LawrenceChard

1 hour ago, carrigher82 said:

Low mintage coin dealers

Hi I see Germany has EMK  and the US has Apmex, theres probably loads of others I'm  missing, but I'm in the UK. Does anyone have any suggestions for dealers that deal in rare and low mintage coins like you can find at these other (foreign for me) websites?

There is only one of me.

That surely makes me a low mintage coin dealer!

I would be asking why low mintage is important to you.

Also are you interested in modern coins with low issues, or older.

This search page lists a number modern ones:

https://www.chards.co.uk/products/low-mintage-coins

The first item on the list has a mintage or issue limit (not always the same), of 15 pieces.

Earlier today I mentioned a Henry III gold penny (of 20 pence). It is or was considered to be unique. I noticed a similar coin sold by auction for over £500,000.

I could also talk to the Perth Mint if you were interested in buying their unique one tonne gold coin. Its intrinsic gold value is about £50 million. It is also the world's largest gold coin.

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56 minutes ago, flyingveepixie said:

It's the Maria Theresa head I don't like. Something about it just creeps me out a bit...  Don't know why...🤔

I like seeing her bust on coins!

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I have never had any problem buying or selling anything on TSF.

Mind you, I have never bought or sold anything on TSF, so my contribution doesn't exactly count for much!

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28 minutes ago, VeracityM said:

Ahhh, the Christmas Draw - what a fab way to offload ones s*** less than optimum purchases, in the fervent hope of an upgrade 😇

*This spellchecker sure is keen on swear words (and I even spelled it with a digit) 😂

You should try typing Richard Whittington's more famliar name.

It is probably just as well that TSF moderates the use of taboo language, otherwise every Tom, ****, and Harry would be posting obscenities!

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2 hours ago, flyingveepixie said:

I've got a Thaler of my own.  I had two but I gave one of them away in the Christmas draw because to be entirely truthful I just don't like them all that much.  I read that they were struck regularly up until about 1860 even though they all carry the same date.

 I / we used to buy them from the Austrian Mint in the 1960s, in both Uncirculated and Proof versions. I feel sure they are still available, although A.M. probably sell many more one ounce silver Philharmonikers.

We also used to buy some secondary market ones about 15 to 20 years ago. These were usually still in mint bags of 1,000 pieces, weighing just over 28 kilos per bag.

I like them. 

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8 minutes ago, Jayjay said:

I paid £520 for it, what do you reckon good buy?

I didn't know anything about it other than it's a penny and I wanted a good penny 😅

You know how much you paid for it, who from, when, and a lot more than you realise.

TSF is highly educational!

When I first saw your title, I was hoping it was going to be about the rare gold penny of Henry III.

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30 minutes ago, VeracityM said:

I typed in 'Silver Taler' (as per the card), which quickly led to them being also called 'silver thaler'.. which then led to 'restricts abound' and finally (when I bored of that rabbit hole), there are many fakes - so I gave up and decided to ask the sages of The Silver Forum 😉 

29 minutes ago, VeracityM said:

*restrikes (autocorrect sucks balls)

I noticed, but restrained myself!

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2 minutes ago, VeracityM said:

I typed in 'Silver Taler' (as per the card), which quickly led to them being also called 'silver thaler'.. which then led to 'restricts abound' and finally (when I bored of that rabbit hole), there are many fakes - so I gave up and decided to ask the sages of The Silver Forum 😉 

Thanks for answering.

I tried your search, and got plenty of good results:

As you can see, the first three results were:

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

A really interesting and educational page.

If youi invested enough time to read it, you would also see:

"The corresponding English silver coin of the period was the crown. The Low German word was adopted in English as daler by 1550, modified to dollar by about 1600.[1] English thaler was introduced in the first half of the 19th century to refer to the coins of the German states, as the word dollar was increasingly understood to refer to the United States dollar."

And you would then know more than most Americans (which admittedly is a low hurdle).

The second result is:

https://www.cointrust.co.uk/maria-theresa-silver-taler-1780-350-p.asp

Which despite it's name is actually a dealer asking a rip-off price for them, although I have seen them at higher asking prices.

The third result is from an excellent dealer website, which just happens to be:

https://www.chards.co.uk/silver-thaler-coin-austria/3088

Although I noticed that we should clarify the fact that what we offer are restrikes, which are probably by Austrian Mint, but could be other restrikes (which are probably rarer).

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1 minute ago, VeracityM said:

I'll give it a go

 

sarcastic listing comments welcome 😎

It's not crappy.

There is a good book about them "A Silver Legend: The Story of the Maria Theresa Thaler", by Clara Semple.

Well worth reading!

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18 hours ago, VeracityM said:

I've not come across one of these before and am hoping for a sage 🙂 

It says Thaler and when I googled it came up with loads of confusing info - Does anyone know what it is / if its a restrike / if its pure silver?

 

 

14 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

What exactly did you type into Google?

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Still curious!

2 hours ago, VeracityM said:

Thanks for the confirmation guys (seems there are one or two sages on here, surprisingly 😝)

Imma sell it then - not something I collect 

oh, one last thing - is it Thaler or Taler?

"Thaler or Taler?"

Yes!

47 minutes ago, VeracityM said:

Cheers Mr Chard - that was my fastest yay/nay ever 😁

I didn't answer either yay or nay!

I was  wondering if you were still alive though.

People on TSF care about these things!

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38 minutes ago, Happypanda88 said:

Those AliExpress prices in the UK are a real rip-off. I can get them on Taobao (Chinese version of AliExpress) for ¥5.8 or about 70p. 

These are genuine fakes.  How many would you like ?  😎

 

Genuine fakes!

I love it!

If I wanted any, especially in quantity, I would be talking to you further about it.

There is always the slight problem that:

"In the United Kingdom, the Maria Theresa thaler bearing the date of 1780 is a "protected coin" for the purposes of Part II of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981".

We probably do own at least a few fake ones bought in from "collectors". We do not offer them for resale, but maintain a small "black museum", some of which are on display in our showroom for educational purposes.

Thanks for the information.

I do of course have some slight difficulties searching taobao.com as I don't speak or write Chinese, and would have to use Google Translate, which does not always work as required. Our son can read Kanji, but does not know much Chinese, he did a one year Japanese course, which is quite useful. We should probably sponsor him to do a second year.

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57 minutes ago, SidS said:

Ah I said they're worth spot price. That, like every other bullion coin on the market, is not always the price you can actually get them for.

They don't have any actual collector value as such. They're must be billions of these things out there.

I did fully understand you, and agree with your estimate of their value.

Collector value?

If you had a billion of them, I would be happy to collect them!

The likely total mintage to date is probably around 400 million pieces.

For some years, since I launched our first website, and published this page:

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

We used to get a number of foreign gentlemen based in any one of several middle eastern states offering us unbelievably large quantities of them.

Many of these people owned or had friends who owned billions of them!

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1 hour ago, Bratnia said:

Used to be Foreign and Colonial (FRCL London Stock Exchange ticker) but in the modern day world that was deemed to be a offensive name so they changed to F&C investment trust (FCIT London Stock Exchange ticker). Originally established in 1868 and diversified globally, the first collective investment so that regular investors had access to holdings that otherwise would have been prohibitive. I do wonder if that ticker was selected in reflection of what those making the choice opined at the time in having to change the long standing name due to social 'circumstances'.

Why does a Sovereign £1 legal tender value coin contain the amount of gold it does? 0.235420 troy ounces. Because the inverse of that is near 4.25 i.e. £4.25/ounce gold price. Which was (near) what the "Official British Price" of gold from 1700 or so up to 1930 was set. The US$ was also pegged to that so for international trade currency was stable and Sovereigns (gold) were often used in international trade. Gold in being finite tended median inflation to broadly be 0%. Being pegged like that meant that the market price of gold remained around that price for centuries. The Pound Note paper currency was exchangeable for a Sovereign and vice versa. In 1931 however many were exchanging Pound Notes for Sovereigns and the Bank of England could only secure more gold in the open market at prices above the £4.25/ounce price, so convertibility was suspended. The US followed that lead in 1933 when it compulsory purchased all of Americans investment gold. Subsequent to that the US achieved international agreement that the US$ would be used for international trade settlement, and that the US would peg the US$ to gold. Fiat currency (rather than commodity (gold) currency) was born, and unlike gold that is finite, the US were tempted to periodically print/spend dollars, that devalues all other notes in circulation, such that unlike prior centuries were inflation broadly averaged 0%, instead we've broadly seen positive inflation (currency devaluation) since the 1930's.

Prior to the 1930's and most investors were content to buy/hold bonds, as that was lending their gold (sovereigns) to the state in return for interest (more gold in return) and where inflation broadly averaged 0%. FCIT up to then was predominately a bond fund. Subsequently it transitioned to being a more stock-heavier fund, as bonds transitioned from paying real (after inflation) rewards, to more being 0% real (after inflation and taxation). Prior to the 1930's and the state/banks had to borrow gold (money) in order to spend/lend. Since then however and nowadays the state can just print/spend as can banks just create money to add to the accounts of those that borrow from it. Cash you deposit into banks nowadays is no longer your money kept in safe keeping but becomes the banks money free to do with what it likes - such as heads it wins, tails and taxpayers bail them out type game-plays.

Gold is a competitor 'currency' to the US$ and events that drive up prices in dollars, such as dollar devaluation, inflation, tends to see the price of gold rise and vice-versa, in the broader sense. Such that gold is a reasonable hedge against stocks (and vice versa). Stocks however progress in a saw-tooth motion, spend more time progressively rising, inter-spaced with periodic sharper declines. Such that 67/33 stock/gold is a reasonable asset allocation. When holding that, if 66 stock value halves to 33, and 33 gold value doubles to 66, then rebalancing back to 67/33 weightings has you double up on the number of shares being held. Doubling up your stake (exposure) after a 'loss' is a Martingale betting sequence - that can yield positive gains even when there's been more tails than heads outcomes.

Stake 1, lose

Stake 2, lose

Stake 4, win

Overall outlay 7, return = 8, you're up despite there having been more losing outcomes than winning outcomes. In the context of stocks (with gold), you're up even though the price of stocks had declined.

 

TLDR!

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11 hours ago, ShineyMagpie said:

Ultimately its down to personal preference. People often say buy at cheapest price over spot, while the logic is sound its not quite as simple as that. While of course getting the weight of gold as cheap as possible makes sense, it's also dependent on how you intend to sell in the future. If something unexpected comes up selling one or two sovereigns maybe enough cash instead of selling a full 1oz coin. Likewise the premium you pay for the coin is often transferred when selling if on here.

You ae right that some people do say "buy at cheapest price over spot", but my advice is slightly more refined than that "You should aim to buy at the lowest percentage premium within reason."

If you simply "buy at cheapest price over spot", you will probably end up with fakes, and sub-standard coins which you will probably lose out on when you try to sell them.

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2 hours ago, theman73 said:

Done

Silver for me

I was wasting my time then?

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7 hours ago, Happypanda88 said:

These coins aren't rare. 

There are plenty for sale on ebay, currently selling for around £22-25.

A while back, I managed to buy one on ebay for £9.50 posted 😎

You got "free postage"?

You do realise they are only £1.13 on AliExpress, but you do get ripped off on the postage, at £1.74, making a total of £2.87!

You can get a choice of 3 different finishes, roughly minty, toned, or nearly black.

You should of course add at leat 10% for the fact they Chinese seller is likely to use Herpes Hermes Evri to steal, lose, damage, or mis-deliver it in the UK.

There is always AliExpress's 90 day money back guarantee although it is close to worthless.

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43 minutes ago, ShineyMagpie said:

This is where the discussions between preservation of wealth vs terms investment come into play. No one can know for certain what's gonna happen 

Correct.

And, very often I do not know, however...

Sometimes I have a very good idea / insight.

Mid 1999 to 2000 was one of those times. This is not just hindsight. I recorded some of my thoughts during that time, and had 90+% certainty that gold was at or close  to a bottom, that the financial journalists were wrong. It was very frustrating to be unable to get the message across.

I have similar thoughts and insights now, but not about price directions.

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5 minutes ago, Lyrinn said:

I fear the problem is more a case of perception (and probably a thorough lack of fiscal knowledge/interest by the majority of people).

Example, if you offer free shipping (thereby using clever marketing to make people think they're getting a "good deal") but add the shipping to the cost of the product anyway - I think this is called "the house always wins".

To address the, somewhat, rhetorically question you ask, I guess the adage (if one becomes philosophical) of: "Is it better to give someone the hard truth, or a convenient lie?" comes into play.

If the price lowers, do people lose interest? I would say that there's a short-term gasp as everyone waits to see what happens (will it go up, or will or will it go down?). If it goes down, people might panic and the market will "freeze", only to permit the price to fall to a point where property becomes an attractive investment again. If it goes back up, everyone then tries to sell, thinking that this is the time to sell (i.e., to avoid the "next fall" that might occur). The problem, in both cases, is that no matter what happens, the bubble only grows bigger as the pendulum swings further with each extreme - I think of the price of London property having exploded in value over the last few decades as an example.

Really, bursting the property bubble would be a SHTF scenario that would have serious consequences this time round (as it was in 2007 - except we sold everything not nailed down last time round), but letting it grow bigger only exasperates the problems for when it does eventually pop.

I would actually love to go into this more, such as asking if clientele had changed, over the years, at Chards, because it would interest me to see if your personal view on things like, was who was buying, what were they buying, what percentge of their income was it, how much, how often, etc., and how that dynamic might have changed from pre-2007 (maybe every decade you would care to discuss before then) and what post-2008 and post-2020 clientele are like (i.e., is it the same kinds of people; are there more people who are newly interested in PM; etc.). Sadly, I fear I would end up playing more than 20-questions with you for little more than to sate my curiosity and pick your brain on how inflation/interest/wars/world events had shaped PM's knowledge, interest and sales.

I agree with some of your points, but my questions were not really rhetorical. They were more an invitation for all to start thinking about the them, either as an intellectual exercise, or in an attempt to gain understanding.

The Press attitude here possibly illustrate one perspective on the debate:

It could be summarised as "don't buy gold because the price is low / has gone down"

I somehow suspect that your list of 20+ questions may be too much of a challenge, especially if all asked at the same time!

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4 hours ago, SidS said:

They're almost all re-strikes. Only a tiny number of originals exist.

They're still being struck. They are (or were) used as bullion coins in the near-east for many years. They're generally worth spot price.

I've got about a dozen of these! The only modern bullion I own.

I am sure @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer would be delighted to buy at spot, the more the better!

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4 hours ago, Bratnia said:

Pre 1931 and Sovereigns were money. There were Pound notes (paper money) and Sovereigns (legal tender £1 value). Interchangeable. "I promise to pay the bearer the sum of ..." is still written on present day paper (plastic) notes, in effect stating that paper notes can be exchanged for gold, but where that no longer actually applies (at least not directly such as banks being obligated to do so). In contrast a Britannia one ounce coin has a £100 legal tender value. Not that people will actually pay for a Pound Shop item with a Sovereign at its legal tender value nowadays, as that fixed rate gold/money convertibility ended in 1931 and since then the Pound note/currency has devalued (inflation).

The price of gold tends to be volatile. Buying and holding isn't really a good choice. Instead blend gold with stocks and periodically rebalance the two. 67/33 FCIT (a global stock fund) and gold for instance. If 67 stock value halves to 33, 33 gold value doubles to 66, then rebalancing back to 67/33 stock/gold weightings doubles up on the number of stock shares held. Not that you should particularly target that, rather simple periodic rebalancing suffices, in effect captures similar characteristic in a more opaque/gradual manner. With that in mind, a gold ETF/fund (such as SGLN) is a reasonable 'gold' holding, costs around 0.12%/year in fund management fees which compared to perhaps a 3.5% coin premium above spot, sell back at spot, and 3.5% / 0.12% = 29 years to break-even. However there are different risks/benefits to holding ETF/physical gold, so at some point, when coin spreads are narrow, migrate some of gold ETF over to Britannia (or Sovereign) coins. Sovereign and Britannia coins are exempt from capital gains tax so frees up some ISA/SIPP space for other assets.

Historically since 1965, if you maintained a yearly rebalanced 67/33 FCIT/gold asset allocation, you'd have ended 2022 with over 15 times more ounces of gold. Whilst the portfolio grew at a 13.4% annualised rate of return (7.4% in real (after inflation) terms). Gold by itself increased at a 8.5% annualised rate of return (nominal) BUT did so in a much more irregular manner. For instance 1980 to 2004 and broadly the price of gold remained the same, lost out in real terms. Physical in-hand gold is more for the bottom half of your total gold holdings, that is less inclined to be 'traded' (such as via yearly portfolio review/rebalancing). For that bottom draw/core gold holdings Britannia coins tend to have the narrower spreads, but if you periodically migrate some of gold fund/ETF over to physical gold then that is subjective as at times Sovereign coins might have tighter spreads than Britannia coins. All a question of ongoing supply/demand factors.

You can do the same/similar with FCIT. Sometimes that sells for a 10% discount to NAV (net asset value), sometimes it compares to NAV. Rotating out of FCIT and into a global stock tracker ETF when the price/NAV is near 0%, swap back again when FCIT is at a 10% discount to NAV ... and such 'trading' over time potentially adds to your overall portfolio rewards.

In short, start with a gold ETF such as SGLN, and then over time look to migrate some of that into coins, as and when the circumstances (spreads) look attractive.

FCIT?

That's exactly what I thought when I saw your latest post!

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1 hour ago, SilverPlatinum said:

🤯 I had this URL booked-marked for years now into my browser! https://www.royalmintbullion.com/

Something changed in the last 2 days! It seems they decommission that URL and now I can access it through this one: https://www.royalmint.com

So I will update my browser bookmark with the new URL.

Thanks LawrenceChard for the tip.

Yes, sometime in the last year, they announced that they were consolidating the two websites.

I read your title:

Something wrong with the Royal Mint website!

... and assumed you meant the main Royal Mint website royalmint.com not the URL you mentioned, otherwise I would not have asked about a typo.

Happy to be of service.

Of course, it might pay you to look at :

Chards.co.uk

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2 hours ago, theman73 said:

Well

First, I'm not a proper dealer, I'm working 42 hours/week on my daily job, so I have no contact or relations on PM market.

I can't see any opportunities on buying and selling gold, just waiting for gold to go up...

Silver for me is different,  if you want to understand why, I invite you in two weeks time when I do my silver shopping, to come with me.

I guaranteed good food and a huge adrenaline rush.

2 hours ago, spookyandroid said:

Huge adrenaline rush...  How are you acquiring this silver? Lol

2 hours ago, spookyandroid said:

Meets Lawrence outside Chards - "put this balaclava on Lawrence..." 

2 hours ago, theman73 said:

i said shopping not robing

Probably getting it from

Constantino Precious Metals Ltd

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34 minutes ago, Lyrinn said:

Here was me thinking, as it's Valentine's Day, that this thread was going to be about the subtle art of courtship and romance.

Alas, I see this is not so...

To the topic at hand, however, I actually froze buying PM's for the moment, as I am focussing on paying off debts (mortgage/student loan), but I do find it funny that, a year or so ago, people would bite your hand off for a 10Oz silver bar at £300, but even 10Oz Brita are struggling around the £280 mark - despite inflation having rocketed into double digits and interest rates having leaped up in that time.

I suppose that the thing to watch for is all of these high-end jobs being cut. Once that domino effect spreads, it will be interesting to see if the property bubble can contain the PM's market for much longer (I suspect that the housing/property bubble is what is used to leverage PM's so much - though, that's just a theory).

Do lower prices mean people lose interest or do they lose interest because prices are low?

Which is cause, and which is effect?

Similar if prices are higher and people are buying.

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3 hours ago, SaturnV said:

Silver price dropping...

Hi How low can you see the silver spot price dropping to over say the next few weeks or months or so.

Kindest regards.

When I saw your title:

Silver price dropping...

I expected to be answering:

"No, it has dropped", ... "dropping is the present continuous tense, and implies a continuation in the same direction"

I have written about this grammatical aberration before, but I can't find it quickly, and I don't have the time to rewrite about it!

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36 minutes ago, CANV said:

Sub 15 quid 

11 minutes ago, SaturnV said:

I was thinking around £15 maybe too, thank for that....

8 minutes ago, harrygill111 said:

Strong resistence at £16

Was it Wonger who forecast £4?

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3 hours ago, VeracityM said:

I've not come across one of these before and am hoping for a sage 🙂 

It says Thaler and when I googled it came up with loads of confusing info - Does anyone know what it is / if its a restrike / if its pure silver?

 

 

What exactly did you type into Google?

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