Espana123

Hi
Recently saw a tv show about Australian opal mining and the theme running through was there is a lot of value in the opal industry and the price is supposedly rising at 25% annually. 
It got me thinking, some of the pieces they were digging up - black opal - were in the range of 30k+. These aren't pieces you see in regular jewellery or worn by celebrities. Who is buying opal? A quick google confirmed a recent private collection of 20 odd pieces was estimated at 10 mill.  I'm wondering if anyone on here has any in their stack, alongside PMs, in jewellery form or unset polished stones?
Obviously my wife is pretty keen to get into this form of investment 😂

@Scootermuppet - I've recently posted this photo on another thread, but it might also help you in terms of seeing the scale of various coins.

Top left - 1/4 oz UK gold bullion coins
Top middle - 1 oz UK platinum bullion coins; 1/4 oz and 1/2 oz UK gold bullion coins; bullion double sovereigns and bullion quintuple sovereign
Top right - bullion sovereigns
Bottom left - 1 oz UK gold bullion coins
Bottom middle - 1 oz UK gold bullion coins
Bottom right - 1 oz UK silver bullion coins, plus 1 oz bullion silver Krugerrand, Somalian Elephant and Niue Turtle
Enjoy your decision(s)...

Hello guys and gals 
So today I made my first piece of gold.
I have alot of 9k gold that my mum left me so before it goes off to the jewelers later today to be sold I figured I'd take a little and make something. The shells in silver have been so popular and so I figured this was as a good starting point for my Gold adventure. ( Also my Mum loved shells so sentimental as well) I won't be selling any currently as the hallmarking on 1 piece is to expensive and I'm not rich enough to be sending loads. Also I feel pieces this big just won't sell very easily. With a weight of 14g I'm truly in love with this 
.
 

Many years ago, I had a college friend from Vietnam.  One lunchtime I asked him how long he had lived in the UK. It transpired that he was a refugee. He and his family left Saigon by boat in mid 1970s during civil war. They paid to be smuggled into Hong Kong as refugees.
When I asked how much per head, he said didn't know as he was young but was aware they had to pay in gold to smugglers. I asked how come his family had so much gold.  He said his grandma owned a gold jewellery store. He recounted that all the remaining gold jewellery they had were either sown into clothes or stuffed into hollowed out platform shoes before leaving. Quite an interesting story I thought at the time. 
Years later, I met a vietnamese couple. I retold the story to them about my college friend and that they had to pay in gold to be smuggled out. They answered yes, no smugglers would accept paper money. Whoever wants to leave had to pay in gold. 
They said the going rate when they left was 6-7 tael of gold and some smugglers wanted more. Each tael is approx 1.2 ounces so about 7-8.5 ounces per head. 
They recounted that many boats were over capacity. Some of them sank and goodness knows how much gold were left at the bottom of the sea.
That's a when SHTF story for you ! 
 

The sad truth is that everything is automated now - if an item or word is deemed unacceptable then context or common sense is irrelevant. If it's banned then it's banned, you can't expect exceptions from an algorithm. 
The 'computer says no' parody is here to stay because humanity has largely given up on responsibility and integrity.

There's jewellers and pawn shops here in spain who wont need any ID. However, it's a bit harder sourcing gold coins here at the moment. Even if you do end up buying with ID - where's the proof you kept them? There's a thousand things you might have done with those coins and if it came to a confiscation point in the future - we're all doomed anyway and would've probably used the coins long before to buy our way out of situations.... 

@FlorinCollector And you thought the Royal mint dose not have a sense of humour..........Can you spare a thought for the poor guy who was expecting a gold and to get a silver box.  His backside would have fallen out! lol! 

5 oz Silver is STUNNING!
WOW
WOW
WOW
Not many more words able to describe it....
 

A quick pic of the 5oz Gold Gothic......The colour is fantastic is has an aged patina to it.  I'll stick some more pictures up on to day I received once I dig out my better camera.  
I knew this was going to be special but Wow !

5oz gold gothic delivered! Woo

I'm unashamed to say that if i had of got anything, which I didn't, I was gonna flip it and use the proceeds to buy gold bullion lol 
Well done to anyone who got stuff today

LOL I got nothing but my son who was number 19 in the queue got the 2oz silver & said he could have got the 2oz gold if he had a spare 5K anyway I'm over the moon for him as he is only 18.
 

LANDED a 5oz GOLD..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Logged in on 4 devices, all different browsers (safari, chrome, bing, explorer) at 9.15am. 3 of the browsers queud me in the 2000s and 3000s and the other browser i was 120th in queue. Its totally random as to who gets placed where regardless of browser as ive seen someone said chrome placed them high but chrome was tge one that placed me 120th.
I secured a 2oz and 5oz . Very happy
Good luck to all

Logged in on 4 devices, all different browsers (safari, chrome, bing, explorer) at 9.15am. 3 of the browsers queud me in the 2000s and 3000s and the other browser i was 120th in queue. Its totally random as to who gets placed where regardless of browser as ive seen someone said chrome placed them high but chrome was tge one that placed me 120th.
I secured a 2oz and 5oz . Very happy
Good luck to all

There's jewellers and pawn shops here in spain who wont need any ID. However, it's a bit harder sourcing gold coins here at the moment. Even if you do end up buying with ID - where's the proof you kept them? There's a thousand things you might have done with those coins and if it came to a confiscation point in the future - we're all doomed anyway and would've probably used the coins long before to buy our way out of situations.... 

Thank you...
Fingers crossed 🤞.
I expected there to be some paperwork inside giving details of what to pay,this is how It was previously ...but nothing... TBH i didn't think about a bill arriving sometime later.🙄

Sometimes it depends on the carrier. I know with fedex you will most likely get the bill a week to some months later. 
Hopefully you got lucky and they somehow slipped through

Yes, they sell you a nice proof sovereign for £630.00 and then give a nice bottle of something to drink. When you wake up you have a quarter sovereign in your hand and you are told everything is normal.

I have all the 1 Troy ounce PL bullion gold Pandas from 1982 thru 2015 (including 1987 - 3 mint marks - S, Y & P and 2001 no & D mint marks). I quit collecting the series when China Mint went metric starting 2016 to 30 grams instead of Troy ounce. To avoid high premium old issues going back to 1982, I suggest starting your collection from 2016 (when they went metric). Good luck on your starting a gold Panda collection. Here’s a brochure picture showing 1982 thru 2016 designs...

You are the currency of the elites. From birth you are a corporation your name capitalized and on every official document, until your death when on your headstone your name is still capitalized. You are born into bondage/ slavery ie the financial bonds that are raised in the bond market are basically you. This is why suicide was illegal, it was viewed as destruction of state property. Tax is the theft of your labour. Government does not produce anything, it basically breaks your leg, and thinks it is doing you a favour by giving you a crutch. UBI just enables government further control, as with this currency they purport to give you comes with further conditions. Do you think they would let you vote if it really made a difference, all the parties are paid for. Be careful what you wish for.

Give me strength...
If you give poor people money, they will always be poor. If you give unemployed people money, they will always be unemployed.
The only people who will do well out of this are McDonalds, Imperial Tobacco, Golden Wonder and Coca Cola.
 
 

I will ask my gurus on my chat group

Im a sovereign and half sovereign man, mainly proof but I do have some rare and collectable circulation (along with some modern, 3G, una, QB, etc). But regarding sovereigns, its the history and the story that they are steeped in that interests me and that a coin like the one attached to this post has survived 470years, and the knowledge that im going to be part of the story of a specific coin as most of my sovereigns / half sovereigns will be eternally collectable long after I am pushing up daisies (im not sure many of the modern coins will be, who knows). Later milled also the same, coins that are hundreds of years old and are almost as perfect as the day they were struck, how is that even possible... amazing when you overlay that with the storyline of british history. Collecting modern sovereigns is just an extension and continuation of british history and development encased in a small piece of gold for your personal and private consideration when you want to.
I’m very much a collector, but bullion sovereigns also present an opportunity for those who are halfway between stacker and collector which you don't get with anything else as diverse really, i don’t do date runs or varieties, but I completely understand why people do, they are able to add weight and watch the progression of this historic coin and british history over hundreds of years.
I’m fairly sure ive seen you enthusiastic and excited about early milled proof half and full sovereigns on here before @Paul 😉
what does excite you out of interest Paul if not sovereigns? Diversity is what makes our community interesting. I love looking at the coins other are collecting, perhaps not something  I would buy but I can normally appreciate the beauty and or rarity of them. Sovereigns can obviously also be used for hardcore stacking which is different and all about accumulating a stock, I don't think many are really like that on here though, you likely wouldn’t bother with a forum like this if you were I guess.
Well probably best not to collect sovereigns then 😄 ... come on Paul, what do you collect?
 

i was a bit dense for a few minutes but then the penny dropped (i think). Yes, the multiple claims on every physical ounce. Rehypothecation as many times you like is allowed in London. This is what keeps the price down. There is a rude awakening coming, which i don't think is too far off. It will be like life boat places on the Titanic. There are many things coming together right now, not just QE. The personal remedy for some of these is precious metal. 
The Great Reset. Well there are lots of different versions of the Great Reset. My own view is the GR is not coming out of Davos. It will come from outside the US dollar system. It will come from Russia / China. The GR is the Golden Rule which is "He who hold the gold makes the rules."  
The Chinese told US Secretary of State Blinken in Alaska - "...the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength."
We are in the dying days of Empire. Schwab and co are no longer the movers and shakers but want you to believe they are.