooo. I also believe that we are facing the worst crises in modern history. If you ask a private investor who has been investing for 50+ years will tell you, the situation now has never been seen. This is unchartered waters. 'May you live in interesting times'.

I don't want to gloat (oh go on then I will do...just a little bit)

Got a krugerrand delivered today for the princely sum of £250 + £5p&p

Ebay item number 8393294928

Unfortunately I missed item 8399631781 by a few seconds - I clicked buy-it-now and by the time I logged in it was sold....16 sovereigns for £65 a piece.

There are definitely bargains to be had on ebay if you keep your eyes open

is it genuine??

Well done indeed! You do have some scales and calipers don't you

quote name='consa' post='330730' date='Mar 25 2006, 04:35 PM']
is it genuine??
[/quote]


It certainly looks and "rings" genuine and feels the right weight...and looks ver similar to some half krugers I bought from a reputable dealer.

Edit: Really is an ugly coin compared to an eagle though which IMHO are beautiful coins

[

I only touch maples, nuggets and sometimes pandas if they are going v.cheap. I don't worry about the denomination if they are going cheap for what they are. That said, I have a pitiful amount of wealth compared to most on here.

I've never seen a cheap panda....£365 is the cheapest I can see vs 334 for a krugerrand. Quite a difference in price.

Well you probably did good, well done, but be very careful buying gold on e-bay

For anyone looking to buy some silver, weightoncoin.com have a 1 kilo silver medallion from the Bahamas for sale at £225 + £7.55 RMSD. At 32.1 ounces per kg that works out at £7 an ounce excluding postage. Spot this afternoon is £6.58 so I reckon that's a bargain. I've just bought one, and now there's one left.

Have dealt with them numerous times, and never had a problem.

I bought some 14 oz of maples at 351 pounds each a few days ago. Amazing how much you can save if you shop arround. Chards wanted to charge me 8% premium while baird and co had a 5%. I have this strange feeling that gold would be hitting a 1000$ an oz within this year. Anyone has any views on that ? I feel a bit worried that it was the wrong time for me to buy with gold at 336 pounds an ounch. Nevertheless, if you correct for inflation 580$ an ounch is like the 250$ it used to be back on the 90's .

What do you guys think ?



Tom

You dont want gold to hit $1000 this year....you might think you do now you've bougt some, but trust me you dont. It would take a catastrophic global event to do that this year. Expect a pullback (and consider buying more) over the next few weeks. It's possible you may even see a large pullback if central banks decide to go on the offensive, but this is all speculation.

Buy and hold coins as a protection of your wealth against inflation and as a hedge against paper currency going out of favour all together over the next 5-10 years. Dont get too worked up over daily prices. Gold may well go to $1000 or even $2000, but (hopefully) not this year.

By the way, well done for shopping around. I too went to Chard first and then Baird. Baird will do you sovs for 3.3% over spot if you go for reasonable volume. It all negociable of course.

Hi Tom,

I bought a few kruggers (£332/each) and a brittania (£350/each) last week

I am also going to buy more today (assuming I can skive from the office at some time today !!)

I am also a little nervous I may see the gold "value" (which is relative to paper monopoly money) decline in the short to medium term. However, in the longer term I see gold as the only sure way to protect some of my net worth from the ravages of inflation and/or corrupt economic policies that this government are responsible for.

Nothing that NuLiebour do suprises me anymore, what is to stop them raiding all personal bank accounts with a "fairness tax" should the economy fall into a really deep recession ?

I will continue to buy >£1000 worth of physical gold on a weekly basis for the next few months - I think they refer to this as "pound cost averaging" or something i.e. I may buy high one week but the next week I could get a bargain. To be honest, I dont care as I am buying gold for the reasons already stated above.

I wont touch gold funds etc, for me its important to physically have the stuff in my hands where its outside the reach of the financial systems and government whims.

Just my 2pence worth



Hi,

if you dont mind me asking...what sort of volume do you need to buy to get 3.3% over spot on Sovs ?

I think individual sovs tend to sell at ~10% over spotfrom Bairds

thanks

I think the minimum from memory was £30k worth. There's always room to negociate. Ask for Tony Baird (owner/director) and h may work out a deal for you if you speak to him nicely.

They will buy back at 1.5% below spot, so total B/O spread 4.8%. We've seen weekly moves of this amount, so not too bad.

By the way, Baird will store your coins for you in their VERY SUBSTANTIAL vault for £250 a year, totally insured, absolutely allocated with your name on it.

Hi jpidding,

thanks very much for the info.

all my transactions so far have been physical collections from their premises.

To be honest, I would be nervous of having any electronic or official record of the transaction I make on the assumption that one day the numpties in government could come knocking on the door of Bairds vault to seize gold on behalf of the state when their fiat currency hyper-inflates.

Perhaps i am being paranoid but i have no trust in the government and the more I see of their tricks the less trust I have.

I suppose I could get that amount at the low margin and then physically collect the stuff....if the bank of england come knocking on my door I could claim I have given away to all the poor and destitute or suggest it was loaned to policitcal party in the hope of a peerage ;-)

Just got informed by bairds that they would buy my maples with less of a 1% discount over the spot price while Ats bullion demanded a 5% discount unless the coins were pristine, in the same time they would offer me more money on the same weight if it was a one ounch gold bar! . Problem is that maples are too soft being pure 9999 gold and if they get scratched you loose money. On the other hand brittanias can suffer from discoloration from the silver of the alloy going dark. Any of the two and you loose 10 pounds a coin. Bars make more sense but in an emergency you are screwed, you will have to give the lot! I called Chards and told them that Bairds is selling on a 4.5 % commision and asked them to justify their high prices. They couldn't. To their credit they are soo polite. Unlike Baird and Co who are a bit sharp on the phone !

Moral of the story shop a round, within 15 minutes you can save yourself hundrends of pounds.

Ahh, another thing I found out was that most dealers would offer less money for a Baird and Co gold bar because "it is not as popular as credit suisse" I mean how bloody stupid is that 9999 gold is bloody 9999 gold!


With IRAN been given thirty days to reform. I sense that gold is going to go up again in thirty days along with crude oil. It really doesn't look good with China - Syria and Iran being quite close lately. Iran is no Iraq they make their own planes, tanks , guns and they have the fastest torpidoes in the world. It doesn't look good I am afraid.

A touch sharp on some of their prices too - I phoned them up on the silver bars advertised in goldline today and they want £295+VAT p/kilo!

I agree about the lack of trustworthiness of the government. If they ever declared a "state of emergency" all bank accounts and safety deposite boxes etc could be frozen to anyone except government officials. I think that the scenario of an all out collapse of paper currency worldwide is more likely than most people allow for. Remember ALL "democratic" governments are very short-termist....they are only interested in keeping things running til the next election and few long term actions (10 year+) are ever invested in.

Others have said that Bairds are a bit sharp on the phone. I guess this is because they are mainly a wholesale operation. If you see their facility you'll know what I mean...smelting, welding, machining etc. They wont be interested in people who want to buy the odd coin. If you want to invest £10k+, make it clear from the outset, be as direct as possible and write down your questions before you call, then maybe they will be more amenable. I personally found them very helpful.

J.

I find Bairds to be very efficient, professionally polite but not exactly "customer facing" (the middle-aged bloke behind the counter in their Hatton garden shop makes me smile with his less than chirpy demeanour)







just tell them you blew it on booze, gambling and high class hookers and the rest you simply wasted.

My maples arrived in the post today but they are not in the best condition. I was assured they don't sell sctratched coins but virtually 10 out of 14 had sctratches on them. I am not a happy bunny . They came from Baird and co. Some dealers would only buy Maples for their melt value ??!!!

Just a quick question about Sovereigns.....in the event of the UK using the Euro instead of Sterling - would they lose their extra value as they would no longer be legal tender?

Reminds me of the early 80's when gold coins were all the rage. You could then pop into your local bank to buy your Soverign, half Soverign or Krugerrand. If I remember correctly a full Soverign cost in the region of £50 then but prices were rising fast, not long after the prices began to drop. What year did they introduce VAT?

I bought some Krugerrands on eBay about 18 months ago. They were each in little "Midland Bank" plastic pouches.
I wonder when high street banks stopped selling bullion???

i m too young to remember that.... But really people could do that? I dont remember "midland bank" either - it became HSBC right?

I think the yuppie 80s era is very much like of today. Afluent people not in porsches but BMWs and Mercedes, and Volkswagen Golf GTIs is the norm now. Buying gold coins over the counter will probably come back, because the banks will sit up and notice how much money is made by the smaller dealers like chard and Baird. I am sure they are having a field day.

Selling loans (that we are bored of), and flogging us credit cards that shave off another 0.0001% APR, oh come on, think of something new! Selling us gold - now theres something different. theres a whole younger generation to tap into.... (come on halifax, you should pay me for this idea). Think about it, its small, valuable, cannot be destroyed easily, safe (non toxic), anyone can buy it. Now all it needs is the means of easily trading it to the masses on the highstreet.

When high street banks, post offices, and the local indian takeaway start trading gold over the counter - it might be a good time to sell (depending on the economic climate)

Come on guys write to your local bank to start selling gold again....

An average citizen of modern Britain then.

Yup. Since many buy physical gold as an insurance policy against financial armageddon situations, protection from the government is important. I'd store mine outside of the UK for this reason.

I don't think anyone has mentioned to ebay sellers that gold has dropped so much in the last few weeks.

Lots of sovereigns on buy-it now in the £90 range. That works out at about 382 quid an ounce.

Presuming that gold coins (in small quantities - sub £10k) are not held purely for investment purposes (with better ways to hold gold whilst the economy is still functioning) then they must be held for:

1. The joy of actually owning the gold, much like buying art, with the prospect of it going up in price, much like art.

This i can understand.

2. As an insurance policy for the future to tuck away for when it might be needed

Emotionally i can understand this, logically i can't.

The only situations i could envisage physical gold in small quantities being of use are similar to being the only person in town with bullets, but no gun, when everyone else has guns, but no bullets.

You'd love to sell them but how, who and where? Safely and legally. Fiat money could collapse, or any number of wild scenarios occur, but anything that made allocated gold illiquid, would do the same for physical gold.

As mentioned i can understand the emotional reasons behing buying but otherwise i'm stumped.

Exactly. That's what put me off buying coins. If it gets to that stage you're not going to want to say hey everyone I've got some gold coins really are you. I think an allocated account is better. Nothing is gaurunteed, but walking around dealing in physical gold wtshtf is probably not the best idea. (imho)

i ve bought coins not for juddgement day, but they are much harder to spend!

Think about it - its much easier to go to the building society and withdraw from my savings, than driving to london to sell up my gold coins

Yes, but at what stage of the hyperinflationary process are you going to decide to cash them in?

i ll sell when sterling is cheap compared to other currencies

as gold is based on $ now is a good time to buy gold

when $ to £ gets back down to 1.4ish (if ever ) then its a good time to sell, as i ll get more £s out per oz

Dont have a concrete plan, but i cant imagine the high value of sterling will last forever....

I've got one gold half sovereign but I'm damned if I know where it is!!!

I have a 100k to invest and was thinking of buying gold sovereigns. Gains are free of CGT. Would anybody be able to offer any advice on the wisdom or otherwise of taking this approach? Are there dealers who allow you to purchase coins but retain them until you wish to sell? Advice greatfully appreciated.

Baird (020 8555 5217) offer pretty good spreads (if you make it clear you are after serious volume) and will hold YOUR gold totally allocated and available for pickup anytime for about 250 quid a year.

Thanks for the advice. I'll investigate. Are they honest and reliable?

Hope so, I've just bought 10x1oz Krugerrands from their Hatton Garden branch today for collection in early January. If you're planning on buying in person, though, be warned, the guy I dealt with over the counter obviously prefers dealing with wholesale trade, so know exactly what you want before you go in and don't try and make smalltalk! Don't bother asking for discounts unless you're buying at least 20 krugers or equivalent. Also, it's cash or cheque only, no plastic.

If you walk into the shop to trade, you'll realise this all looks kosher - I'd imagine that their internet trading should be ok, but, as ever, do your own research.

Baird & Co are members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and are endorsed in this MoneyWeek link:
http://www.moneyweek.com/file/2426/gold-invest.html.
and mentioned by the Times here:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/...1396656,00.html
Do a search on Baird on HPC, and you'll find lots of posts mentioning dealing with this site. You'll also find many of their bullion bars (ok, the item might be a forgery, but the name is obviously respected!) for sale on e-bay.

TLM

Edit: note that if you buy less than £5k in any one transaction or less than £10k physical gold in a year, you don't need to provide any proof of ID. Exceed this and you must present ID to comply with HM Customs and Excise legislation. If you're really paranoid this means that with small purchases you're under the radar in the extremely unlikely event of the government ever deciding to forcibly confiscate gold.

Collected my Krugers last week. Something very pleasing about actually holding over half a pound of solid gold. Not looking for massive profits, this is more of an inflation hedge.

TLM

Are you predicting money supply will still climb at current rates with IR on the rise?

To be honest, I have absolutely no idea - and I wouldn't claim any great investment expertise in general.

Basically I'm just trying to diversify my investments. I don't intend to hold a large amount of gold as my overall assets - to me, property and shares just seem very much overvalued and likely, set for a correction fairly soon. If I were a more experienced and aggressive investor, I'd be shorting the DOW/FTSE.

Gold has had a bull run over the last couple of years and there's any number of of exchange rate disparities, inflation/deflation scenarios, oil/gold correlation, central government bulk gold sales, etc that could cause major shifts in either direction. It's a risk, but a small one that I'll not be losing sleep over.

TLM

I have never invested in gold, but have a small amount of cash 5-6k which I would like to do something with at the current price gold seems expensive but also seems to have remained stable over the last few months.
where do people see it going in the medium to long term?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Commodity Watch Radio

Back in time

Gold was $35 per oz

DOW Stock market was 800pts


Then Gold shot up to £800 per OZ. 1 OZ of gold to buy the DOW....!!!

Thats when you should use GOLD to purchase stocks. Asset to asset rotation.


So lets add a 0 to the figures above....

Gold £350 per oz

Dow stock market 8000pts


Quite near to the figures today ????



Gold could rise to $8000-12,000 PER OZ

if you havent listened to the Commodity watch Radio broadcasts please do - may answer the many questions you got about gold.

http://www.minesite.com/webcasts/commodity_watch_radio.html

Hello All,

Only my second post and already I'm asking for something.
I've been lurking for about a year after buying at the end of 2005 and then thinking - hold on a minute, was that such a good idea.

I'm considering buying some gold from goldline but I noticed in the T&Cs that the weight and dimensions of the gold may vary by +/- 5%.
This seems to be quite a variation to me.
Does anyone know if this is normal and if it can affect the value of your holding when you come to sell it?


Thanks for any light you can shed on this,

HM

Is there some technical reason for the switch from USD35/oz. to GBP350/oz.? (I get USD690-ish/oz. from that).
Or was it GBP35/oz.?