LawrenceChard

A wise decision! 😎

I am slightly disappointed that nobody has asked me to explain this cryptic comment. In fact @HerefordBullyun should apologise for failing to ask!

Come on, give the OP a fair chance, instead of using obscure (to some) Latin acronyms. 😎

You are under no obligation to ask a million questions. I think we are about 10 down, so another 999,990 still to come. "... to clarify 110% ..." Forgive me for asking, but are you a professional footballer? "The precious metals physical bullion market in UK is regulated" From my understanding of the English language, that looks like a statement, but... "... or is it still the wild west casino unregulated?" seems to turn it into a question. If "The precious metals physical bullion market in UK is regulated" is intended to be a question, I could answer it for you, and so could any number of other TSF members. 😎

A possible case of not expecting too much for free! 😎

I had noticed that, but it seems to be quite common, and getting more so. 😎

I actually think it would have been much more fun... ... and certainly a more efficient use of my time. 😎

Okay you charge for delivery because your delivery must be insured I assume and your competitors offering free delivery are not insured for lost/stolen deliveries? That is a logical non-sequitur. I dod not think our competitors would be so stupid as not to insure higher value shipments, or at least to use more secure shipping methods. If I use my credit card for free delivery orders and if it gets lost/stolen while delivery then am I covered under Section 75 Customer protection with my card company? Probably yes under most circumstances, depending on your card company's T&Cs. What about dealers who do not accept credit cards for online orders, is this a red flag for customers to be aware of? Absolutely not. Most of the competitively priced bullion dealers, and many of the uncompetitiely priced ones do not accept credit cards (or even debit cards) on larger deals. If anything, I think accepting credit cards on bullion purchases is more of a cause for concern. May I ask why your posts always seem to be in bold face? 😎

I don't know exactly how the double ID works for them, perhaps half the people buy from the cheaper of the two, while the other half buy from the dearer one assuming they must be better. I doubt that anyone from BbP will post any answer here on TSF. I would like to think that "people aren't stupid and are able to think things through", and surely some do, perhaps even a majority, but there appears to be a significant proportion of people who make sub-optimal purchasing decisions when it comes to coins and bullion. 🙂

Thanks for your post. I have always run our business on the presumption that people are sensible, reasonable, and not stupid, or at least until we find out otherwise. Arguments and discussions about so-called "free postage" will surely continue. I have my point of view, and have explained the reasoning and logic behind it many times. I realise this will not convince everybody, and so be it. I have also stated quite a few times that Atkinsons are sometimes cheaper than us, usually only by small amounts, as are a few other competitors. I also get to see some coins which people have bought from competitors, and am appalled by the number of low quality, worn or polished coins I see, and also fakes. Buying reject quality and fakes is hardly ever a bargain, but if buyers do not know the difference, they cannot readily compare like for like. I do not insinuate "that people cannot work out that postage and insurance costs money as insulting to my intelligence.", but it sounds like the OP did not understand that fact, and survey we did shows that about 50% of respondents would prefer "free postage" rather than postage shown separately. Perhaps we would be better to change to "free postage", but I would feel uncomfortable doing so as I know it would be untrue. I am sorry to hear your first order with us was not perfect, but am pleased that we do appear to be doing something right. If you look at any of our popular bullion pages, and the price comparison on them, you will see that on quantities, we are usually the most competitively priced. Despite this, most people using Google end up buying their bullion coins from the Royal Mint, Bullion by Post, or Gold.co.uk (these last two websites are owned and operated by Jewellery Quarter Bullion, and almost always have different prices from each other, which stikes me as cynical marketing).

WTF are "tavex bullion"? 😎

That was a cute reply fella. I would take that as a compliment, but I suspect you meant it sarcastically. I hope I'm wrong. Anyway if you didn’t charge for P&P it wouldn’t really affect your wealth would it ? On some items, like one ounce silver bullion coins, we would make a loss if we failed to charge for postage. Almost everybody charges for postage, including Bullion by Post. It is just that they quote a price which includes postage, then feed you propaganda hoping yu are a sucker who will believe it is actually free postage. Whenever we compare, they are almost always considerably more expensive than us. You would become even more of cult hero. I don' claim or aim to be a "cult hero", although if we have a good reputation it is hard-earned. Possibly also because I tell the truth, even when some people don't want to hear it. Let’s say you did whipe out the P&P you would still make money in the premiums. Sure, if we added enough extra premium to cover the postage deficit.

If we get to see the actual coin, and I hope we do, we must do a denticle count image in addition to a serrations image, then obviously compare these with other examples with which we are happy. We would also take our usual high quality, hi-res photos.

I think so. It sounds rude, but I dislike euphemisms. 😎

If I understand correctly, uranium is named after Uranus! 😎

Yes there is. In fact there is a reason for everything we do, and all our policies. We believe these are good valid reasons. We are also highly transparent about our business, and many of the reasons we make particular decisions. We have a blog page here: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/free-postage/26 Which explains a lot about so-called "free-postage". "Free postage" is propaganda, and an illusion, which unfortunately fools many gullible people into thinking that they are getting something for nothing, when in fact they are often paying more for it. If I remember correctly, I have also posted an article on TFS about it. However, as you asked, let me give you a little history: Once upon a time, two cousins opened a coin shop in Dale Street, Blackpool. Amoongst other things, they (we) bought and sold gold sovereigns. Our shop was "bricks and mortar". Most of our sales were to local people, from perhaps a 20 mile radius, but people also travelled from further afield like Manchester and London to buy from us. Most of our trade in those days was in person, over the counter, but we also offered mail order, including for gold sovereigns, almost the only gold bullion coin available or worth buying in those days. Krugerrands were not invented until 1967. One of our old adverts in Exchange and Mart read: Gold sovereigns £4 each, £37.10 per 10, £365 per 100, £3500 per thousand. In those days, we traded as R&L Coins, at number 10 Dale Street, Blackpool. Perversely, these prices included postage although we did not claim postage was free, partly because the advert would have cost us more. The main reason I have related this is because we were "Bricks and Mortar", before the term was even coined It was well before the internet and "clicks". In 1998, a little late, we set up one of the first coin dealers websites 24carat.co.uk, which still exists and works, although it has started to creak slightly. We were now "Clicks and Bricks", although the term had not been invented. Apart from a few old adverts similar the above, we used to charge postage separately on mail order transactions. With our website, our mail order business grew, but we have never abandoned our showroom base. It was the simplest and fairest method, and at least 99% of people were happy with it. We offer free collection, which many of our competitors don't, because they don't have a showroom or shop, and don't want the extra inconvenience of people turning up on the premises, taking up staff time. Shops and stores cost money to run. Why waste money on providing this facility, when you can run a "cut-price", no frills services, where people have to buy online, pay online, and you don't need to employ knowledgeable staff to deal with customer enquiries. I say "cut-price", but most of our competitors charge more than we do, so I should have called it "cut-cost". At this point I should ask you a question: Do you or have you ever worked out a pricing system for any business? How are you at arithmetic, maths, logic, algorithms, formulae, spreadsheets, databases, and I.T. systems? If you can truthfully answer "yes" or "good" to the above, then you will understand that developing an automated pricing system requires a lot of knowledge, skill, and care. But I suspect you don't because otherwise you would not have asked the question. If not, then how would you go about designing a system which would calculate prices, including quantity discounts for, for working out your retail prices for every quantity from 1 to a few thousand? Two answer spring to my mind. The first is "with great difficulty", and the second is "you wouldn't". We find it simpler, easier, quicker, and better to operate a system whereby we price the actual goods, then calculate shipping costs separately, rather working out prices including shipping. We are are quite simple people! It is almost beyond doubt that our "free postage" competitors set their prices by looking at their cost price, adding their margin, adding postage packing and insurance, to arrive at their retail price. Then they lie to you and all their customers by telling you that their postage is free, which it is not, but you believe it because we want to believe it. In our business, we do not treat customers as suckers, prefering to treat them all as intelligent, sensible people, unless or until we discover otherwise. Another bit of historic information: When we set up our first website, we wanted a simple postage charge system, so we decided on (within the UK): £2 postage at customers own risk, or £5 fully insured. This was easy for us to implement, and easy for customers to understand Eventually, it started to cause a problem. When someone phoned us and wanted to invest a large amount, for example £100,000 on gold coins, they were understandably unsure and concerned when we asked only £5 to post and fully insure the delivery. Sometimes, I or a staff member had to spend valuable time and energy assuring customers that our paltry charge did indeed cover full insurance. In fact, the cost to us was around 0.11% at the time, so on a £100K sale, we were subsidising the shipping cost by about £100 equivalent to about £1 per thousand, because it was easier to calculate. We possibly even lost some sales because we were not charging enough! Eventually, we learnt our lesson, and changed our shipping costs to £5 per order (later £6), plus £1 per £1000 insurance. Most of our customers were happier about this than they had been before. We have tweaked these charges to fine tune them a few times since. If you feel you should only buy from people who offer free postage, then if you want a brand new 2022 bullion sovereign, you should buy one from Harrington & Byrne. The run a loss-leader strategy to get your name on their mailing list. Don't do it by phone, otherwise you will lose about 20 minutes of your life trying to avoid their unethical and possibly illegal "bait and switch" tactic. They then follow up by offering you lots of rip-off price items, and exclusive new issue coin offers, which most dealers don't offer so there is not much competition. If you like any of their other stuff, and can wait a few years, you should be able to buy it on the secondary market at much lower premiums, possibly half price. Their loss-leader offers are limited to one per household per year, so if you wanted to buy a second coin from them, you might be able to, but only at their higher "usual" price, and the two coins will cost you more than buying from Chard, even after postage. You will also find that many of the bullion pages of our Chards website include a UK dealer price comparison, and this includes Chards prices with and without postage, to make comparison quick, simple, effortless for our customers, and transparent. For example: On our 2022 Gold Sovereign Bullion Coin page https://www.chards.co.uk/2022-gold-sovereign-uncirculated-coin/15066 Price Comparison Against Other UK Bullion Dealers - Updated at 01-Mar-2022 06:34 Qty Chards (Excl Delivery) Chards (Inc Delivery) B* G* A BB UKB 5 £353.46 £354.86 £358.80 £358.70 OOS £360.05 £361.25 10 £352.46 £353.26 £358.00 £358.00 OOS £359.55 £360.52 25 £351.12 £351.56 £357.30 £356.90 OOS £359.05 £359.98 50 £350.62 £350.96 £356.60 £355.90 OOS £358.55 £359.43 100 £349.78 £350.07 £355.90 £355.00 OOS £358.25 £358.71 250 £349.62 £349.96 £355.60 £354.60 OOS £357.85 £358.35 500 £349.28 £349.57 £355.20 £354.30 OOS £357.55 £357.98 1000 £349.11 £349.37 £354.70 £353.60 OOS £357.55 £357.44 As far as I am aware, we are the only UK dealer to feature this price comparison. Our competitors don't want you to be able to compare easily, for obvious reasons. I could say a lot more, but I have other stuff to do. 😎 P.S. I just realised I could have answered your question much more quickly and easily by saying: "Yes" 😎😎

I guess the answer was no! 😎

and Barry!😎

No, most UK banks don't even deal in bullion coins. The Royal Mint does but it is uncompetitive, closed at weekends, and even closes when things get busy. Privately owned coin and bullion dealers make a competitive market in gold and other precious metal coins, and bullion bars. @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer in Blackpool, which I founded, is one of the most competitive, and is also the longest continuous operated coin and bullion dealer in the UK. You may sometimes be able to buy or sell small quantities at smaller spreads here on TSF, or at some of the smaller UK dealers, but for quantities over 1 single piece, we try to be the most competitive. We are also better resourced and more professional. Our bullion coins are guaranteed genuine. Our website and backend systems are highly secure. I cannot speak for our competitors on these last two points. In case you were not aware, our website is here: https://www.chards.co.uk/ I tried to gently hint at it earlier, as I try not to actively self-promote.

In the UK, coins are issued by the Royal Mint to banks and post offices on behalf of the Treasury. Banknotes are issued by the Bank of England. There would by little advantage holding base metal coins compared with banknotes. Coins and banknotes are both examples of cash.

Respect? 😎

The very place!

The warehouse team at @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer produced a cake today: Alert management were suspicious about this, and on cutting it open, made an alarming discovery: It appears to have been hollowed out and filled with coins. Although these were only chocolate coins, it is believed that this may have been trial run for the real thing. 😎

He's the new head of marketing, quality control, ethics, distribution, and production at the Royal Mint. Rumours are that next week he will be appointed as Special Advisor to Boris Johnson. 😎

But if the goverment closes it, this might put the Royal Mint our of business. Also the CGT rule is not specifically about coins, it is about disposals of Sterling, of which British coins and banknotes are only an example.