TommyTwoShots

Yes, particularly below spot

I've posted my little how I got into gold story in prior years, but it seems relevant to this thread today. Here's it again 
 
I'm 45 now and through my twenties, i guess I must have staked and wasted around £75k-£100k at a rough guess through bookies, FOBTs, online poker and land based casinos.



Some good days but it all quickly went back as losings in the end.



I went cold turkey at 30-31 and managed a few months until i relapsed again.



Told myself never again.



It was this time I found about gold, since 2008-2009 I have bought investment gold every month, a gold sovereign here, a half sovereign there, 1/2 oz on a good month, a full oz of fine gold when bonus from work.



What this did was separate actual cash i could gamble and move it into another tangible thing with value that i couldn't easily spunk away or spend.



Slowly but surely, my gold stack has grown, every month, as i would buy a another gold coin every fortnight or so.



The ancient Aztecs called Gold 'the sweat of the sun'



Blood, sweat, tears and toil getting it out of the ground.



YOUR blood sweat and tears represents how hard you have worked to get this coin you now hold, and continue to hold ongoing.



Your pile of gold increases monthly.



Gold is also a little bit of a gamble, it will never go to zero, it has been money for 5,000+ years, and can also go up in value



Currently im now VERY nicely up in £ terms if i chose to cash in and take some profits.



A quote stuck with me quite prophetically, as i've never believed in loans or credit cards.



“Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.” ― Norm Franz, Money & Wealth in the New Millennium: A Prophetic Guide to the New World Economic Order



The bigger my gold stack grows the more satisfied I become and want more. A positive kind of addiction.



I have not yet cashed in one single coin for gambling and my investment pile has grew.



I have cashed gold in here on the forum and realized better than dealer prices to increase my business and expand/buy new vans/staff/tech



This degree of separation that takes place between the gold coin and actual cash i can spunk gambling is awesome.



Yet i know at a glance my total gold grams i have on any given day, and know how much it is worth should i cash in.



When money is in a bank AC it is just like figures on a screen to me, cash in my hand just gambling token/betting voucher credits.



I could never hold onto money while it was in a bank account, savings account would be were there for good intention but the money came out for gambling.



Gold doesn't do that for me, the degree of separation between between the time and effort it takes to cash in a gold coin, packing posting, sending, waiting for bank transfer for payment etc. is a few days minimum.



By which times my urge to gamble has long since past.



whilst i will always have that gamble bug inside me, i cant extinguish that flame as i like to to take risks, i'm self employed and risk = reward. and i have done well working over the years.



I still have my monthly little gamble, but as my priority with my spare cash is always to buy a minimum amount of gold, i'm never exposed to loose mega money EVER, fact these days, as the money isn't there because it has been converted from one asset class cash into another asset gold.



The small amount i assign myself to have a gamble is minimal, £100 or £200 for a month. should i win, i actually treat myself to some more gold coins for my stack.



With doing this approach and putting what used to be gambling stake money cash into gold, i've got my good nest egg of gold if i cashed it in from my safe deposit box.



I purposely store the gold in a safety deposit centre in a city that is hours drive/train ride away to resist the sudden urge to gamble/cash in.



A financial advisor would tell you it is stupid and daft to put all your eggs in one basket with one asset/investments, but to a gambler?



would i sooner have this,  lots of gold is much better than having nothing at all, **** all to show for it - so it works for me



Knowing this fall back of savings is there for any of lifes eventualities makes me sleep wonderfully at night.



This approach may not be for everyone but if you can never hold onto money it has worked wonders for me.



Sorry for the rambles length here today but to those nodding their head to this and this life course maybe sounds a familiar path to yours, if my narrative resonates with you, give gold a try. please try it, you might just like it, or start just buying gold with your big wins.

https://www.thesilverforum.com/topic/32375-your-gold-story-how-it-happened/?do=findComment&comment=416089
 
 
 

Thanks @Iacabu. I think just about everyone here is more experienced than I am, so I welcome the input.
I have to say that in just the last week, I've learned so much. My 'sensible' head is prevailing and all signs point to gold if it's truly a 'value storage' / wealth preservation outome I'm looking for. To back that up, I purchased my first gold this very day - 2x 2022 sovereigns.
But (and I say this in whispered tones because I can feel the shaking heads, rolling eyes, and tut-tuts from the pros), I know that I'll still be picking up some silver 1oz coins as I go. Why? Just because I really like them. And I think, as strange as it sounds, I'll need that visceral and visual 'hit' in order to sustain my ambitions over the long term.
So yes, in 20 years or so I'll be able to look back and say, if I'd JUST done gold I could have amassed 'x' oz more - but a pursuit like this has to be enjoyable too (for me at least) and if it was purely pragmatic and practical, I'd probably lose momentum.
Again, I appreciate how proposterous that sounds. But I'm a kook!
So... my new strategy is something along the lines of... investment funds buy sovereigns and loose change buys silver Maples. That sounds reasonable for now. 
Cheers my friend.
FNF.

I'm in this for the long game, so I'm hoping that I won't be stung that badly, if and when I chose to cash in any of my silver. How bad can it be, assuming that I'm already resigned to the fact that I'll lose whatever premium I originally paid? Unless the floor falls out of the silver market completely.
All that said, with premiums what they are ... I have quickly come around to the fact that gold is a better (smarter?) fit with my long-term investment ambitions and I just need to come to terms with the fact that it will mean stacking coins with a much smaller diameter than I'd originally intended. 😆
But I can't promise I won't stack any more silver... there's just something about those goddam Maple Leaves...
Thanks @FlorinCollector, I really appreciate the feedback.
FNF.

There’s no need to thank me as we’re a community here. 
You do raise a good question but I think the sovereign didn’t nor does need to state it’s denomination.
I’ve also only ever known coins with the denomination stated on the coin as ‘face value’.
Even with ‘new world’ thinking as you say. Every question is worth asking.
The only silly question is one that was never asked.

Just gotmy second of three, the fighter pilot to join the firefighter, means more to me as my son flies an F15E fighter bomber but he ain't getting this cos he says he's not into coins..lol.

Not to far away from breaking through and passing the all time high of £1580 
 

That’s absolutely their choice. There is a massive fertiliser plant developing potash in northern England. Largest reserves in the world. We have the North Sea gas reserves, before that, we have the USA. The summer is on the way. 
We should have no truck with murderers of children, those that systematically and intentionally breach international law by attacking civilians purposefully. I notice starstreak works really well. By all accounts NLAW is very effective.

We’re not all English 😉 some are worse at sea!

That’s absolutely their choice. There is a massive fertiliser plant developing potash in northern England. Largest reserves in the world. We have the North Sea gas reserves, before that, we have the USA. The summer is on the way. 
We should have no truck with murderers of children, those that systematically and intentionally breach international law by attacking civilians purposefully. I notice starstreak works really well. By all accounts NLAW is very effective.

Dutch 10gulden and a tube Phillies from my lcs
 

Lol will catch a tiny fraction of fakes. It’s best to combine loads of methods including specific density.

Sadly, I knew of someone who ended their life due to a gambling addiction. 😥

What Sigma machine did you use to test your sovereigns?   
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 1895 half sovereign is composed of 0.9167 gold purity.   I got the info from the link below.
Link: Half Sovereign 1895, Coin from United Kingdom - Online Coin Club
If you are testing the half sovereigns using "pure" gold function, then of course the reading will be outside the brackets.  Because the half sovereign is not pure gold.   Pure gold function on the Sigma tests for 999 or 9999 fine gold, which the half sovereign is not.   
If the reading for 90% gold is inside the brackets, then that means your half sovereigns are reading correctly.  

Just a quick heads up.
I ordered from Silver-to-go/CoinInvest and although it took nearly a month to arrive, there was no VAT added (package was labelled as "social advertising").
I only ordered 1 tube of silver Britannias as it was the first time I'd dealt with them, but I'll definitely be ordering more.
Well worth the wait to save over £100.
 

Yep, I hear you. Feel the same about houses. 
In my wisdom I thought it'd be smart to go big early and drip feed the stack. I remember a hefty purchase we made after getting married in 2012 and the 3-4 years of kicking myself. Means nothing now of course, but the journey wasn't great. Made me question what the metal in the safe was doing vs the houses we purchased around the same time. 
But, yes the crystal ball tends to say up up up and that tends to be true if you're in it for the long haul/hand down. 
Id have a lot more physical metal if I waited a bit, but the process gave me balls of steel which isnt a PM but counts 😆 

Be careful though! Last year many TSF members were suffering from a new variant called RM Covid22, whereby the main symptom was to wait nervously on their phones or computers (In a queue!) to buy whatever the RM was selling, with money being no object. Don’t let it happen to you…..😿

Maybe but most people stack for 20 years time. Gold will only ever go up

The overall message is that you have a great deal of choice!
If you are buying bullion, there really is no right or wrong - just your own preference.
Enjoy chasing and owning.
Best
Dicker

Wait a bit prices are high at the moment 

Just this week, a customer returned a number of 999 silver bars to us.
She had informed us that they were giving an unusual reading on her Sigma testing machine.
We tested all the bars on our Niton XRF machine, which recorded perfect 999 readings on every bar, and we also tested each bar on both main sides, and in various places.
We were not surprised by any of this.
Before we acquired our XRF machine, we had discussion with Sheffield Assay Office, who also use XRF technology for some of their metal analysis work.
The most accurate method of analysing metal alloys remains the time-honoured fire or cupelation assay, but this is destuctive as it requires samples to be removed from the bars.
While all testing methods are subject to tolerance, and we have observed a small number of quirky results from our machine, it is almost certain that XRF analysis is more reliable than the methods used by Sigma machines.
At some stage in the future, we will obtain a Sigma, and do some of our own testing with it, but this will be mainly so that we can understand why they produce some false readings.
There are other topics / threads here on TSF which record unusual or unexpected results using Sigma machines, or similar technology.
 

None on this forum…oh no.  

I've had this a few times with older half sovs.
The Sensor Specification Chart in the user guide isn't very helpful.
The most consistent reading I got while testing them, was by using the large wand - the coin fits perfectly - and holding the calibration disk on top.
 

Hi all,
just a quick question to knowledgable folk;
I have a couple of 1895 half sovereigns. They both read just right of the sigma analyser brackets but inside at 90% gold. Is this normal? Has anyone seen this? 
 
Cheers

This should be the word of the Covid pandemic