iiann

Thoughts
1 If you are paying a honking premium for a 5 coin proof set and theres the slightest  issue you have every right to ask for a replacement. The problem comes with the good old RM can't or won't get you a replacement and its faster and easier to make the problem go way by giving you a refund......I'm the veteran when it comes to this scenario.
2, it utterly pains me to see coins straight  out of the mint that need conserving, I've had loads of 1/4's like this and a few half that I have conserved without too much effort. 
3. the jubilees had the same greasy, flaky pickup on the surfaces and they graded very well, only the odd one out of 100's got a 69 or less so there was a remarkable hit rate.
4, would i personally risk it, thats a hard question on the £5 a full or smaller than yes I'd just conserve first then also submit with conservation just as an added precaution, the £5 is where all the real profit/future stored value is so its a very difficult one to try and swallow if it comes back a 69.  
 
I'm conserving some more  2022 proof memorial sovereigns this week with the same greasy marks I'll show you some before and after.........
 
This is just a few coins I've done,  good to see the copper spot gone from the surface of the coin.  
 
 
 

Sure, but they make a better base.
You need to use big ones though!
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They are also lumpier under the mattress than coins!

I like most if not all Perth Mint products, and we are one of their distributors.
In the Credit / Banking / Sub-Prime Crisis, we imported quite large amounts of gold and silver bullion coins from them, including one batch of 100,000 ounces of silver, most of them one kilo lunar coins, and thousands of ounces of gold bullion, which included 66 x kilo gold coins in one consignment.
Because of the CGT exemption for Sterling, UK bullion coins have gained bigger shares of the investment market over the past decade, leaving all other bullion coins way behind in volume sales.
And of course, bars are not exempt from CGT.
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2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Gold Bullion Half Sovereign + Sheets - First Photos 
Of course, the memorial half sovereigns look almost identical to the (full) sovereigns, except that they come packed in sheets of 20:

Above: Sheet of 20 x 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Gold Bullion Half Sovereigns
This is so nobody needs to ask "How many in a tube sheet?"

Above: King Charles III on Obverse of 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Gold Bullion Half Sovereign

Above: Reverse of 2022 Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Gold Bullion Half Sovereign
Anybody care to count the serrations before we do?
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Don't worry you both have a bit to learn by the looks of it.   You can find good examples of bullion coins that have clean and shiny fields, that can appear to be proof like (PL) and  a bullion sovereign which has also had a particular good strike Deep proof like (DPL)   It still doesn't make the coin a proof sovereign.  
 
A modern (and I will stress modern proof sovereign before anyone says what about the 1902 matt proof)  have frosting on the relief (the bits of the coin that stick out)   
This is a very good example of a quality bullion sovereign the 2019I  if you look at St George of there is no frosting this is why its graded as MS70DPL.   
The video is of a 2018 proof sovereign I conserved.....it came back a PF70UC you can clearly see the frosting to the raised areas.  
I hope you find this example of the difference between a bullion and a proof sovereign useful. 
 
 


IMG_6600.MOV

This pretty much sums it up, figures might be a bit out of date now though.....
 

I don't doubt that T.A. can be a useful tool, if used with care, and possibly caution.
Most of the Blackpool Promenade fortune tellers have closed down due to unforeseen circumstances!
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Yes. Technical analysts spend hours compiling charts, reading the tea leaves, then project a pattern into the future, and their typical conclusion is something like...
"I expect (the) silver (price) to break higher if it hits £$€xxx, but if it fails to break upwards this time, I think it will crash (through its lower support level)..."
In other words, they think silver (or whatever) will go up, but if it doesn't go up, it will go down.
Of course, they may be wrong, and it might stay in its recent trading range, but that wouldn't be interesting to their readers.
I think I would rather go to a fortune teller on Blackpool Promenade!
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You have got to love the ping test, many of the Gillick get contact marks on the high points especially QEII shoulder. Some 1958 & 1959 Gillick  I recently purchased from Chards.  Only very slight contact marks and I have not conserved this yet.   I will be slabbing this at the NGC soon just to see how they fair.   I will upload some better pictures of them once have done the conservation work on them. 
For me If I can buy good quality Gillicks at around the sovereign bullion price I will buy them over just standard bullion sovereigns, I prefer the finish of the coins they have a natural satin finish and far nicer on the eye than the new brown bullion sovereigns.
 
 

Scratched and edged knocked straight off the press 

Half sovereign listing with a Gillick portrait... These weren't made in half sovs by the Royal Mint 

At least it says ‘product not available’. It never ever was of course.

At least it says ‘product not available’. It never ever was of course.

https://auragentum.de/halb-pfund-sovereign-gemischt

Anybody spot what is wrong here? 

@westminstrel sorry for this being a little off topic, but I'm sure you appreciate the quality of this coin.....This is part of my youtube short videos.
Can we please have a 2023 proof £5 sovereign made to this quality please!!!!!!!!!
 
 

You have listed the top two in the list of worst dealers there so I should probably have said some dealers, my bad
BBP customer service can be good but they are overly expensive and have a habit of sending out poor quality goods, which I have picked up from reading posts on this forum.  theKoinclub is not one I have ever ordered from but similarly have a terrible reputation.  For proofs I would only ever deal with Chards, Atkinsons, CoTR and possibly Britannia Coins.  I would also consider Gerrard's & ATS but never having ordered anything other than bullion from them I cannot comment on their QC process.  Like you I only ever ordered from RM for proofs and high value items but stopped ordering from them completely when I had to send back 4 coins in a row, all silver from either the Queens Beast or Monarchs series'.  I spoke to Chards, CoTR and Atkinsons to ask how they check their new release proofs and all have a strict QC process and all will return them to RM for replacement if they are not up to standard.  Since then I have only ever ordered from those three and without ever receiving a single bad coin 

Shares have taken a beat down today so hopefully gold to the mooooon.
 
One thing i hate about having shares is a 2% move down in a day makes me feel like ive worked all week for free.
 
Gold - make me feel better please 😁

Yes I have experience with these sorts of issues when it comes to grading.  
1, First thing I would say to anyone if you are paying a honking premium for a proof sovereign over a bullion then you have  the right to be hyper critical and should not accept anything you are not happy with.
2,  If you are hyper critical you are untimely are going to be disappointed with proof coins and theres almost always small flaws, tiny bits of flake, pick-up, frosting missing, grease, rub marks, hen-pecks, scratches.   (I'm not defending RM quality its just a fact)
3, if you are buying to grade then theres allowances for pre-production imperfections ,  less is better and there is no definition anywhere of what these are and where pre-production ends and post-production issues start .  If you think about this they could throw the blank around and damage the surface of the blank prior to minting and by that definition it should get a 70 providing theres no post-production imperfections .      But I don't blame anyone for not wanting to take a best part of a £700 gamble on their proof sovereign if they think it has flaws.
The 2022 jubilee proof sovereign graded very well and I only got one 69 in the full (25+) all got a 70   however almost every single 2022 proof sovereign I saw 100's all had in my opinion greasy pick up ( flaky bits)  on the coins so with what I have seen this is not and issue or at least not an issue for the jubilee sovereign.  Same for hen-pecks ( small dented spots on the surface of the coin (these do annoy the pants off me)  and again coins with these in my experience are not down graded on these coins.    I've also see coins with micro bits of frosting missing that grade 70 without issue some have loads missing and still grade 70 some I'm gobsmacked by so frosting missing in may cases IMO don't effect grading what I can see. 
4, rub marks, contact marks, scratches all effect grading.  however 1oz and 2oz silvers have been shredded by the NGC recently and it's proving hard to get 70 in these I've seen boxes full of them all come back 69's and lower and with my eyes I can't see where and why these have all been graded lower than the gold counter parts. 
5, ultimately grading can feel like a bit of a lottery I'm only being honest so picking the best example you can will help but even when you do that you still can get less than top marks which can be very frustrating.  
 

I think both coins will do very well in 20 years regardless of proof or bullion. 
There's approx £160 of price difference out the gate, so only you can work out which suits you better. Bullion for pure investment, or proof for investment but also a speculative side. Are you a stacker or collector?
I do think chards will check before sending out tbh. But the half sovereign is so intricate that a small flaw may be unfortunately missed. You can just use a loupe or magnifying glass to check yourself, and I'm sure they will look after you if a problem appears. 
If I was in your position and had saved up for one or the other, I'd probably opt for bullion and buy another 1/10th gold coin with the change. More gold and in 20 years should theoretically mean more profits. But more importantly you have closer to spot price gold in your possession incase you need an emergency sale quickly. A proof coin can go in and out of favour over the years (whilst I do think these will always be sought after ) but the collector's market can be strange at the best of times. 
 

If Russia and NATO stop tiptoeing around in Ukraine, take their gloves off and really begin to go full on at it with each other across Europe whilst simultaneously China and America also start a full on war with each other across the Pacific then gold could easily go to £5,000 in a matter of days. Mind you if that happens I doubt we’d care much about the price of gold anymore or even be able to log on to the internet to check what it is.
I hope gold stays relatively stable at around £1,500 - £2,000 and gradually goes up with inflation over the years.

Those minty sovereigns don't appear to be in stock ( orderable ) so could take days or multiple weeks to arrive. 
As mentioned @SilverDrum has a 2022 in good condition for £400 posted special delivery. 
Let's do some bad arithmetic. 
£400-£6.75 = £393.25 from @SilverDrum for the coin you wanted originally....or £391 including delivery for a radom but good condition Sovereign from chards, but a possible lengthy wait!
I won't add bias from me as both entity's are very reliable, just get your purse open and don't delay "buy today" 😆 😜 😄 
Good luck with the journey ahead. 
 

@Paul   Yes the Tudor Beast series is a no brainer for me,   The bullion coins are better than the proofs IMO and they are only bullion so I look at these "collectable  bullion"  as a free hobby they are always going to be worth the intrinsic value and possibly carry an additional premium in the future.   
I genuinely like the detail within these coins.  

You might want to try reading this advice page:
https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/advice-guide-for-uk-bullion-investors/1041
Which will steer to towards gold rather than silver.
There are plenty of one ounce gold Brits around, and premiums are lower than for sovereigns.
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