samt

Go try to pay your mortgage with your gold stack if you think its the only legal form of money.....
 While i love gold, why else would I be here?, I've noticed a weird trend developing recently with people espousing conspiracy theories and making statements like this. What you say is clearly not true, gold is at best an alternative currency when others fail, it has history and trust but that doesn't mean it cannot go down in value and not come back up.
 It's a historical safe haven but it's an asset like any other, sure zoom out on the charts and it always goes up however there are plenty of peaks and troughs. If you take advantage of these you can make money however if you keep throwing money at a depreciating asset then that is indeed good money after bad.
 Now I grant you over a long enough period the price will probably catch up how long can you sit on your stack if gold does terrible the bed?
 You realise that you don't have to be an absolutist in this? You can recognise strengths and weaknesses in an asset? You won't have your membership revoked for not being hard-core team gold enough? 
 
 

I doubt 'the establishment' are likely to tell you.
 
 This thread is quickly turning in to r/cryptocurrency or r/wallstreetbets. At first the moon talk and memes seemed ironic but I'm starting to have my doubts

You can, but how many crypto guys got burned that way? You can call it dollar cost averaging but you can also call it throwing good money after bad.
 I know it's impossible to time a top for a price but I'm just saying if gold did go on a run then there's no good reason not to take profit if it coincides with a depression in other asset classes that you know in the relatively short to medium term will appreciate.
 I know this is a pm forum and this might sound like heresy but it's an investment at the end of the day, obviously a cooler, more interesting one than most, but it's still monet.
 

Oh I do agree we are in a weird, crazy, inflation bubble and it seems gold is not keeping up. I also agree that when these things reset, which I believe they could/will, there's a good chance gold won't fall off the cliff with them which leaves those holding gold in a good position.
 The thing is though these are cycles and if I had enough strongly priced gold and the housing market crapped itself I'd sell gold, take my profit and probably put it there where I can actually make it work for me. 
 At that stage the gold as insurance has paid out and you have to think about what will happen to your gold as the economy recovers.
 End of the day gold is lovely but there's not actually much you can do with it and when the markets/property/businesses are at their lowest they will rise again. Use your gold profits to get in at the ground floor of the next economic cycle. 
 After all if its a hedge, what else could it be a hedge against?

What the price of gold "should" be is proportional to the performance vs inflation. Gold is undervalued, compound negative (-0.53%) real returns (vs inflation) in the last 10 years while real estate (+4.59%) and especially the S&P (+10.78%) have been on fire, best they've done in more than a century. In nominal terms gold is up from a $1049 trough around Xmas 2015 to $1866 today or roughly +78%. Every other major asset class has done better than gold with the exception of government securities in the last 10 years.
The primary characteristic of gold is to insure against inflation, fiat collapse, stock market turbulence, to hold and marginally increase in relative value. Either "this time is different" or we're in a massive everything bubble with stocks, real estate (especially commercial) and cryptos being overvalued. When it shakes out and gold performs "as it should" then gold could end up as the preferred Tier-1 asset. If you sell your gold what are you going to buy with it?

here and there 
 

here and there 
 

here and there 
 

Draft about the 2023 panda silver coin not so sure if it could be the final one but it looks very cute  
 
ENJOY
 

Five effigies - mix of bullion and proof 

here and there 
 

Five effigies - mix of bullion and proof 

here and there 
 

here and there 
 

here and there 
 

here and there 
 

Five effigies - mix of bullion and proof 

I agree that the Canon R5 is probably slight overkill. I have one, but the photo department at @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer have to make do with a couple of 5Ds.
We also use a Canon 100mm macro lens (actually 2 of them I think), and a 180mm macro which is useful for bigger coins, and gives bigger working distance.
I am guessing that you have the latest Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro
https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/lenses/100mm-macro.htm
Our main photographer is more than happy with our existing kit, but if I share the above link with him, it might influence him.
I liked the Ikea lightshade, and we have some Neewer LED panels at home for video stuff, etc.
You might want to think about axial lighting, which gets a mention somewhere in this thread:
 
 

The camera is a mirrorless Canon R5 (its overkill perhaps, but its my new baby!). I'm using a 100mm macro lens stopped down to f16.
Its lit with 2 cheap led panels, the one in the left of the pic is the main light pointing at about 45 degrees from the top right of the coin. The light nearest the camera is a fill to reduce some of the shadows. 
The thing in the middle is an ikea lamp shade. It works like a light tent and softens the light as well as  removing reflections. I shoot at a slight angle otherwise the lens will reflect in the ever so shiny coins and you'll get lots of black patches on the raised details. 
The coin is cut out in Photoshop and put on a white background. For silver coins i like to desaturate a little for a more mono look.
 

Fabulous Coin - Ancient Greek Gold Stater Philip II of Macedon
I was shown this coin recently, and we got photos of it.
I got more excited seeing this fairly small coin than I get when I see most one kilo gold coins. It is sensational!

Having just uploaded the obverse photo, I have started seeing features which I did not notice when looking at the actual coin.

Charioteer driving a biga (two horse chariot), with ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ below.
The device under the horses' front feet is a kantharos or cantharus. (Correction: It is a tripod, although it could be a three-legged kantharos).
I will need to do some homework to completely identify this coin, including the mint.
Almost as an afterthought, I Niton tested it:

42.504 cts = 8.5008 grams.
My "GP suspect" note is because the tester showed this. I don't believe it!
😎

Five effigies - mix of bullion and proof 

here and there 
 

Being situated 1.5 degrees north of the Equator it's somewhat challenging for me to pop into any of the dealers mentioned for a beer (or tea), but I've had packages from Blackpool appear occasionally and never had cause to complain. Should have pressed the checkout button for a double sov during the dip in spot yesterday but ah well. 

Being situated 1.5 degrees north of the Equator it's somewhat challenging for me to pop into any of the dealers mentioned for a beer (or tea), but I've had packages from Blackpool appear occasionally and never had cause to complain. Should have pressed the checkout button for a double sov during the dip in spot yesterday but ah well. 

A beautiful Brazilian 1752 6400 Reis coin which spent 242 years on the ocean floor after a shipwreck just off the Southeast cost of South Africa was lost to the sea
The coin was owned by 'Clive of India' and was part of a large hoard of Portuguese and Brazilian Gold being transited to India 
The two divers that discovered the treasure became subject to a protracted legal dispute with the South African government who contested ownership of the hoard due to it being found in South African waters 
Eventually the two sides settled out of court with the South African Government receiving a third of the treasure. To Auronum's knowledge, this coin was one of the many that was retained by the salvagers
The coins surfaced in a US auction in 2000 where intense competition saw coins distributed to buyers the world over. A beautiful piece with a very rich history, ladies and gentlemen, we give you a stunning 'Clive of India' shipwreck Gold coin