GoldStatue

New Britannia Launch Cancelled - Official
It has now been announced that the long awaited replacement for Britannia, announced only last year, has been cancelled.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63547568
At least this should reduce the alarming number of alleged boating accidents reported by TSF members.
😎

It's not that I don't believe you, it's just... The royal mint would bankrupt itself with the lack of QC combined with chards postage costs! 😏

Seriously? You haven't enough stress in your life already... Will the returns process be free postage at least?

Also to hand today, 14oz of some of BYB's finest.....A little more unboxing action to round out the day.

 
 
 

Got this through this morning, first purchase from Crawley coins and delighted, 2% discount and free postage helped, always had a thing about Egypt so no brainer for me

I'd like to share my experience claiming for Special Delivery as a warning to other members and in the hope that people can use the service in the knowledge of what may ensue if the dreaded situation comes to pass and the item does not arrive. We all use SD when sending our precious metals in the expectation that the extra price we pay and the extra insurance is in place to cover for the loss of the item. It gives us peace of mind. Unfortunately a potentially false sense of security...
I share the full story as it has a few concerning aspects which potentially point to the existence of some underlying tactics used by Royal Mail to avoid honouring their Special Delivery insurance.
I sent a parcel on 17th August containing a tube of silver ounce coins (how many in a tube, I hear you ask! 20 this time) to a member of TSF worth £480, and it didn't arrive, so I refunded the buyer and started the claims process on the RM website on 25th August, sending them a bank statement showing the transfer made to me for the item.
I received a letter back from RM about on 11th September (17 days later) with a cheque for £8.95. It said 
Note use of "in the future", a underhand implication that my case is closed and I will not be able to claim for the loss this time. The whole process is designed in such a way to discourage you to persevere with the claim. 
I responded to this letter by including a statement showing my payment to the original seller of the goods in the "submit additional evidence for a claim" form on the website, which unhelpfully only allows you to attach one file. I had to do this 3 times to attach all the evidence they had asked for.
I received this letter on 16th September.

I picked up the phone and got through to customer service to explain that having purchased the goods from an individual and not a business, I did not have an invoice, but said that I could ask the seller to knock one up for me. He said that would suffice.
I proceeded to get back in contact with the seller, provided him with an invoice template to fill in with the details of the transaction and sent that along in the same manner.
8 days later on 24th I received this rather cobbled up bit of waffle

It continued to invite me to escalate the claim with the "Escalated customer resolutions" team.
I picked up the phone to RM again and what ensued was the most bizarre and enraging telephone call I have ever had.
The man was able to see the invoice from the seller that I had provided and noted that it had come from an individual and not from a business, which I of course conceded was the case. He proceeded to put forward the argument that any Tom **** or Harry could cobble together an invoice on MS Word to fraudulently claim compensation for a lost item. I explained that I had responded to every request for evidence made in the claims process and that was the only option for an item supplied by an individual and that together with multiple bank statements I'd supplied with a clear paper trail showing funds transferred from seller to me, buyer to me for the purchase, and me back to the buyer for the refund, this, surely constituted pretty conclusive evidence of a genuine transaction. He maintained this was not sufficient and he needed an original purchase invoice from an established business. 
So I explained that goods are transferred between individuals all the time, not only from dealers. As a business I purchase items from individuals without original purchase invoices all the time. The conclusion is that SD is not fit for purpose for sending anything of value, despite the fact that this is the very basis of the selling point of Special Delivery - the only service that is suitable for sending items of value. It additionally does not state in any of the terms and conditions (which I have read closely), nor have I read anywhere or been told by anyone, that SD does not cover items sent between his individuals. 
His response? He actually told me on the phone that Royal Mail does not need to state that in their terms!
I responded with the argument that I have been mis-sold the SD service hundreds of times since it is not fit for the purpose it is advertised for. This would mean that rather than claiming for the £480 for the lost item, I should rather be claiming for the £1000s spent over years on mis-sold services by the Royal Mail when I could have saved the money spent on SD and just stuck to 1st class standard! 
I was pretty dumbstruck at this point, and getting pretty worked up, so I thanked the rep for his time, informed him that I would take my case to the CEO and ended the call. (I think I remained polite throughout, and put forward my case in a respectful way. These poor folk are doing their job and sticking to the company line. They do not deserve any abuse, but if I had continued the call I may have lost my rag as I could not believe what I was hearing!)
The story concludes happily, in that the CEO office responded very quickly to my email (which I kept brief and attached all evidence supplied) and returned the original purchase price for the goods to my bank account very promptly. Further, the goods arrived at the buyers two weeks later with a bizarre label :
 
Anyway. A long tale (and thank you for reading!) with the following morals to the story:
If you use SD and pay for extra insurance, be prepared for a long, time consuming and stressful claim for any loss. Between sending item and receiving refund was 47 days! I could cope without £500 for a few weeks. But had that been £2500 that would be challenging. Additionally I spent over 4 hours working on the claim, in time spent compiling and uploading evidence, speaking to people on the phone and sending emails. The stress of the whole thing was rather a bore to put it Englishly. At Royal Mail the left hand does not know what the right is doing. At so many junctures in the process it is clear that nothing is joined up. Every stage I dealt with someone else and the messages all conflicted with each other. There appear to be unwritten policies and procedures to avoid giving compensation for SD and nudge tactics to dissuade pursuing claims. It would be easier, if a little lacking in integrity, to just find an old invoice from a dealer for something vaguely resembling the lost item in weight and value and send that in instead of being honest and saying what it actually was and who it was from. Royal Mail SD may not, after all, be suitable for sending valuables between individuals. I can only imagine what would have been the response if I'd told them it was cash!! (How would one prove how much it was?) Keep all evidence. Never throw away any PM invoices, keep all receipts, take photos. The more you have available the more likely for a successful claim. If the claims process bears no fruit, waste no time and escalate directly to the CEO office. Don't lose hope. Persevere. It may turn up after all!

Completed my date run of 1oz Silver Brits.  Every year, 1997 onwards.

I worked with Royal Mail 37 years. When I first started the Investigation Branch ( their police force ) picked up a employee stealing every month. Sometimes two or three.  It was a regular thing.  I haven't seen anyone picked up in over ten years. It doesn't happen any more.
 And uniformed postmen on decent wages , pension , sick pay and holidays are going to be got rid off to be replaced by gig economy people on very poor pay and conditions.  Put two and two together and be very careful in future when using the service.  It breaks my heart to say this but just be careful folks. It's not the company it used to be. 

Completely agree. Thankfully/touch wood I've never personally had to make a claim. But over the past few weeks I've taken to photographing every stage of "over wrapping" the parcel ( including what sock colour im wearing) , weighing on picture each step, then finally finished sealed addressed envelope/box/RM bag. Then always over insuring items at sometimes own expense, I'd rather pay an extra £1/£2 today than face a £1000+ regret tomorrow. 
Thanks for all the very helpful responses everyone, I will update with hopefully a positive outcome in due course. 

Thanks to @arphethean for this beauty, a pleasure to deal with you. My first slabbed 5 OZ. If I think about all the OMP, coming from the mint, i can see the benefits of a coffin.

From today's London Coin Fair - seemed busier than usual. People trading in their fiat for proper money I guess.
 

The battle of waterloo medal is a good shout, in my mind it would be a crying shame not to start with the George and Dragon broken spear if they were to do Pistrucci's work.

Two more fantastic additions to my growing predecimal coin collection arrived today. 
Victoria 1849 "Godless" florin from 1849. A highly controversial coin in its time due to the omission of the otherwise omnipresent "dei gratia" or d.g. The design hence lasted only one year. 
I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford a gothic crown so a gothic florin will have to hold its seat




 
 
And my first proof predecimal coin, a 1902 halfcrown with beautiful colourful tones. 
Always an underwhelming portrait imo but the detail on the proof does bring out its quality. 

Today I want to show these three Brilliant Uncirculated Five Sovereign Pieces.  2017, 2018 and 2022.
I love these coins.
 

Weekly additions.
coins - stunning.
Photography skills - possibly even getting worse.

Another 1oz Au Tudor lion and a 1oz 2019 Pt Britannia 

Thank you to @BackyardBullion for getting these Maples out to me so fast, and in possibly the neatest wrapped box I've ever had a bullion delivery in. 4 are now wearing capsules for their delivery to relatives as Xmas presents, 2 are for the tube of random 1oz coins I'm slowly filling.
 

Probably not my smartest move, but yano....want.

That's nice, go big or go home 😀
I've always fancied owning a 1000oz good delivery silver bar!

So it finally arrived...phone for scale lol

A smart Turk would hoover up all the pennies he could get his hands on.
For £1 you can buy 2000 1 kuru coins which has about 4kg of copper.
Extract it and melt it into a bar and sell on ebay for £100+.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_Turkey

So I’ve been told a release date for the 2023 sov. the date I’ve been given is 13th Nov 2022. This is from a fairly reliable source! Let’s see if they are right! If they are we only have just over a week to wait 🤩

No plans to bring any of the metals back to earth, so they just randomly chose that asteroid and it just happened to have a ton of gold and platinum in it 😀
I read recently that NASA were firing missiles at asteroids to see if they can divert their path to stop another dinosaur extinction event from happening, they could always use that technique to divert this one closer to earth.
If that amount of gold did end up on earth wouldn't it basically turn golds value into something similar to tin or aluminum.

Not yet received but a big thanks to Louise @CoinsOfTheRealmAuctionsfor another pair of top grades  ( I just wish NGC would take better photos ) 

Bars from Arpathean/Haven, old & new coins from Tavex (splendid packaging that is a delight to open!).