GoldDabbler

3 hours ago, flyingveepixie said:

Haha, that's exactly what I did with both my own and my sisters  "Britains first Decimal Coins"  sets - you remember the one which came in a little blue wallet back in 1971.  I spent the lot on fags.

What do parents expect? They make you spend the first few years of your life being taught about money and how to spend it and then give you money and expect you not to spend it.  

Just now, Gordy said:

valuable collection then? 😂

1p, 2p, 10p, and 50p. He must have liked them because he framed them using the back of a cereal box.  

6 minutes ago, flyingveepixie said:

My kids would just lose 'em !  🥴

Kids being kids they would probably do what I did when I was given my dads 'coins of the realm' collection, as they were still in circulation I spent them. On a comic, a packet of Space Invaders and a Strawberry milkshake. 

I don't understand the point of collecting proof coins. A whole heap more money for a wooden box and some extra paperwork. I understand the coin gets a better fluffing than its bullion counterpart but even so, the bullion coins I’ve bought up to now have been top notch, even under a magnifying glass. No marks, no scratches, pristine. And very collectable.

41 minutes ago, modofantasma said:

What's a VHS? 🧐 

Are they like those old school, square dvd disks but with spools on them? 

It's what us old folks had for entertainment before the internet took over the planet.  Simpler times  

22 minutes ago, Timberwolf said:

 

It's logical (to me at least) that giving your address to dozens or more 'random' people on this forum, having the postman deliver them, exposes you to much risk.

IMO it's saver buying (larger) amounts via reputable dealers (such as chards) which will not use Royal Mail for the larger orders. This means less deliveries, no middle man, and discrete packaging. UPS (or similar suitably insured delivery company) delivering a box, with no obvious contents and a 'discrete' portal return address on the  box helps me sleep at night.

A postal box is another alternative for buying on the forum.

To date I haven’t ventured past Costco and the Royal Mint. Although I’m quite eager to try private sales as most sellers on here are probably not home invasionalists. Also, I like a bargain and anyone looking though my house for gold would be looking in entirely the wrong place. And I’d be happy to direct them to where it’s kept. A grade 10 vault lol.

On a serious note I do understand your concerns. Chatting about gold acquisition on a public forum seems counter intuitive. In fact I’m talking myself out of making any online purchases at all now lol.  

1 hour ago, banyancb said:

The shop said both the 1911-C and 1918-I were genuine.

 

The weight of all the other coins I bought is right, and there are no obvious red flags in terms of looks, even under magnification. I have compared them to other sovereigns I bought from coininvest and bullionbypost.

This sov collection lark seems to be a minefield. I need my hand holding until I find my feet lol. I’ve just bought a book on sovereigns. No idea how it will help me but its a cracking read.

1 hour ago, Timberwolf said:

Reputable bullion dealers don't leave identifying markers on the packaging. Plus when going above a certain value, the bullion dealers don't use royal mail, so the postie would never even see the package.

I don’t think it matters what they’re dressed up as if they have shenanigans in mind. I try not to be too paranoid about what people may or may not do. Not worth the sleepless nights.

18 minutes ago, banyancb said:

Quick update: the shop had no problem exchanging the coins for other ones. They were made of gold, but were they fake or not? Not sure I will ever know. The 1911-C was heavily scratched / aggressively cleaned so that might be why the weight was a bit off.

 

Anyway I had only bought the coins online and never had been there in person until now. It’s a small shop that specialises in coins and stamps. I highly recommend a visit if you are in Lisbon, they have some really great stuff there.

Could the shop not tell if they were fake or not either? Are you sure your new coins are genuine? 

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

No, smile actually, although if we (for it was my cousin and I) had greater market penetration, we culd have sold 10 or 100 times more than we did as an LCS. We would have made more profit, and we would have had amuch bigger pool of previous customers sitting on sizable investments. 

They were good days though, and we used to make about 10 pence each on them (at the 1000 piece price).

😎

It makes me want to cry. When I think about the £££s wasted on beer, clubs, pubs, poor quality restaurant meals and holidays spent pished and best remembered for arguments, I wish I had stayed at home with a fortune tucked away someplace. instead. Anyway I'm repeating myself so I'll stop banging on lol. 

1 hour ago, Timberwolf said:

+1. It's for this reason that my address is only given to reputable bullion dealers, for delivery. While I believe the majority of sellers on this forum are  trustworthy, I'm not running the risk of sending my address to dozens of forum members to buy PM's cheaper than dealers. It's just not worth the risk.

It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel after all

 

Everybody and their wife knows anyway. From the postie who's seen enough parcels to know what's what and where it came from, to the kids at school telling their friends 'Dad's got gold!' to your mates and neighbours who casually wander into your home while you are pawing your latest sov before dropping it off at wherever people store these things, and not forgetting the spouse who always gossips to her workmates and fellow gossipers that they're, we, you, are investing in whatever you invest in. Best solution all round is locking it someplace with a lot of metal and a lot CCTV. Preferably a long way from home.  

8 minutes ago, Paul said:

You're not odd I have similar feelings dropping stuff off at sage deposit, also a nice reason to pop into local city for a few beers and a slice of pizza on my day off ! 

That's the thing isn't it? A trip into the city and making a day of it. Spot of lunch, bit of a sight see and leave with a feeling of accomplishment. I don't feel so crazy now lol  

Why is gold so precious? Because we're told it is. And that's good enough for me  

On 06/05/2022 at 20:59, Bullion70 said:

Thanks. I am having second thoughts on storing at home given feedback from others.

Is there a list of good, secure insured storage in London that you can recommend for gold coins? I am using Metropolitan Safes currently.

 

Seriously, is it worth taking chances storing pms at home when you can rent a small box for a couple of hundred quid a year? Any insurance company willing to insure pms at home would probably charge a bigger premium than the cost of renting the deposit box.

Personally I'd rather have six sovereigns in a deposit box in a secure location than ten in a shoebox at home. I also think renting a box adds to the fun. I'm more of a hobbyist than an investor and dropping a newly bought coin off at the dep centre is oddly satisfying. Then again I always was a big kid. Simple things lol  

8 hours ago, Darr3nG said:

You price matching?

Makes you want to cry doesn't it?  

12 hours ago, Gordy said:

more than free coffee in costco, free cake, free stirfry, free wine, free yogurt, free baileys at xmas, free cooked fish... the list is endless, we go for our breakfast dinner and tea rolled into one, an hour in costco and you can be full up fed and watered... 😂

Yup. If there's free samples of chicken nuggets I accidentally forget to pick up the nearby shopping so I have to go back. And back. And back. They get a bit shirty after the fifth sample but it sure keeps you going till lunch time

30 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Some of our customers get (free) tea or coffee (instant😒).

There's also free expert advice, friendly helpful staff, loading bay if required, pallet truck assistance to your car / armoured truck, free fondle of a one kilo gold bar, the list goes on...

😎

I wont need a pallet for my gold purchases. A matchbox will suffice.

35 minutes ago, Gordy said:

my 1st sov was around 30 years ago, got it for £30.00 i think, sold it a few years later for £60 or something... oh the wonder of future knowledge......

Painful. I’ve thrown comics out from the 60s costing pennies now selling for two grand on eBay. Who’d have thought that one day they’d be a global interlinked trade system ran from a home computer where people will buy any old tat.

I’m still waiting for my lottery predictions to come right. That probably wont happen either.

35 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Not a lot!

😎

I beg to differ Stacking the trolley with chicken and cheap bog rolls while swinging by the cash desk to grab a sov on the way out is hard to beat. True, there’s low customer pamper care. There’s no free coffee, no fluffing, no velvet cloth to view your gold on, usually its casually dropped on a pile of invoices from a passing manager who’s taken one out of the safe but! … but  buying this way is a fair bit easier than making an extra trip out. More time, more hassle. Maybe Tesco will start selling gold too.  

9 minutes ago, Happypanda88 said:

But at least you got good viewing pleasure out of your VHS recorder and should have recorded some of your favourite TV programs.

It would have been boring watching a sovereign for all those years ! 😁

I’d rather have watched a sovereign thinking about some of the absolute tripe I watched on it. Also, I’ve got a younger sister and every time we fell out she stuck cornflakes in it. I had to bribe her to stop doing it with a fiver.

2 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Could be worse All i thought coins were for were smuggling up ya todger as joke the naafi in the army!

Price of sovs in the early 70s! I thought, they'll never hold their value. Better late than never I suppose. Helps me sleep a bit better at night.

4 minutes ago, James32 said:

Wish we could go back to Feb lol

I wish I’d taken my old ma’s offer of buying some sovereigns for my 18th birthday. A good few decades ago now. I went for a VHS recorder instead. Doh! I still grimace when I think about it 😕 

10 minutes ago, James32 said:

How much are you paying? Have no costco here...so just want to know what I'm missing 😕 

Costco prices for full sovereigns over the past few months:

14 Feb £335.99

24 Feb £349.99

3 March £366.49

6 March £366.49

29 April £375.99

I forgot 1 April £365.99. Went down a quid. Woooo  

I mean 50p haha.

36 minutes ago, FourNinesFine said:

Can confirm that CostCo are £9 dearer today.  😉

I'm waiting for a dip. 50p off and I'll be up there like a shot for another shiny shiny.  

40 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

 

I think TSF might be the ultimate compassion site "sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others."

When I mentioned comparison sites, I was not meaning the commercial ones for insurance, cars, etc, but specific bullion related ones.

First, there is one here on TSF: https://www.thesilverforum.com/compare/

Although it only compares single piece prices, where @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer do not always come first, rather than serious investment quantities where they / we are usually the best deal. I also suspect that some dealers artificially tweak their single piece prices to look good on comparison sites.

A quick Google search found:

https://www.gold-price.co.uk/gold/gold-coins/Sovereign/#!sale,143,8770

Which, in my opinion, is rubbish. It's 2022 bullion sovereign top spot was 
2022    Gold Investments Ltd. £ 387.14 (plus £10 shipping?).

Perhaps it only shows paid entries, but if so it fails to clearly alert people to this important information.

A glance at our own https://www.chards.co.uk/2022-gold-sovereign-uncirculated-coin/15066 site, showed £379.99, plus £6 UK delivery = £385.99

and:

Price Comparison Against Other UK Bullion Dealers - Updated at 07-May-2022 06:34

Qty	Chards (Excl Delivery)	Chards (Inc Delivery)	B*	G*	AB	BB	SP	UKB
1	£379.99	£385.99	£388.90	£387.50	£392.60	OOS	£391.10	£388.83
5	£379.27	£380.67	£387.70	£382.80	£390.80	OOS	£390.51	£387.28
10	£378.55	£379.35	£387.30	£381.90	£389.90	OOS	£390.12	£386.50
25	£378.19	£378.67	£386.60	£380.90	£389.00	OOS	£389.53	£385.92
50	£377.48	£377.84	£385.80	£379.80	£388.10	OOS	£388.75	£385.33
100	£376.58	£376.89	£384.60	£378.90	£387.20	OOS	£388.16	£384.56
250	£376.40	£376.75	£384.40	£378.50	£386.30	OOS	£387.18	£384.17
500	£375.86	£376.16	£384.20	£378.10	£386.30	OOS	£387.18	£383.78
1000	£375.68	£375.96	£383.80	£377.40	£386.30	OOS	£387.18	£383.20

 

Although it does not include CostCo, probably because CostCo does not have systems good enough to handle live prices either instore or online. We might try a manual comparison someday, but you could always give some feedback here next time you go shopping.

There was also: https://www.coincompare.co.uk/2022-sovereign-gold-bullion-coin

Which I was happy to see showed Chards at the top, although we would have been in 2nd place by 51 pence after UK delivery! 😒

It also has "Stock: Availability" and "Show Quantity Breaks" features.

I feel sure there are other Precious Metal / Bullion comparison sites out there somewhere, but that was all I could find without wasting lots of time.

😎

 

I can’t use TSF comparisons. I don’t have premium membership. Subscription doth beckon if I decide to start buying privately from members.

I’ve popped your website into my bookmarks and will compare your prices to Costco next time I’m thinking about sticking another coin in the pot.

Thanks again for all the info.

16 minutes ago, Bullion70 said:

 

Is there a list of good, secure insured storage in London that you can recommend for gold coins? I am using Metropolitan Safes currently.

 

https://www.sharpspixley.com/safe-deposit-boxes