LawrenceChard

23 hours ago, kannalo said:

Is it possible to buy Cameroon silver coins direct from Cameroon? without using dealers/resellers the markup on these is crazy. I would like to get the Leda and the Swan 2oz coin

 

 

22 hours ago, ChrisSilver said:

Powercoin have his coin: https://www.powercoin.it/en/mint-xxi/7889-leda-and-the-swan-celestial-beauty-2-oz-silver-coin-2000-francs-cameroon-2023.html

Although it says Camaroon, they likely just give the licence for it to be produced as a coin rather than a generic round.

Would expect that it’s actually minted somewhere in Europe (Germany possibly?) but can’t find any info from a quick search, hopefully someone else is able to help give some details as to where this is produced.

So in conclusion I don’t think you will be able to buy it from Camaroon.

Getting my usual pedantic bit out of the way first:

It says Cameroun, not Cameroon.

But that is good information from ChrisSilver.

I often wonder whether anyone in Tristan da Cunha has ever seen any of the plethora of "TDC" coins issued in its name (or initials).

Similar applies to Palau, Ascension, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, and a host of others.

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2 hours ago, KleinerVogel said:

I happen to have a 2013 sov, will check it later. It was minted in India?

1 hour ago, modofantasma said:

Yes on 1918 was Bombay mint though now Mumbai. 

The more recent ones were from 2013 to 2020.

https://sites.google.com/view/thepettyhoard/the-indian-sovereigns

Haven't come across 2021 or 2022 maybe someone else knows about those?

1 hour ago, KleinerVogel said:

Interesting thanks, for a moment I thought you meant that all sovs of that year were minted in India, but that's just my fault, my morning coffee has not fully kicked in yet.

7 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

You'd know if it was a modern India sov - they put silver in the alloy so it's not copper coloured, and they tend to come in special packaging.  They're also a bit on the pricey side here.

I think they stopped making them for some reason.  Not sure why.

Just about all the information you might need about gold sovereigns can be found here:

https://goldsovereigns.co.uk/information.html

or on the numerous links.

It might save you from having to buy a copy of Marsh, or a Spink Catalogue.

Also, unlike postage, it is free!

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2 hours ago, KleinerVogel said:

I happen to have a 2013 sov, will check it later. It was minted in India?

If you have to ask the question, then the answer is almort certainly "no"!

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14 hours ago, AaaGee said:

So, i bought a silver Crown from here and it turned up today. VERY happy with it. Would like to get the full set. Only after clean and tidy, not minters. In no rush to buy and plan to pick em up as and when.

How many designs (Queens heads?) Were there on the crown?

This is the one i have, and roughly the condition im after.

Cheers all.

This page, and its links should all the information you are after, and more:

https://24carat.co.uk/frame.php?url=crownsindx.html

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On 19/02/2023 at 23:49, JohnA1 said:

Saw all six episodes, OK drama based on some facts.

I've read there were 6800 odd bars, for 3 tonnes that would make them less than half a kilo each, wouldn't it🤔

They looked quite a lot bigger in the series - how could they get such an important detail wrong?

I also read that in a few places, probably all copied from one source.

I suspect it is incorrect.

I thought that they were kilo bars, but have been trying to verify from a reliable source, in between trying to do some real work!

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On 13/02/2023 at 22:55, Foster88 said:

 

No spoilers guys.

I’m only on episode 1 now. 😬

Did you watch it @LawrenceChard I wonder if you spotted any more mistakes?

On 14/02/2023 at 11:26, LawrenceChard said:

No, I have not watched it yet. I ended up watching a 20 year old film about it.

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I did finish watching it at weekend, quite entertaining!

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3 minutes ago, MJCOIN said:

@ChardsCoinandBullionDealer @LawrenceChard

Is the accusation I bear a grudge directed at me?  Wasn't clear from your post and I most certainly have never made any comments against your or your business.

No, of course not.

I did show my response to all three comments separately, so, to yours:

Cancel your order and buy from Chards?

I couldn't have said it better myself!

My last comment started naming you in the third person "@MJCOIN had a great suggestion", but was directed at the third poster.

I am sorry if I failed to make that clearer.

You may not have noticed it at the time, but there was a long Topic thread at the time:

This was a later one, but referring to the earlier robda post:

This was his original post and Topic:

I tend to ignore robda's posts, but every now and again, he seems to be unable to resist a rather negative tangential remark.

I think we have have a few pleasant interractions on TSF, and long may it continue.

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On 13/05/2021 at 15:43, BiigT said:

Hi Dave, That's a grand reply, thanks for taking the time to explain. I had considered that new dies were lazer engraved, but I didn't appreciate the difference in end quality.  

This is a very late response, but:

Nowadays master hubs are otfen laser scanned, and this scan "feeds" the engraving or die-cutting machine. The main difference is that previous methods used a mechanical pantograph, which probably still achieves better results and a higher fidelity copy.

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6 minutes ago, CollectForFun said:

Aren't those rules for VAT exemption, rather than CGT exemption?

Yes indeed, and well spotted.

I think though that HMRC would need to be extremely avaricious to try to extort CGT on underweight specimens, but I suppose that is not saying much!

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On 16/02/2023 at 09:41, refero said:

what to me is really not acceptable is that RM keeps on hold buyers (like me) that bought directly to the RM itself on the very same release day, while other suppliers (like chards) got it back on stock now and (i guess) ready for IMMEDIATE delivery.

(and 15 gbp cheaper)

for not talking about (this really matters to me) the totally screwed prioriry order. I ll get one of the last proofs, when i bought mine amongst the first

honestly what is the point in buying from the RM? more expensive and getting a random product, most probably minted amongst the last ones

Sometimes direct RM customers will get their coins earlier than via dealers. It must be easier for them to ship 10 consignments totalling perhaps 1000 coins, than 1000 separate packages containing one coin per package.

On 16/02/2023 at 11:41, MJCOIN said:

Cancel your order and buy from Chards?

On 17/02/2023 at 12:43, Robda1986 said:

Cancel the order and buy from a secondary supplier that actually has the item you want in stocks. Be careful as the terms and conditions of the sale always and I mean always protect the seller rather than the potential buyer 

@MJCOIN had a great suggestion, but I guess you stilll bear a grudge against @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer and me, for correcting your half truths about us a few years back.

1 hour ago, ChardsCoinandBullionDealer said:

This is something we are working on. We are in the process of developing a mobile friendly website /application which will be the BEST on the market when we're finished!!!

Quite right, the UK's best coin and bullion dealer should have the best website!

56 minutes ago, Britannia47 said:

Banksia as you well know is named after Sir Joseph Banks, the colonial botanist, who collected several species in 1770 whilst sailing with Captain Cook. Slight digression now re. Alloys used by the Sydney mint. 
Francis Miller patented the gas chlorine method of removing the silver from gold ore in 1867, which before made the sovereigns look more yellow than those from the London mint. So in 1868/69 both Mints started experimenting - Sydney using more copper, and London using more silver. Marsh 53A  ‘yellow gold’ 1869, and in Sydney Marsh 373&374 using ‘Yellow gold’ & ‘Red gold’ respectively. However, Steve Hill/Marsh now refers to ‘Yellow gold’ as being alloyed with 8.33% silver. I’ve always thought that ‘yellow gold’ was a mix of copper & silver, with just a small amount of silver needed to bring out the yellow. Also I’ve always thought that using all silver is technically ‘green gold’! 
To illustrate this, the photo shows 2x 1870 ‘Australia’ and a Proof 2005. Using a grey photo exposure card to get the best colour exposure possible would you agree that the proof has a slight greenish hue to it? I had it tested by Bairds sometime ago who confirmed it contained 8.33% silver.

 

 

Banksia? yes I read up on it some years ago.

The flowers do look rather phallic.

I would say "green gold" is more jargon than technically correct.

I did Niton test 2005 Australian Perth Mint sovereigns, proof and bullion, some time ago, and published the results here on TSF, but faile to find them in a 30 second search.

I can remember that my tests showed zero copper, and 8.33% silver.

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24 minutes ago, James32 said:

No (i) in team Lawrence 😆 

There is in Microsoft Teams.

There is also an "i" in blind, which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

We also have blinds in our windows, which almost brings us back neatly to where I came in!

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6 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

You have an old web site think it was something like taxfreegold that was a go to for just about all coins information but about 4 years ago it stopped working on the phone which was disappointing as learnt so much from it.      Chards is my go to but if I was new atkinsons web site is a lot easier to navigate on a phone

One of our 3 old "heritage sites" is indeed https://taxfreegold.co.uk/

I still use it to check some facts.

It was created in December 1999, and was never designed for use on mobile phones. To upgrade it would almost certainly require a complete re-write. 

Our new site was designed to work on mobile devices, and it uses one shopping basket, whereas our old sites needed one for each, which was inconvenient for customers. They also had no search facility (or at least not worth using), but used old fashioned hard-coded links and navigation, which still work well for anyone capable of thinking logically, but usually require more clicks.

I do occasionally view websites on my mobile phone, but I dislike the experience.

You have just given me an idea though: We should add some "free postage" pages to our old websites!

Easier? Sure. Buying via Amazon is often easier, but when you realise that merchants are typically paying Amazon about 15% commission on their sales, then I would always check elsewhere unless is was a very small purchase.

Atkinsons? I guess that you can hardly notice the poor quality of their photos when using a mobile phone. Even on a large desktop monitor, it can be difficult to tell which of the coins are genuine, and which are fake.

Newbies have a lot to learn!

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22 minutes ago, ChardsCoinandBullionDealer said:

This is something we are working on. We are in the process of developing a mobile friendly website /application which will be the BEST on the market when we're finished!!!

You beat me to it by about 20 minutes!

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On 18/02/2023 at 18:42, Leonmarsh said:

Because you havent upgraded your website for 5 years 

Wrong!

I presume you mean our main Chards.co.uk one. It gets incremental improvements almost every day, most of which are probably not easily noticeable. 

Upgrades are slightly different. Being semantic, it depends what you class as an upgrade. 

I do think we could upgrade it by including more of the information we used to, and still do have, on our heritage sites. Some it is has been ported over, but not always perfectly, and without many of the links our old sites had.

The new site is so advanced compared with the old ones, that I am not able to add new pages, or edit existing ones, despite the fact that I used to hand-code many pages on our old sites. I am not sure that counts as an upgrade.

As a side note, we are just in the closing stages of settling a legal case we started against a web developer company, whose managing director managed to convince us that they could and would supply a high quality e-commerce website with a search facility which "would rock". Perhaps we were naive, but he was a very convincing liar salesman. I will not name them, as their latest offer includes a proposal for an NDA (Non disclosure agreement), against which I have a strong ethical dislike.

In the background we are working on the development of our completely re-written "back-end". It is entirely possible that, when it is rolled out, nobody will notice the difference!

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On 17/02/2023 at 19:16, ArgentSmith said:

Why Are Chards So Cheap?

Textbook rhetorical question 😎

Yes, if taken just as a headline, but the fact is that we do get asked that very question, along with other variations on it. Our staff have to spend time assuring people we are not like Harvey Ross, and that our prices are not "too good to be true"!

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16 minutes ago, MonkeysUncle said:

Ermmmm.... now let me think....

Pol Pot

Mugabe 

Mad Vlad

To save me looking them up, were any of them elected?

If so, were the elections free and fair, rigged, or dubious?

I don't think any of them could be classed as "benevolent dictatorships" which are generally considered to the the best form of government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship

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1 hour ago, paulmerton said:

Can anyone see what's unusual about this?

It's the first coloured £2 coin since 2022, and it's being released on Thursday!

 

What, that it's the first coloured £2 coin since last year?

We are still only in February!

4 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

Is your underweight sovereign subject to capital gains tax?

This topic has been talked about a few times,  I have been looking at the minimum weights for coins especially sovereigns once a sovereign becomes worn and weighs less than 7.93787g it is then  classed as under weight, but also at this point it loses it's legal tender status.

Has King Charles been on a diet in preparation for his Coronation?

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4 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

Is your underweight sovereign subject to capital gains tax?

This topic has been talked about a few times,  I have been looking at the minimum weights for coins especially sovereigns once a sovereign becomes worn and weighs less than 7.93787g it is then  classed as under weight, but also at this point it loses it's legal tender status.    This is the coinage act of 1971 

......"but gold coins shall not be legal tender if their weight has become less than that specified in Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act as the least current weight".

 I doubt the tax man would go to the effort to weigh every single coin in your stack, just found this to be interesting. 

 

 

Coinage Act 1971.pdf 156.72 kB · 1 download

That is a good question, and interesting, but there is a very quick, simple, and even better answer:

https://taxfreegold.co.uk/whatisinvestmentgold.html

What is Investment Gold?

For the purpose of the new VAT exemption, "Investment Gold" is defined as:

(a)
Gold of a purity not less than 995 thousandths that is in the form of a bar, or a wafer, of a weight accepted by the bullion markets;

(b)
A gold coin minted after 1800 that-
is of a purity of not less than 900 thousandths,
is, or has been, legal tender in its country of origin, and
is of a description of coin that is normally sold at a price that does not exceed 180% of the open market value of the gold contained in the coin; or

(c)
A gold coin of a description specified in Notice 701/21A Investment gold coins.

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5 hours ago, Bratnia said:

1967/1968 tax year a one-off retrospective wealth tax was introduced by Roy Jenkings, a tiered 'special charge' that ran up to 45%. So combined 98% and 45% taxation. He structured the special charge so that any investment income below a £3,000 threshold was exempt, but subsequent tranches were taxed at a steeply progressive scale: 10 per cent between £3–4,000, 15 per cent between £4–5,000, 30 per cent between £5–8,000 and at 45 per cent above £8,000. 

That's as defined in 

https://www.fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FABJ4458_Wealth_Tax_Report_260516_WEB.pdf

Also have a browse through page 18 (PDF page 20) "Proposal for a one-off levy on passive wealth" and I suspect we're back into a confiscatory cycle (after prior years of moderately low taxation) most likely IMO after Labour win the next General Election. A factor is that 1% of people pay a third of the total income taxation, when that 1% flight the country that leaves the rest having to find/pay 50% more in taxation. Better would be to attract/expand that 1% to 3%, but UK political cycles are such that we don't have the stability for that to occur. The US in contrast will more than welcome the 1% that the UK ejects (or rather those that are enforced into exile).

I was wondering about the 130% tax rate.

If hat had ever applied to me, I would have left the country.

"UK political cycles are such that we don't have the stability for that to occur."

There are a few reasons, or contributory factors:

We have a left and a right in UK political parties, with nothing much in the middle, whereas most big decisions / policies would be better somewhere in the centre of opinions.

This will probably continue to get worse. Most people with limited intelligence can only follow one concept at a time. There was some research published about this a few months ago, but it is almost obvious. Political parties and other influencers use this to polarise their audiences in their preferred direction.

Four years is probably too short a term for any government to plan for. It might be better if only half or a third were subject to an election at any time, as it would ensure some continuity.

Changing a country's government every four years is a stupid way to run a country. It would be a stupid way to run a business, so why do we do it with governments?

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15 hours ago, Britannia47 said:

I’ve always liked this portrait by Leonard Wyon with the Banksia in the hair, replacing his cousin James’ depiction of 1855/56.

 Nice coin. Well done!

I read that too quickly the first time, and thought it was about a portrait by Banksy!

I wonder if his first name is Robin?

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2 hours ago, Bratnia said:

Unsurprisingly favoured generational wealth assets include a considerable weighting of cash (in-hand), gold and art such as paintings that can be rolled up into a tube.

How many in a tube?

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3 hours ago, Cornishfarmer said:

Is this the same in all industries? £10k isn’t a lot now.    So if mortgages, loans or buying a car do the have to report it to HMRC?

I don't know, but they may all ask the source of your money / wealth.

But, yes if you tried doing it using cash, except for the neighbourhood loan shark!

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