Anteater

He paid £150 for it, so it's mostly premium rather than metal. While that does increase the value density, excepting an highly unrealistic rise in copper prices, it's not really a metals investment so much as a collectibles investment. (And if that unrealistic rise does happen I'm sure there are more efficient ways of obtaining exposure to it.) So far as a collectible goes there is only one recent UK sale of a similar bar (Geiger 5kg copper) on eBay, at a price slightly higher than he paid (£155 plus post vs £150 inc post). (It's important to look at sold items, not just asking prices.) So he might be able to flip it for a small profit but it's such a small market that reliably estimating value on it is hard.

Maybe if they did more of that when minting there wouldn't be so many milk spots

I think he just wants to see you tackled by a security guard

Sweet summer child

Following the thread on the petition re RM milk spots, I was just wondering whether anyone has found (or looked for) the patents for RCM's "MintShield"? The fact it's a "patented technology" (according to https://www.mint.ca/en/bullion/mintshield) should mean that anyone can look at the patents and see (at a high level) what they're doing (or at least, what they might be doing - they might have some unused patents too) - it's just a matter of finding them.

But was it because of a petition? I'm not saying that the situation couldn't be improved (even if milk spots weren't eliminated completely) but that I doubt a petition will have any impact.

To be fair, though, some are rather better than others and it'd be nice for RM to improve things a bit.

While I too would like them to address the issue, I really don't think a petition to stop selling milky silver is going to go anything at all while many people are still buying that milky silver from them.

At the risk of asking a silly question - do you mean a normal ounce or one Troy ounce? (Not that I imagine fakes would target the wrong weight like that.)

Thanks, both. I think that suggests that the inexpensive ones are worth a shot before spending more.

I'd like to pick up a pocket loupe. I'd like something decent enough quality to be useful, but not fancy. Something good enough to get a clear look at micro-engraving etc. I'm not sure how this corresponds to pricing - prices start very low on Amazon for generic Chinese products but it's hard to tell how useful they are from reviews. Also I'm not sure whether it's important/worth it to get an illuminated one. All suggestions welcome. (Well, all suggestions of pocket loupes )

Anteater's Razor - if it could be RM trying to squeeze more money out of buyers then it probably is

I knew I shouldn't have bothered correcting that typo...

Test result: "Is hamster".

In terms of gold I have some Sovereigns and am mostly focussing on 2021+ Brits (1/4 and full) now. I feel that the security features could help make them easier to sell/trade on the secondary market. (Even, if necessary, to someone who isn't familiar with them, if they can research them online first.) I do also have a couple of Krugs which I'm planning to sell/trade in favour of Brits at some point - though right now everyone seems to be selling Krugs

I don't really have an exit strategy per se. My gold is a grab-and-run backup plan for things that will probably never happen. My silver is all the fault of this forum It's a slight hedge against increased commodity prices due to eg break-downs in global trade. But mostly it's shiny and gives me something to play with without getting the gold out. And I just like the idea of having some variety in transportable non-fiat assets. I don't expect to net* dispose of either unless: - things get very bad for me personally; - things get bad for the world (or at least my part of it); or - silver goes to the moooooooooooon... * I do expect to sell/trade some stuff but not to make a net reduction in holdings.

Could have been worse. Could have been NFTs.

Is that bullion, or numismatic/collector value? (I don't think spot's every been anything close to £100?) Or are you accounting to the opportunity cost of buying bitcoin at the right time?

Thanks all for the replies. I want to keep them in the round capsules they're in so I think I'll mark them on the edges as @Skyfiller shows - not sure why I didn't think of that!

I'm probably over-thinking this, but I like to keep track of each individual coin/bar I own (where it came from, when, purchase price). I have just acquired a gold coin of a type and date I already have and so I want to mark the capsule in some way for identification. What do people normally do for this (if anything)? Sticky labels (obscure some of the coin, might fall off, changes feel of capsule if playing with it)? Sharpie (might rub off, harder to remove?) Just asking in case there's a standard way of doing this.

Hopefully she'll find it helpful when shaving her balls.

I name it Henry.

Thanks for the report @QuangChien Yeah, seems expensive compared to major online dealers inc postage prices. I guess that might be partly due to the expensive of a retail shop, but I'd have thought that saving on RMSD would help a bit. I'm guessing their buy prices wouldn't be any better than online dealers either. Did they have stuff out in display cases/etc to look at or was it just a counter?

I'm not a financial advisor and even if I was I wouldn't be giving you financial advice on a forum. This is my personal approach to index investing... In case you're not aware of it: https://monevator.com/low-cost-index-trackers/ and https://monevator.com/passive-fund-of-funds-the-rivals/ If you haven't worked out what sort of balance you want in your portfolio (or want to know more about constructing a portfolio generally), I recommend the book "Smarter Investing" by Tim Hale. I have a number of different funds in different vehicles depending on availability, etc. Generally what I'm trying to do is to: - choose an appropriate equity/bond split (say, 80/20 inside pensions/SIPPs and a little more conservative, maybe 70/30 in ISAs); - have the bond part split equally into index-linked gilts and short-term gilts (but in some cases can't really do that so have general short-term bonds); - have the equity part more-or-less be market-weighted global equities. I don't really care about ETFs vs OEICs. I pick funds by checking the options (for the type of fund) from the Monevator page and see which are available. (In some cases I might have to mess around a little more, eg having a UK fund and an ex-UK fund if there isn't a good option for all-world.) An easier option would be to pick a fund with an appropriate equity/bond mix from the range of Vanguard Lifestrategy (but these have something of a UK home bias last time I checked) or BlackRock Consensus funds. These might not be quite as "tuned" as you'd like for your own personal preferences but they make it a little harder to make serious mistakes.

It's the "Lose weight, get fit and give all your money to Lawrence" plan.