MickB

Today these arrived in the post. A couple of 2020 silver Britannias with Oriental border from Sharps Pixley's mixed date selection. 

Today these arrived in the post. A couple of 2020 silver Britannias with Oriental border from Sharps Pixley's mixed date selection. 

I acquired these at the Midland coin fair at the weekend. The hall marks on the sovereign case reveal that it was made by Frank Banks of Birmingham in 1911. Curiously my wife found a six penny saving tube in a rummage box at the Great Central railway gala the week previously. The lettering reads ‘Wireless Licence £1 Savings Bank’. Some ideas just keep going around although my wife’s find was a lot cheaper as it only cost me £1.

Are we just going to ignore the half body in the corner???

Firstly, I think you really have to enjoy the hobby of precious metals otherwise it would be easy to lose interest in continuing to make purchases. I have seen many new stackers / collectors enter the market and invest heavily, only to quickly lose interest when the hype disappears and then selling at a loss. Precious metals will rarely make anyone rich but they can be a fun way to accumulate wealth / store funds over a long period and of course hopefully retain purchasing power.
I would always encourage new stackers to make a few sales to become familiar with the process, as it can sometimes be time consuming and may not suit everyone.
However, it was only through experience and selling many items online over a period of time, that I discovered what worked best for me. I remember watching an old you tube video from 'Cull Silver', who is a long term stacker in the USA and he explained that he only truly learned what silver to buy once he had attempted  to sell some silver, and this really stuck with me and it's so true.
I guess if I was starting out again in 2021, I personally would focus mainly on bullion sovereigns and Pre 1920 British scrap silver coins, as they are highly liquid and tend to be a spot price play, and limit my premium purchases to a small amount of collectable pieces.
However, i'm sure many other forum members will have different views and ideas and that's what makes this community great.
Finally, there is a lot more resources available now online and via The Silver forum to help new stackers make educated decisions, compared to the limited information available 5 years ago and if you are unsure about anything, you can always ask question via this forum, prior to making a purchase.
Hope this helps.
 

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Gold 1/4 oz Panther. First 2 showed up today. Looking forward to another plus the 20z and 1oz silvers. 


 

 
 

First humble small 1937 to get me started - have been waiting for a cameo one for ages, so and to grab this when it came up.
what do you prefer? 63 cameo or 64/65 normal? I think I’d stick with cameo!

Last week I received 
a awesome little graveyard hand poured piece from the talented @Jamesd
and a sharps pixley 1gram gold assayed bar to fill up the never ending pamp box have got the UK, Europe covered now to hunt the rest! haha

I know a kilo silver bar shouldn't be particularly exciting, but I really love the pour lines on this one!

 

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Picked this up in town today, not bad for £100

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.

Looks like a fake to me.
 
No, just joking😉
 
Glad you're first expereince of TSF trading has been a good one.

Lots of nice messages & experiences shared already. Also thanks for the tips! 
I didn’t record myself unboxing it but I’ve taken some photos, although the lighting isn’t very good.
The coin is in great condition & I’m very pleased with it!
I can now also reveal the seller was @modofantasma 
So thank you very much for making my first buying experience on here such a smooth one!

I have only had positive experiences buying on the forum.
One of my recent purchases got to me within 18 hours of me agreeing to buy the coin, and I suspect the seller posted it SD before I had paid (we have done business before...)
Buyers and sellers are super careful about trading honestly and fairly from what I can see.  Reputation is everything TSF and I personally go a LONG way to ensure that I have a 100% positive trading record.
Best
Dicker
 

Hello all,
So I finally took the leap.. I sent a complete stranger that I met on a forum, cash via bank transfer 😮
When you say it like that it does sound crazy & I must admit before discovering this forum, I would never of built up the confidence to do it!
I wanted to make this Topic to document my experience of buying gold on here & to help other newbies like myself understand the process better.
So here we go..
3 days ago (Thursday 7th October 2022) I decided I wanted to add a gold maple coin to my stack - My usual searches would start on eBay & google, however this time I decided to search it on here. 
All I did was type in ‘gold maple for sale’ in the search box 🔍 
Straight away I found someone selling one (happy to edit this & insert the persons name if they are happy for me to do so). It was slightly over the price that I wanted to pay but they were happy to drop. 
The seller then private messaged me their bank details. Before sending the funds over I clicked on their profile & found a section called - Trading Feedback. Here I could read feedback from other members & get a feel if they were trustworthy or not.
I then sent over the funds via bank transfer & replied with my address.
The seller then confirmed receipt of funds within 5 minutes & then an hour or so later sent me a photo of the coin packed up & ready to be sent.
I’ve never had this much transparency when buying online before & so far my first experience has been really satisfying!
The coin was posted the very next morning and I was provided a tracking number. Today is now Saturday 9th October & the coin is due to arrive today before 1pm.
I will update this thread when it arrives and take some photos of it 😍
Be interested to hear other peoples stories of their first experience buying from this forum?
So far mine has been a very positive one!

Picked this up in town today, not bad for £100

Or use 17 ppt silver in the proofs, and 3-4 ppt for the bullion ones.
Extra cost would be about 7 pence for the proofs, and 1.5 pence for the bullion versions.
I got the maths wrong, please see correction.

Bought these from my local bullion dealer in town. He checked both in front of me with his XRF probe and both came up good. One being an 1881 San Fransisco mintmark and the other an 1883 New Orleans mintmark.
Whilst I was in there he told me I was lucky to get the 2.5 gram gold bar I bought the other week for £100 as he thought it was only 2 grams. He never asked for the difference though.