ZRPMs

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.

Just buy silver bars instead. Toned bars look cool, and they're cheaper

9,000-6,000 BC: Cattle as the First Form of Money
The first and oldest form of money is actually cattle. It included cows, camels, goats and other animals.
Apparently, they all milked!
😎

Having half's very slightly exceeding 19.3mm is not unusual, especially Australian mint sovereigns from the turn of the century, never had an SA half like that before though.  Not getting any alarm bells looking at the picture of the reverse though it is concerning if it is larger in diameter and thickness, I would expect it to weigh a bit more if the difference is that discernible surely?
Post a picture of the obverse @Smiler999
Though I suspect now the suspicion is in your head you will always wonder if you keep it, so likely worth calling HGM and telling them your concerns.  They are a decent outfit so hopefully will be happy to exchange.

Hi all, I have recently joined your forum.
I am BristolianBowler, I was told about the forum by my brother.
I been thinking about getting into silver and gold for few years, but was never sure how to do so. My brother got into it and started to show me the ropes and here I am.
please forgive me if I’m not quite up to speed with terminology of things just yet. I also apologise for my spelling, It can be challenging to read at times.
I hope to be able to get a better understanding of how things work, plus do a little friendly business along the way.
so I shall start by wishing you all a very happy new year.

Only worth collecting it as scrap metal. I've mentioned this in a similar thread before, but a mate of mine collects scrap copper and brass. He picks it up for free. He melts it in to uniform ingots and has started to stack it in one of his out building's he uses for his office. He drew the design on paper and each ingot is a pixel. Its a welsh dragon. He's part way through it. The pic looks awesome and the wall is getting there. 
Unless you intend on doing something like this I don't think it's worth it. The intrinsic value just isn't there

Complete waste of money.

A waste of space. Literally ! 

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

Honestly, not a snowballs chance in hell. 

Only way to change it is not to buy from them and in a large scale and inform them why. Unfortunately for this argument they seem more popular than ever.

Petitions I think would only draw their attention. What I'm trying to say is that they will look in the mail bags and say "oh yeah it happens, we'll see what we can do". It might Help. In the case of the Royal Canadian mint. I think it started to hurt their margins. I remember at one point as soon as you mentioned Maples people laughed and said "Nah, don't need any milk". They've not eliminated the spotting but I have to say they really attempted to do something and the maples are now ok. Certainly better than they were.
The Royal Mint probably think is currently not affecting the bottom line enough to actually give it more than lip service. If people stopped buying from them so much they may listen more to the reasons. I know its hard not to order when collecting coins from the different series that come out but market forces are might powerful in terms of persuasion. If we could switch to gold fractional of the same series rather than the ounces of silver. They may say "s#!t, None of this silver is moving. Perhaps we'll have to look at this annealing process."

The current thought is that milk spots on silver coins are caused by a flaw in the minting process. The silver coin starts life as a flat circular disk known as a blank or planchet. To prevent the silver coin becoming too brittle, the blank is annealed, which is a process of heating and cooling. Prior to annealing, the blank is cleaned/degreased with solvents and it is thought that sometimes not all of the solvent is removed before the coin is heated, baking an imperfection into the surface of the silver.
The coin emerges from the process looking in perfect condition, but with time (between days and years) the imperfection mutates into a white substance, the dreaded milk spots.
Other theories attain that milk spots can be caused by reaction with certain plastics (like PVC) but it may be that these reactions simply accelerate the appearance of the production flaw.
Milk spots are quite common and the problem is not limited to a single mint. Coins affected include Canadian Maples, America Eagles, British Britannias, Chinese Pandas, Silver Krugerrands and many others, including silver bars.
The real question is can milk spots be removed without damaging the coin? The answer will always lie in the negative as any cleaning of a coin is always detrimental to some extent. Cleaning affects the surface of the coin and there are real dangers that hairlines, micro abrasions or even full scratches will result. Poorly cleaned coins have a habit of 'looking wrong'.
Unfortunately, there is no known way for silver collectors to prevent milk spots. You can maybe help matters by using good quality encapsulation, using only plastics that are known to be safe with coins and then storing coins in a friendly environment.
But if a coin has been flawed in the production process, it will still be liable to develop white spots. This moves the onus back to the mint where the coin was produced and there is action and good news coming from that direction.
The Canadian silver maple was one of the coins that was prone to silver spots and the Royal Canadian Mint invested in considerable research into the causes and eradication of the problem, and have been assisted by the collaboration of a local University. The result is what they call MINTSHIELDTM surface protection. Launched in 2018, this process improvement has greatly reduced the occurrence of milk spots in silver Maples.
The source for the above info is Milk Spots on Silver Coins (britanniacoincompany.com) I thought it was very informative. I'm more in to gold but I have, in silver, mostly poured bars. These don't tend to be affected by the milk spots. I now know why.

The current thought is that milk spots on silver coins are caused by a flaw in the minting process. The silver coin starts life as a flat circular disk known as a blank or planchet. To prevent the silver coin becoming too brittle, the blank is annealed, which is a process of heating and cooling. Prior to annealing, the blank is cleaned/degreased with solvents and it is thought that sometimes not all of the solvent is removed before the coin is heated, baking an imperfection into the surface of the silver.
The coin emerges from the process looking in perfect condition, but with time (between days and years) the imperfection mutates into a white substance, the dreaded milk spots.
Other theories attain that milk spots can be caused by reaction with certain plastics (like PVC) but it may be that these reactions simply accelerate the appearance of the production flaw.
Milk spots are quite common and the problem is not limited to a single mint. Coins affected include Canadian Maples, America Eagles, British Britannias, Chinese Pandas, Silver Krugerrands and many others, including silver bars.
The real question is can milk spots be removed without damaging the coin? The answer will always lie in the negative as any cleaning of a coin is always detrimental to some extent. Cleaning affects the surface of the coin and there are real dangers that hairlines, micro abrasions or even full scratches will result. Poorly cleaned coins have a habit of 'looking wrong'.
Unfortunately, there is no known way for silver collectors to prevent milk spots. You can maybe help matters by using good quality encapsulation, using only plastics that are known to be safe with coins and then storing coins in a friendly environment.
But if a coin has been flawed in the production process, it will still be liable to develop white spots. This moves the onus back to the mint where the coin was produced and there is action and good news coming from that direction.
The Canadian silver maple was one of the coins that was prone to silver spots and the Royal Canadian Mint invested in considerable research into the causes and eradication of the problem, and have been assisted by the collaboration of a local University. The result is what they call MINTSHIELDTM surface protection. Launched in 2018, this process improvement has greatly reduced the occurrence of milk spots in silver Maples.
The source for the above info is Milk Spots on Silver Coins (britanniacoincompany.com) I thought it was very informative. I'm more in to gold but I have, in silver, mostly poured bars. These don't tend to be affected by the milk spots. I now know why.

My 2023 Brits already have really bad milk spots, my 2021 maples still don’t, so even if it takes longer for them to appear at least  it gives me more time to sell them on without taking a hit on the premiums. 

The Canadian Mint actually only admits that their patented method only ‘reduces’ milk spotting and if it is going to happen then it will just take longer to show.🤔

The current thought is that milk spots on silver coins are caused by a flaw in the minting process. The silver coin starts life as a flat circular disk known as a blank or planchet. To prevent the silver coin becoming too brittle, the blank is annealed, which is a process of heating and cooling. Prior to annealing, the blank is cleaned/degreased with solvents and it is thought that sometimes not all of the solvent is removed before the coin is heated, baking an imperfection into the surface of the silver.
The coin emerges from the process looking in perfect condition, but with time (between days and years) the imperfection mutates into a white substance, the dreaded milk spots.
Other theories attain that milk spots can be caused by reaction with certain plastics (like PVC) but it may be that these reactions simply accelerate the appearance of the production flaw.
Milk spots are quite common and the problem is not limited to a single mint. Coins affected include Canadian Maples, America Eagles, British Britannias, Chinese Pandas, Silver Krugerrands and many others, including silver bars.
The real question is can milk spots be removed without damaging the coin? The answer will always lie in the negative as any cleaning of a coin is always detrimental to some extent. Cleaning affects the surface of the coin and there are real dangers that hairlines, micro abrasions or even full scratches will result. Poorly cleaned coins have a habit of 'looking wrong'.
Unfortunately, there is no known way for silver collectors to prevent milk spots. You can maybe help matters by using good quality encapsulation, using only plastics that are known to be safe with coins and then storing coins in a friendly environment.
But if a coin has been flawed in the production process, it will still be liable to develop white spots. This moves the onus back to the mint where the coin was produced and there is action and good news coming from that direction.
The Canadian silver maple was one of the coins that was prone to silver spots and the Royal Canadian Mint invested in considerable research into the causes and eradication of the problem, and have been assisted by the collaboration of a local University. The result is what they call MINTSHIELDTM surface protection. Launched in 2018, this process improvement has greatly reduced the occurrence of milk spots in silver Maples.
The source for the above info is Milk Spots on Silver Coins (britanniacoincompany.com) I thought it was very informative. I'm more in to gold but I have, in silver, mostly poured bars. These don't tend to be affected by the milk spots. I now know why.

The current thought is that milk spots on silver coins are caused by a flaw in the minting process. The silver coin starts life as a flat circular disk known as a blank or planchet. To prevent the silver coin becoming too brittle, the blank is annealed, which is a process of heating and cooling. Prior to annealing, the blank is cleaned/degreased with solvents and it is thought that sometimes not all of the solvent is removed before the coin is heated, baking an imperfection into the surface of the silver.
The coin emerges from the process looking in perfect condition, but with time (between days and years) the imperfection mutates into a white substance, the dreaded milk spots.
Other theories attain that milk spots can be caused by reaction with certain plastics (like PVC) but it may be that these reactions simply accelerate the appearance of the production flaw.
Milk spots are quite common and the problem is not limited to a single mint. Coins affected include Canadian Maples, America Eagles, British Britannias, Chinese Pandas, Silver Krugerrands and many others, including silver bars.
The real question is can milk spots be removed without damaging the coin? The answer will always lie in the negative as any cleaning of a coin is always detrimental to some extent. Cleaning affects the surface of the coin and there are real dangers that hairlines, micro abrasions or even full scratches will result. Poorly cleaned coins have a habit of 'looking wrong'.
Unfortunately, there is no known way for silver collectors to prevent milk spots. You can maybe help matters by using good quality encapsulation, using only plastics that are known to be safe with coins and then storing coins in a friendly environment.
But if a coin has been flawed in the production process, it will still be liable to develop white spots. This moves the onus back to the mint where the coin was produced and there is action and good news coming from that direction.
The Canadian silver maple was one of the coins that was prone to silver spots and the Royal Canadian Mint invested in considerable research into the causes and eradication of the problem, and have been assisted by the collaboration of a local University. The result is what they call MINTSHIELDTM surface protection. Launched in 2018, this process improvement has greatly reduced the occurrence of milk spots in silver Maples.
The source for the above info is Milk Spots on Silver Coins (britanniacoincompany.com) I thought it was very informative. I'm more in to gold but I have, in silver, mostly poured bars. These don't tend to be affected by the milk spots. I now know why.

I feel positive. Not like me, but there you go. I bought a fair bit in December so my ‘feels’ are probably best noted as ‘hopes’. Saying that, I heard on the grapevine that the ongoing instability over whether the PM sees an NHS GP or a Private GP is likely to cause no impact.
So as we all were. Hoping for a dip when we have pounds to spare and praying for a rise when we think about our retirement. Either way, I think next week the price will be higher than it was in 1985. Let’s just hope Gordon Brown doesn’t sell anymore. 
Interestingly, had he not sold all that gold, we would have called him Hordin’, not Gordon. Or is that just me?
May all your diamonds be fugazi’s……

Mostly Northern Ireland like usual eh @James32

Reverse comparison of the 2022 Sovereigns. Busy v Not Busy? Preferences?
 

Nations will love CBDC’s.   Not only for the monitoring of the plebs but also for periods of deflation where they can charge you negative interest and there will be zip you can do about it..  buy gold..?  They will turn the gold buying section of your ‘wallet’ off 

I highly suspect that before any crash is permitted to occur, states will have rolled out CBDC's - central bank digital currencies. Digital Dollar etc. Most US senators/congressmen are in banks pockets, so common policies in support of bailing banks out at taxpayers expense, but where nowadays former banks heads they win, tails the taxpayer bails them out gameplay has extended upwards to country levels, where failures cannot be bailed out. DC's will facilitate side-stepping bank failures, opening up large bank failures becoming viable, DC/taxpayers not having to support banks. Bitcoin/ledger are I suspect more of a test-bed, that after having served that purpose will be 'decommissioned' (regulated out of the market) and replaced with the 'official' DC. Some residual value may be left in BitCoin, as not all countries will outlaw it. Once prepared/ready, permit paper dollar/banks to fail, and the population transitions over to having to pay for everything by card/digital, and where the state can see exactly where each and every penny/cent is spent. May not even have to file tax returns, instead the taxman will simply advise you of how much tax you owe and taxation adjustments will be made for 'best effect/benefit'. No longer your money/wealth, just a loan, callable at any time. Along with all of your daily movements being tracked, may even end up like China, where to attend events you need to have a certain amount of 'good citizen' points or otherwise be declined from attending/entry.

Kilo coins then, but get a bigger board 😆 
 

Mine isn't a percentage over spot but more of an arbitrary number. £1550 on generic bullion 1oz coins to £1650 on higher premium pieces...needles to say I haven't bought a 1oz coin in weeks😆  for this to change in my tiny mind, I need spot to sustain itself at current level for a whole month.
As for sovereigns, I don't care if the artist was Mary Gillick or Walt Disney, anything over £385 feels heavy.