LawrenceChard

The alarm bells may be overkill. I have heard of them before, and they are a privately owned company, who just chose an impressive sounding name. Their Wikipedia page is reasonably informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Mint This page https://taxfreegold.co.uk/pacificsovereign.html contains a slight inaccuracy "produced", as actual production was by either Perth Mint or Valcambi, from memory.

What?, Even dearer than the Royal Mint? 🙂

I strongly suspect it's because there is no mint in Auckland, or anywhere else in New Zealand. 🙂

My usual, quick, response to any mention of "the silver shortage", is that it (the shortage) does not exist, and that it is rumour and hype peddled by silver bulls (and bullshitters). which would include miners, brokers, speculators, investment bankers, and conspiracy theorists, however... Modern commodity markets, although theoretically backed by physical supply options, do facilitate negative or short positions, meaning that the market could be in shortage, but I would argue that this is not the same as an actual shortage of physical metal. During the Covid pandemic, which is still extant in most of the world, although non-existent according to a highly vocal few, there have been production delays at mines, refiners, and mints, combined with transport delays and interruptions, compounded in the UK and EU by Brexit, which has re-introduced extra customs procedures, declarations, and checks. These are the real, actual, reasons why most brokers and dealers have been short of physical stock of silver. (It has also applied to gold supplies). During the actual or imaginary pandemic, there has also been increased investor demand for precious metals; combined with the production and transport disruptions, of course. You mention "bullion by post", and I presume you mean the high profile Birmingham based UK dealer Bullion by Post. 🙂 I have little doubt they they have "loads of stock" now, but will have been experiencing similar delays to every other dealer, including the much longer established @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer based in Blackpool, of all places. I have not spoken to Rob at BbP for quite some time, but I am sure that for the past 18 months, much of their stock will have been paid for, but awaiting production and shipping. This has certainly been the experience in Blackpool. I can also tell you that whenever I descend into the Chard bunker, there is quite a lot of shiny white metal stacked up. This now includes 2021 silver bullion Britannias, almost for the first time in 18 months, There are also lots of kilo silver bars, and other silver bullion coins. It is also true that most of the 2021 silver Britannias we own are in the supply pipeline rather than in our strongrooms. This is quite good as we are now expecting to receive these within 2 to 4 weeks instead of 6, 8, or who know how many weeks during the past 18 months. Chard also holds substantial physical stock in a secure Zurich storage facility. Your question "how can bullion by post be allowed to have all this stock?" puzzles me somewhat. In a free, democratic, country like the UK, we are all free to have as most stock of silver as we like. There is no rule, regulation, or law whcih says we can't, unless we mean the "law" of supply and demand. Dealers could have stock, or more stock, if they chose and could afford to buy more, or if they chose not to sell it, or to increase their prices to maximise profits and maintain stock levels. One comment on your post calls into doubt whether BbP do have the stock they appear to have. As a competitor, I would be happy to join in if I thought that was the case, but from my experience, I feel sure they do actually own significant stock. We could offer tours of our secure storage facilites, at least the ones in Blackpool, but we would want to charge for them (why not?), and for security reasons, we might just have to kill people before we let them out! 😎

I understand and agree with your basic point, and was just doing my usual thing is being pedantic and having a little fun. If you are not too bothered about the slight size difference, I could sell you some 19.30mm full sovereigns at a substantial difference compared with the usual 22.05mm ones! 🙂

As a number of members have already pointed out, most circulation gold coins were alloyed to make them more durable. Two slightly different systems evolved, namely 900 and 916 fine gold (90.0% and 91.66%). There is not much difference between these. When the EU and UK recognised "Investment Gold" as VAT exempt as from 1st January 2000, they decided that, to qualify as "Investment Gold", coins had to be at least 90% fine gold, which acknowledged the precedent and tradition which had evolved. Gold bullion bars, however, in order to qualify as "Investment Gold", had to be at least 99.5% gold, which also recognised the existing international standards for good delivery bars which had evolved over a long period of time. Most "small" gold bars, usually one kilo downwards are actually produced in 99.99% gold, a.k.a. "four nines", In 1979, the Royal Canadian Mint were the first to introduce fine gold (maple leaf) bullion coins, initially in 99.9% (three nines), then later in 99.99, and ultimately also 99.999% (five nines). It is good that we now all have a choice, traditional gold coins or newer fine gold coins. To the pure investor, it should not matter much, just buy whatever has the lowest premium (within reason). If you are buying as a collector, or for aesthetic reasons, then buy the colour, type, size, and alloy of coins you like best, but be aware that you might be paying slightly higher premiums to be able to exercise your choice. Also, when it comes to sell, bear in mind that not everybody will share your preferences, so paying a higher premium will probably give you a lower financial return, but this is offset by the pleasure of owning what pleases you more. One more historical point though is that if we go back to ancient times or antiquity, most gold coins did not circulate freely, but were used as stores of value and a means of exchange, so they were mainly kept in treasuries, and not often seen by the general population. They did not need to be mechaniclly durable. These earlier gold coins were usually made using the purest gold which was commonly obtainable using the refining methods readily available. The very earliest "gold" coins, from ancient Lydia, were made from electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver (no refining or alloying necessary). Later gold coins were often produced in 23ct or 23.5ct gold alloy, again almost certaianly because this was a convenient alloy to use without resorting to extra cost and effort involved in further refining. So, in older times, gold coins were traditionally made with nearly-fine gold. Choose your preferred tradition! 🙂 The Royal Mint has clearly chosen its own tradtition. Back in about 2000, some nameless person at the Royal Mint appears to have decided or misunderstood that British gold coins were traditionally made using a red gold alloy, sometimes called pink gold or rose gold. This is achieved by adding only copper to the pure gold, instead of a mixture of copper and silver. This was of course incorrect nonsense, but the RM, in its infinite wisdom (?), has continued to follow its own newly created tradition. This is why modern sovereigns are a revolting red, instead of yummy yellow, and look like copper discs instead of real gold coins. I have never discovered anything in any of the many "Coinage Acts" or other Royal Mint historical document which specifies that no silver should be used in its gold coins. Almost every collector, stacker, or member of TSF knows that "older" sovereigns look better than modern sovereigns. Most probably also know that it's because there is some silver content. I have tested hundreds, possibly thousands, of sovereigns, halves, doubles and quintuples, and noted that most pre QEII sovereigns contain about 3 parts per thousand of silver. This is enough to make them look desirable. It is my sincere hope that some day, someone at the RM will open their eyes and ears, and come to realise that adding some silver woulf imrove their product, and do so at an almost negligible cost. They could commission some consumer research to resolve any uncertainty. The change may never happen as doing so might mean admitting they were wrong for the past twenty or more years, and that I, along with most collectors, dealers, and ordinary people were right.

I've got some bad news for you... If the gold sovereigns in your stash are all penny sized, you should take another close look at them! 🙂

Do you happen to know where the "New Zealand Mint" is located? ... or anything about its production facilities?

It is fairly common with coin production, and one which I, and many others, would not consider to be a serious problem, especially with a bullion coin. You will almost certainly have paid more for it direct from the Royal Mint than from most UK bulllion dealers. To get coins with zero defeects, you may have to pay much extra for proof versions, and even then perfection is not always achieved as many of the topics on TSF show.

There is no longer any such entity as the "London Mint", and has not been since about 1975. The Royal Mint relocated from London to Llantrisant starting in 1969. What you refer to as the London Mint is almost certainly the misleadingly named London Mint Office, which is the UK subsidiary of a large coin marketing company called Samlerhuset based in Germany. LMO and Samlerhuset are wll known for misleading advertising and selling modern issue commemorative, and also some historic coins, at prices which most TSF members, and I, would consider to be rip-off prices. They are highly skilled at promotion and marketing, but it is quite unlikely that anything they sell will be a sound investment. Humanium is not a type of metal, but a brand name. You could read the Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanium_Metal IMO Humanium coins are as you say just a gimmick, but not just to prey on our hearts and sensibilities, but to prise money from the gullible. 🙂

I guess that English is not your first language, but it was not so bad, just that I am highly tuned to picking up any ambiguity and humour. Many other natural English speakers would have missed it.

Sure. When I wrote "Defending?", I was thinking that if they had simply let it go, and find its own level (floating, or it could be sinking), it would have saved the country's treasury billion, which would have been retained valued for the UK and pound, so the end result is that the pound and the UK would have ended worth more if they had not defended it. (My Law of Unintended Consequences)

That sounds uncomfortable. I hope you didn't cause any injury removing it! 🙂

Defending? 🙂

I think that was terrible Warren Buffett throwing darts at a bunch of innocent defenceless monkeys! 🙂

I don't think Soros was doing anything illegal when he very astutely shorted the pound. It was our politicians, and possibly central bankers stubbornly and stupidly trying to maintain the pound at a fixed rate.

The last time you said I was wrong, I asked you to explain, which you failed to do, but now you are repeating the same unfounded and inaccurate claim, and will probably again fail to explain. Actually I probably got it wrong last weekend, in your terms. As I said in an earlier post By luck or good judgement, we held off our daily top up buying of new bullion coins late last week, so instead of buying silver based on £18.50+, when we resumed early this week, we were buying based at spot prices under £17 per ounce. This also applied to gold bullion, where prices dropped from £1300+ to about £1250 per ounce, although gold has now recovered some ground and is currently over £1270 per ounce. Since then, we bought about 620 ounces of gold, and 14,000 ounces of silver. I have not bothered to work it out, but at a quick guess, we saved or made about £30K on the gold and about £20K on the silver. I'm looking forward to the next time I am wrong. 😎 P.S. A slight apology is perhaps due. My comments and actions mentioned above were all done while thinking about P.M. prices in sterling. I just noticed that this topic is for monitoring gold prices in U.S. dollars only. My excuses are (1) that I tend to think in English, and (2) that I was primarily responding to a tagged mention, and did not see the topic heading until a few hours later. 🙂

I think it is better if any collector or investor knows about fakes, and has access to information about them. A really determined counterfeiter would be able to create almost undectable fakes anyway, using modern technology and equipment, and they would almost certainly concentrate on circulation coins. there would be no profit in making counterfeit gold sovereigns as the premiums are so low, and they would be detected if they were substandard (deficient gold content). I don't know if anyone remembers, but a few years ago, perhaps 5 or 6, a Netherlands based private mint had tooled up to make millions of high quality UK £1 and £2 coins, and €1 and €2 coins, by the million. They were caught possibly before any went into circulation. A search might find some news articles from the time.

Even if you use automation to do price comparisons, there is always the difficulty of synchronising the sampling. If your 35 pence figure is accurate, this makes Sharps Pixley 1.43% cheaper than https://www.chards.co.uk/2020-1oz-britannia-25-silver-coin-tube/5867, so it makes sense to buy from them right now. Partly what I was drawing attention to is that SP would have been about 6.5% more expensive than @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer at their normal prices, compared with Chards normal prices. It's little wonder they had a "Sale". Most TSF members will be aware that new silver Britannias have been in short supply for most of the past 18 months. My "Supply Situation" post of 4th August mentioned that new bullion supplies have been coming through more quickly in the past month. Some dealers may have swung from an insufficient stock/supply position to a surplus stock/supply position in the past few weeks. By luck or good judgement, we held off our daily top up buying of new bullion coins late last week, so instead of buying silver based on £18.50+, when we resumed early this week, we were buying based at spot prices under £17 per ounce. This also applied to gold bullion, where prices dropped from £1300+ to about £1250 per ounce, although gold has now recovered some ground and is currently over £1270 per ounce. I wish I was able to say we had snapped up gold and silver at the midnight Sunday dip prices of around £16.30 and £1220 respectively, but we didn't unfortunately. Maybe next time! 🙂 While, for some reason, there is no Dealer Price Comparison on the "tubes" page above, there is one on the normal single piece page, https://www.chards.co.uk/2021-silver-britannia-1-ounce-bullion-coin/13255 which also shows price breaks for 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, and 1000+ quantities. This shows that for quantities of 5 or more, Chards are cheaper including postage, than the 6 other UK dealers compared. Chards were probably also cheaper from 2 or more pieces, but this is not shown on the comparison table. Pricing is currently under review on 2021 silver Britannias, but it would probably be foolish to cut prices to the bone and sell out immediately, when we know that the next supply delivery could be at least 2 weeks away. Most investors and stackers prefer to buy what is in stock for immediate shipping. There would be not much point Chards being the cheapest if we were out of stock, so people were paying more buying from elsewhere rather than wait.

Thanks. It's time we improved or extended that page to included better photos, possibly using some comparison images of real and fake side by side. The main obstacle is time itself. We have been working flat out for most of the past 18 months, dealing with orders, and trying to speed incoming supplies of new bullion coins. I still take time to study incoming fakes, and get photos of them, usually with Niton XRF results, but writing the descriptions to go onto a blog or info page takes much longer. The article you linked also has a link to one of our YouTube videos (about the 1918 London Mint fake sovereign). It is just one of about 60 YouTube videos we created, including a small series about various counterfeit coins. More to follow, but producing videos takes even more time.

Yes, with 8% off, they are now 4 pence per coin cheaper than @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer for a tube, or allowing for postage, that changes to 28 pence, although that may change soon, as I hinted in this post on 4th August: You might need to be quick because we are down to our last half tonne until the end of the month. 🙂

Alice Through the Looking Glass: ... and boxed: Not noticed any production defects yet. 🙂

We received this notice today from Rand Refineries: I doubt if it will affect any TSF members, but you never know!

Yes, it's here: You get a mention in the credits. 🙂

Thanks, We did about 7 videos about spotting fakes, but found they would each take two people at least a few days to produce, just to create a 5-10 minute video. We still intend to create some more, but probably need to change and improve the format. We built navigation into our original sites, but some people thought those difficult to navigate. The new site relies mainly on "Search" rather than a structured navigation. Most people looking to buy stuff seem to find it easier, but there are still issues between "products", "information", "blogs", "advice", and more. At any one time, there are probably two people working on the site development, and also at least one working on system development, or integrating the two parts. There were shooting problems with me standing behind our old counter, and our new showroom is even worse for noise and acoustics. The room we used for the recent A.M.A. video is also too small, with other problems. Its good, though, that we have lots of ideas for improvement, some of which are already in progress. I'm not sure I can keep up with it all. 🙂