Bratnia

If you save just into gold for retirement you could end up very disappointed. 1980 to 1999 for instance and generally the price of gold just repeatedly declined. 50/50 stock/gold however and stocks did well, where yearly rebalancing back to 50/50 values typically had you adding more ounces of gold, ending up with something like six to ten times more gold without any further capital having been added, just from rebalancing. Stocks and gold combine well, gold alone is pretty high risk.

Don't concentrate into just gold alone, include some stocks as well, a broad low cost stock index fund. As per Tortoise bought/held in a SIPP. SIPP's can (subjectively) be passed on exempt from inheritance tax. Britannias/Sovereigns are capital gains tax exempt, which provides a opportunity to ramp up the cost/price paid whilst the going is good. Record selling them to a family member, and repurchasing them back again at the current spot price. Neither of you would have any taxes to pay (or even report), but the price paid would be higher (assuming prices had risen) so any taxes that did later perhaps apply would be based to a higher cost base. Ideally with records of the actual financial transactions, £50K of original gold purchase, later the price/value had doubled; £100K lent to a offspring, who then bought £100K of gold from you with that, and then later you bought £100K of gold from them and they repaid the £100K loan with the sale proceeds. With bank records of the cash flows. Cost base of the gold = £100K, so even if the rules changed to tax gains there'd be no capital gain tax. Could be contested, but at least you'd have the receipt/bank transaction records of the (last) purchase date/value to present as evidence that indicated the £100K price paid for the gold. For such reason Sovs/Brits are 'better' than bars/other. I see no harm in mixing/holding both. Heirs would most likely be able to distinguish the differences. Sovs will tend to have higher spreads but are more liquid (more easily sold). But if sold in bulk then a reputable dealer would be just as content to buy in bulk of either.

US stocks suffered a lost decade in the 2000's PV in real terms US stock total returns lost -2.73% annualised, declined -25%, which was a rebound from the 2009 lows when it was -50% down. Stocks are forward looking, don't necessarily correlate with ongoing economies, so whilst economies might struggle, stocks could counter-direction in anticipation of the worst being over. De-globalisation (decline of US$ as the primary reserve currency) could be good for smaller cap stock index funds as more seek to become more self sufficient rather than relying upon the global market store. Recent $2000 type per ounce of gold pricing is comparable to inflation adjusted 1979 peak price levels. Could go higher, could fall back, the market generally prices assets to 50:50 odds of either. I suspect that China will internalise capitalism, no longer has the need to sell the likes of steel at below cost to kill off competition and attract inflow of capital, to where its own internal market might sustain the uplift of paddy-fielders into commercial cities middle-classers. Whilst Europeans/Americans will see a broader lowering of living standards.

SVB had no risk officer for a year. When a new one was appointed they flagged that SVB were at risk of liquidity, and the director sold their shares and options - and then announced that risk, knowing full well that the response would be large-scale flight of capital. Would have been better if on the risk being highlighted they instead took out insurance/hedges and only then announced that the bank had been exposed to such risk, but that the risk had been shut-down. Just another case of the world we live in, where single individuals can cause harm/death to many. Events that will repeat in one form or another until individual stupidity risk is otherwise better managed.

£500 post/insurance/packaging?

Two same series one ounce coins, machine out the obverse of one, machine out the reverse of the other, extracting 1 ounce in the process, fill the core with tungsten and join the two.

Around 14,000 ounces of gold in 1290, or the same in 2022, around £20M equivalent recent cost price. https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/inflation/ and https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/gold/ If instead they'd stuck £15,500 Pounds in a box and buried it, then in currency (purchase power) terms the present day value would be around £11. The equivalent of burying £20M back then, to nowadays be worth less than a couple of pints down the local (or as of more recent maybe a pint and a bag of crisps).

The Pound dates back to the 700's, when it was a Saxon pound weight of silver value. For lugging around larger value amounts it was easier to carry gold (less weight for the same value). Prior to September 21st 1931 and Sovereign gold one pound coins were the same as one Pound note paper currency, both were cash, and fixed/exchangeable. Savers wouldn't keep cash (gold coins) at home, they deposited them for safety and interest (more gold). Inflation broadly averaged 0% (finite gold) so interest was like a real (after inflation) rate of return. Bond total returns compared to stock total returns, but stocks were more volatile so most simply held bonds. In 1931 the UK ended convertibility, so gold sovereigns you might have deposited for interest, had to be drawn as Pound note paper currency. The early stages of fiat currency, that has subsequently seen predominately inflation. If the state/central bank print/spend a new note that devalues all other notes in circulation, is a form of micro-taxation, benefits the printer/spender at the cost of devaluing all other notes in circulation. Combined inflation and actual taxation ended bonds (and hence gold) generally paying a real rate of return to instead broadly average 0% real. In view of gold and bonds generally yielding 0% real, investors turned to stocks. 100% stocks however is risky, especially for retirees, so many opt to blend stocks and bonds, but could do comparatively well with stocks and gold. Tends to make bad case outcomes less bad (better/safer). All fiat currencies decline sooner or later, just a matter of how much time that takes. A US dollar from a century ago has devalued more than 95%. A -3% annualised devaluation rate (or otherwise known as inflation). Gold like any item that is in demand tends to maintain its price in real (after inflation) terms. Someone is inclined to buy such items from you for similar reasons to why you bought it in the first place, for security/diversity/whatever reasons. US stocks in 1946 paid 4% dividends, as did they in 1986. Investors might have bought stocks at those times for that same 4% dividend yield reason. Over those years however the price of stocks increased 11-fold, as did the price of gold.

"Is the gold still kept there?" "LOL, LOL, ha ha, chuckle chuckle ... err yes ... amongst other things" ... Perhaps cans of gold coloured paint, brushes and piles of bricks. We used to call them Jankers ... where staff would have you cleaning the floor with a toothbrush, or painting coal white ... or I guess for others painting bricks gold. There's over 100 times more paper gold than physical gold, Wondering how many might think they hold/can access physical - but in the event of a gold run !!!

The price of gold can/has declined for protracted periods at times, its difficult to stay the course under such conditions. One method that 'works' is to 50/50 2MCL/Gold, yearly rebalanced. 2MCL is a 2x FT250 stock index tracker, and 50/50 yearly rebalanced with gold will yield similar rewards to if you were 100% in a FT250 index tracker (total returns), whilst the yearly rebalancing will see the number of ounces of gold you hold wax and wane. Over prolonged declines in gold prices you'll tend to have more ounces of gold accumulated in your safe/wherever, when gold does well you'll tend to see ounces being held declining, to add more stock shares. Hold 2MCL in a ISA (and/or SIPP), Britannia or Sovereign gold coins for the gold. Nice having half of your portfolio outside of the regular financial system, in-hand (or under the mattress/wherever). When others are fretting about their bank deposited cash and there are bank runs, fear of their money not being returned (above the FSCS £85K amount - that whilst that may seem high when you're young, can become too little in your later years), you can just smile. Just keep it quiet though, rule 1 of owning gold is ... you don't own any gold, otherwise that risks its security. Don't know of a UK equivalent of this US web site/data, but as a guide PV For 2MCL/Gold 50/50 since the start of 2016 to end of 2022 and that yielded a 75% gain (£10,000 initial increased to £17,500 portfolio value), a 8.4% annualised rate of return/reward. Keep at that until you get near to retirement, then sell perhaps half of the portfolio into cash deposits/Gilts before entering retirement, carrying on as before with the other half, and likely you'll do OK/well. You'll likely hit problems when trying to buy 2MCL, as the rules are such that you have to declare/demonstrate that you're a "sophisticated investor". Usually the test/questions aren't that onerous - more a case of the broker being able to demonstrate that "you were warned" about the risks in order to cover their own backs.

I don't suspect contagion will spread that far. SVB had no risk manager for nearly a year (prior one resigned back in early spring 2022), a new one just being appointed in February. Banks that hold bonds to maturity don't have to market to market that value, but it was noted that if they did have to sell the marked to market value after recent increases in yields/interest rates (lower bond prices) would involve a large hit. So the CEO first sold large amounts of their own stock and Options ... before declaring that risk. So other majors started pulling their money from SVB. If the bonds were held to maturity then there was no risk. So the FDIC have in effect bought SVB at 30 cents (whatever) on the dollar, have the liquidity to cover withdrawals, and can hold the bonds to maturity and make a quick/large profit. Other smaller banks will be rushing around like mad to secure liquidity in order to avoid them being the next 'bought out' (by FDIC) 'failure'. Many (better managed) banks likely have much of that already covered - as part of normal risk-management practices.

The irony of the worlds largest counterfeiter (China) complaining (politically based) about minute amounts of copper inclusion instead being silver ... as being a "fraud" 🙃 Just a pure politically based dig at Australia.

The decentralised transaction element is the part that interests me. Up to now I've had zero interest in bitcoin/crypto's etc., however the potential of selling gold for bitcoin whilst simultaneously placing a short sell on the bitcoin spot market would negate the bitcoin price volatility. Wouldn't matter if the price of bitcoin doubled or halved before you later spent the bitcoin (re-bought gold) - it would still buy back the same amount of ounces of gold (less costs). As I understand it short selling bitcoin requires bitcoin as collateral, which you'd have from having sold gold for bitcoin. It's not a derivative market so there's no leverage (1:1) so low risk. Then later you repurchase gold, anywhere else in the world that caters for doing so, paying in bitcoin whilst closing the short bitcoin position. There'd be transaction costs/fees (and spot market fees are typically higher than futures) and gold sell/re-buy spreads however those costs are perhaps less than it might have otherwise cost to transport physical gold across international borders or to have liquidated into domestic currency (such as Pounds), electronic transfer those Pound and repurchase gold elsewhere - and without the hassles of having transactions halted pending 'fraud' investigations when selling gold for Pounds and/or sending/conveying Pounds abroad. Fundamentally requires ... 1. Someone prepared to buy your gold and pay in bitcoin 2. A account/whatever in which to receive/hold the bitcoin 3. A short spot bitcoin market account 4. Someone prepared to sell you gold for bitcoin I'd imagine that 2 and 3 might be available within the same account/outfit. But with low, near zero knowledge about bitcoin I have no idea about possible accounts/outfits for that, but my interest is piqued enough to start investigating such avenues, if not just only as a fallback option for if "conventional" selling (or buying) gold ever did become more problematic. I dislike the modern world where bank deposits sees that money become the banks money; Or stock brokerage accounts where deposits becomes the brokers money, where they'll buy the stocks/shares you like, but registered in their name, not yours. And where the tendency is towards Bail-In's where savers/investors fund bail-out's, not taxpayers. Considerable concentration risk factors should a fraud/failure instance occur during the next 20, 30, whatever years that you might be investing. One way to alleviate that as I see it is to for instance hold 25% in a 2x leverage stock, 75% in physical gold (coins/whatever) instead of 50/50 stock/gold. This is a US data example for that. So if the stock brokerage falters/fails perhaps as part of broader contagion due to a large fraud/whatever, then you're still sitting on 75% physical gold holdings and are likely down a lot less than many others (so relatively wealthier) for having hedged some of the risk.

I suspect they might outlaw its fungibility - make it difficult/impossible to convert to/from Pounds/whatever, or spend it via regular outlets, but suspect the idea being that as its global they can't stop/control it. Where for instance someone with bitcoins could buy your gold in exchange for bitcoins, such that you could travel abroad to where bitcoin fungibility was available and exchange those bitcoins for regular currency (or from home, buy something remotely in another country paying in bitcoin and have the item posted to your home address).

But the price volatility is a killer if you're just looking at bitcoin being a stable store of value/currency. Golds volatility can be largely negated with stocks, but shifting physical gold especially across international borders is high risk, its better to liquidate, electronic transfer and repurchase at the desired destination - for which bitcoin could be used if domestic gold convertibility into domestic currency became a issue/barrier or there were restrictions on how much money was permitted to be taken out of the country (or brought into the destination country). Shorting bitcoin in order to negate its price volatility for a brief period during the time of having sold gold for bitcoin to the time you bought gold again using those bitcoin is more viable than holding longer term bitcoin + short bitcoin positions.

I suspect it will just become common bank policy to comply with the law by 'flagging everything' so anything that is fraud/laundering will at least have been flagged by the bank. Which conceptually might overload the state system - but perhaps where the state opines it could now handle such volumes and get to see all transactions everywhere, to associate to the street/road cam tracking and getting inside your head via your phone.

I know near zero about bitcoin, but it strikes me that as the Pound and UK banking system moves to being non-fungible that alternatives will rise to favour. One option might be for a 'app' that maintains a bitcoin short position to the amount of bitcoins you hold, so its value remains consistent (non-volatile value) - making it the same as Pounds/cash (stable value, but earns/pays no interest). Spend 0.1 bitcoin and the app reduces your short bitcoin by 0.1 value, receive 1 bit coin and the app adds 1 bit coin worth of short bitcoin value.

Reporting "suspicions" of money laundering and the likes of banks are not supposed to raise suspicions that the person is being investigated. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA, Sections 335 to 336D under Part 7) prohibit the financial institution from carrying out a transaction until they have sought ‘Appropriate Consent’ from authorities. To do so without the appropriate consent the financial institution could be found guilty of a money laundering offence if it moves the ‘criminal property’ without requesting what is known as a Defence Against Money Laundering (DAML) first. Where a DAML has been made, the transaction(s) in question cannot proceed, and the account may remain blocked until either appropriate consent has been granted by authorities or a specified time has lapsed without authorities refusing consent. As is common, when there is ambiguity such as what is 'suspicious' banks will tend to err on the side of caution in order for the institution to be less inclined to be found guilty of moving 'criminal property'. Similar to HMRC nowadays, even the likes of opening letters requesting repayment of a over-payment are threatening. With street camera's and tracking etc. it would seem the UK is a Open Prison where everyone is assumed guilty until proven innocent. No matter which alternative payment option you use, the directional trend is such that even the presently 'better' methods will at some point also 'fall into line'. Not good policy, as the tendency when you treat individuals as being guilty is for them to be directed into acting criminally.

in a haunting slivering whisper he said "You repeatedly told me time is money ... now I see that my time was golden, I'd have given all my money for some extra time"

"Yes, at least until cash is no more, otherwise I'm selling a coin I bought for cash just yesterday, paid well over the odds for it - twice spot, and the missus is insisting I get rid of it - painful to take the hit, but anything to keep her happy and at least I'll be able to write off the capital loss against capital gains elsewhere". Why is there no capital gains tax on Gilts - coz broadly price changes are a zero sum so collecting taxes is just a overall cost. Why is there no capital gains tax on betting - because most people lose money and so the taxman would end up paying out overall.

https://goldmetalstore.com/product/real-gold-dust-for-sale/ Indicates that its the post-melt mass that's assayed.

If as a retirement pot, coins were bought from you (Chards) over a period of time, or a lump sum purchase made as part of a shift to a retirement asset allocation, my thoughts are that a regular relationship would have been pre-established anyway, and whether subsequent draw-down/retirement might be simplified. Once/month credit card bill comes in, sell (back to Chards) coin(s), to cover that, perhaps even where the payment were direct to the credit card (rather than cash or a bank transfer into my bank account, that would then have to be cleared before paying the credit card bill). Failing that I guess ETF's would be the way to go, but I would rather have no counter-party risk (even though some ETF's claim to be backed by physical, push come to shove I suspect 'whoops' outcomes could follow (there's 100+ times more paper-gold than physical gold). Maybe something like 'those allocated bars we said we held that back the ETF, well they'd been lent out and aren't going to be returned' in the event of a gold-run). Unlikely perhaps, but perhaps with a 30+ year retirement window - odd things happen during those years. Just thinking through simplicity/convenience.

Legal tender has a strict definition. It means if you have a court awarded debt against you, if someone tries to settle and they're paying in legal tender you cannot refuse it. That 1971 act clearly indicates that gold coins shall not be legal tender if their weight has become less than .... 7.93787g such that it could be refused as part payment of a court awarded debt settlement. But as a single coin it could still be exempt from CGT under the chattel exemption https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg76573 A chattel is movable personal property that can be borrowed against using a chattel mortgage i.e. in this case depositing gold as a security to secure a chattel mortgage. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg78305 It struck me that on that basis however, then surely American Eagles, Canadian Maples that are not legal tender could be individually sold (for less than £6K) and not be liable to CGT - but then I saw and sovereigns are £1 sterling currency as is a Britannia £100 sterling currency

Self insured, being discrete and diversifying storage (hiding) can be safer than having a additional layer of visibility (insurance companies records) - that will tend to include details of where and how much. "Hi Reg, its Ron, I've just got this new job at We-Insure-Gold, and guess what - the records show that there's a geezer just down the road from us with a million quids worth of gold that for insurance purposes he has to store in a locked safe. Fancy grabbing a couple of pencils and paying him a visit after I finish at 5pm?" Even the most secure safe can be opened with a pencil - held near a loved ones eye.

Unsurprisingly favoured generational wealth assets include a considerable weighting of cash (in-hand), gold and art such as paintings that can be rolled up into a tube. And for the uber wealthy a yacht and/or private jet as a transportation means. Any hint of confiscatory type policies such as like the UK is expressing and that wealth is rapidly moved to alternative 'more stable' geopolitical alternatives. By the time actual 'wealth tax' is applied, its more a case of average-Joe that cops the pain.