kimchi

Yes, the first order of 50 boxes (I think) sold out very quickly so a second draw was produced. I bought in the second draw. I did not hear about anyone finding one. Maybe they chose to remain quiet or perhaps allegedly it was all a massive money spinner to allegedly get rid of the Beatrix Potter coins that were allegedly starting to milk? #seeyouincourtlawrence 

I signed up for the mystery box last year. Received a load of Chards goodies - branded coffee travel cup etc. everything you can think of except the magic sovereign that went to someone else. Even chocolate coins, but they were not branded. I often wondered whether Chards could help us get around the silver VAT issue by selling us chocolate coins for 19 GBP each and throwing in a free silver coin per chocolate coin bought. 
 

It is rather similar to the common saying "half a crown", meaning a halfcrown.
Both convey their meanings quite accurately, and without much risk of accidental misunderstanding.
Of course, in both cases, someone being pedantic, or taking it literally, could imagine a crown or sovereign split into two halves. This is something which I might do for fun, or some people with autism or Asperger's might interpret literally for a different reason.
In the case of the 1963 Musical "Half a Sixpence", a literal interpretation was intended and understood.
😎

Basically, the same as the royal coat of arms used on the platinum jubilee sovereign but the crown is different on Charlie boy's version of it, hardly any noticeable difference really.
Whoever is designing the new coin will interpret it differently and hopefully we won't get two sovereigns in a row that look near enough identical.

No that's where the Quality Controllers will be drinking before their shift.

It worked loads of times for MJ!

Indeed, they should leave the actual prices of past coins, but if they do it people will realise the 15-20% increase from last year. 

I thought they would go to £675 myself (as crazy as even that sounds to me, as I roll it around my bonce) but wouldn't be surprised at £695 at all.
Good news for all the recent most desirable QEIIs of course (though I'd argue that is most of them).
Shocking how they can (and do) change 'past, sold out' prices to make it look like new releases are no different.

It worked loads of times for MJ!

I think it will be slightly higher than that.
sovereign 2022 showing at £695 on RM website so i am guessing thats the new price

It worked loads of times for MJ!

Who was that ?

It is a great group and I've been in the draw for the last 3 years, but its not upto anyone else to compensate for some idiot. 
I'll have  athink about it.
(Just to add, the Silver Forum Mods where great so please dont be put off by my bad experience) 🙂

If I get you mate I will make sure your compensated 
Its a great group and need the fun and trust that goes with it 

Martin at Silvertrader is waiting on his order. They will be cheaper there.

Never had a "bad" experience with Royal Mail Special Delivery personally. The "before 1pm" is a bit of a joke, but they've never not attempted delivery on the day.
My only nitpick would be that if you miss the delivery, they don't let you reschedule for the next day for some weird reason, it's always the day after.

I'd like to share my experience claiming for Special Delivery as a warning to other members and in the hope that people can use the service in the knowledge of what may ensue if the dreaded situation comes to pass and the item does not arrive. We all use SD when sending our precious metals in the expectation that the extra price we pay and the extra insurance is in place to cover for the loss of the item. It gives us peace of mind. Unfortunately a potentially false sense of security...
I share the full story as it has a few concerning aspects which potentially point to the existence of some underlying tactics used by Royal Mail to avoid honouring their Special Delivery insurance.
I sent a parcel on 17th August containing a tube of silver ounce coins (how many in a tube, I hear you ask! 20 this time) to a member of TSF worth £480, and it didn't arrive, so I refunded the buyer and started the claims process on the RM website on 25th August, sending them a bank statement showing the transfer made to me for the item.
I received a letter back from RM about on 11th September (17 days later) with a cheque for £8.95. It said 
Note use of "in the future", a underhand implication that my case is closed and I will not be able to claim for the loss this time. The whole process is designed in such a way to discourage you to persevere with the claim. 
I responded to this letter by including a statement showing my payment to the original seller of the goods in the "submit additional evidence for a claim" form on the website, which unhelpfully only allows you to attach one file. I had to do this 3 times to attach all the evidence they had asked for.
I received this letter on 16th September.

I picked up the phone and got through to customer service to explain that having purchased the goods from an individual and not a business, I did not have an invoice, but said that I could ask the seller to knock one up for me. He said that would suffice.
I proceeded to get back in contact with the seller, provided him with an invoice template to fill in with the details of the transaction and sent that along in the same manner.
8 days later on 24th I received this rather cobbled up bit of waffle

It continued to invite me to escalate the claim with the "Escalated customer resolutions" team.
I picked up the phone to RM again and what ensued was the most bizarre and enraging telephone call I have ever had.
The man was able to see the invoice from the seller that I had provided and noted that it had come from an individual and not from a business, which I of course conceded was the case. He proceeded to put forward the argument that any Tom **** or Harry could cobble together an invoice on MS Word to fraudulently claim compensation for a lost item. I explained that I had responded to every request for evidence made in the claims process and that was the only option for an item supplied by an individual and that together with multiple bank statements I'd supplied with a clear paper trail showing funds transferred from seller to me, buyer to me for the purchase, and me back to the buyer for the refund, this, surely constituted pretty conclusive evidence of a genuine transaction. He maintained this was not sufficient and he needed an original purchase invoice from an established business. 
So I explained that goods are transferred between individuals all the time, not only from dealers. As a business I purchase items from individuals without original purchase invoices all the time. The conclusion is that SD is not fit for purpose for sending anything of value, despite the fact that this is the very basis of the selling point of Special Delivery - the only service that is suitable for sending items of value. It additionally does not state in any of the terms and conditions (which I have read closely), nor have I read anywhere or been told by anyone, that SD does not cover items sent between his individuals. 
His response? He actually told me on the phone that Royal Mail does not need to state that in their terms!
I responded with the argument that I have been mis-sold the SD service hundreds of times since it is not fit for the purpose it is advertised for. This would mean that rather than claiming for the £480 for the lost item, I should rather be claiming for the £1000s spent over years on mis-sold services by the Royal Mail when I could have saved the money spent on SD and just stuck to 1st class standard! 
I was pretty dumbstruck at this point, and getting pretty worked up, so I thanked the rep for his time, informed him that I would take my case to the CEO and ended the call. (I think I remained polite throughout, and put forward my case in a respectful way. These poor folk are doing their job and sticking to the company line. They do not deserve any abuse, but if I had continued the call I may have lost my rag as I could not believe what I was hearing!)
The story concludes happily, in that the CEO office responded very quickly to my email (which I kept brief and attached all evidence supplied) and returned the original purchase price for the goods to my bank account very promptly. Further, the goods arrived at the buyers two weeks later with a bizarre label :
 
Anyway. A long tale (and thank you for reading!) with the following morals to the story:
If you use SD and pay for extra insurance, be prepared for a long, time consuming and stressful claim for any loss. Between sending item and receiving refund was 47 days! I could cope without £500 for a few weeks. But had that been £2500 that would be challenging. Additionally I spent over 4 hours working on the claim, in time spent compiling and uploading evidence, speaking to people on the phone and sending emails. The stress of the whole thing was rather a bore to put it Englishly. At Royal Mail the left hand does not know what the right is doing. At so many junctures in the process it is clear that nothing is joined up. Every stage I dealt with someone else and the messages all conflicted with each other. There appear to be unwritten policies and procedures to avoid giving compensation for SD and nudge tactics to dissuade pursuing claims. It would be easier, if a little lacking in integrity, to just find an old invoice from a dealer for something vaguely resembling the lost item in weight and value and send that in instead of being honest and saying what it actually was and who it was from. Royal Mail SD may not, after all, be suitable for sending valuables between individuals. I can only imagine what would have been the response if I'd told them it was cash!! (How would one prove how much it was?) Keep all evidence. Never throw away any PM invoices, keep all receipts, take photos. The more you have available the more likely for a successful claim. If the claims process bears no fruit, waste no time and escalate directly to the CEO office. Don't lose hope. Persevere. It may turn up after all!

Gloves off for poured silver - play with it in the hand until it gets warm and enjoy the thrill of it!

Number 37 it was meant to be! I'll drop you a message now. Thanks BYB.

We are in with a 100g hand poured bar with a one off design for the prize up for grabs.
Pics to follow once back from hallmarking 🎅🎄🎁

GBP50 to the winner from me.
Plus I will donate £50 to a charity of the winners choice.  
Default charity is Barnado’s because the do genuinely good work.  

Kick things off with my entry this year, 1g gold Valcambi bar  

It is time for the 2022 Christmas Prize Draw entries. Last year there were over 70 entrants. I believe, you can see last years Christmas Prize Draw topic here, to have an idea as to some of the prizes. This year we are keeping the same 1oz minimum silver entry.

Anyone wanting to be entered please list your interest below, before the 21st November 2022 (UK time) ONLY PEOPLE WHO DONATE A PRIZE WILL BE ENTERED INTO THE DRAW. Daily draws will commence from the 25th November. 

Everyone who enters the draws will receive a prize. And everyone who enters will need to donate a prize as per the conditions at the bottom of this post. 

Last year, each day running up to Christmas, draws were released in batches and each prize that was donated was matched up to a winner. The draw(s) itself/themselves will start on the 25th of November, to accommodate those who enter from abroad. All prizes will be assigned randomly to the winners, either by using a random number generator or using a spreadsheet program to randomly match up prizes to winners.

If you already know what the prize is that you will be entering into the draw, please feel free to post the prize below. This will help to encourage more members to join the Christmas Prize Draws and to donate good prizes. If you are unsure of the prize you will be entering but know that you would like to enter you can still state your interest in joining below, to be included in the draws, and add your prize details later.

Conditions of entry:

Minimum prize value of 1oz of silver or £25 GBP / $30 USD / applicable currency equivalent cash value of an alternative prize.

Members entering must hold Premium Membership. As well as Premium Membership helping to support TSF to grow, choosing to only allow Premium Members to enter also means that there is less risk of an entrant defaulting on sending their prize. Any members who enter but does not follow through on their entry risk their account status. We do not anticipate that there will be any issues this year  Feel free to purchase Premium Membership to then enter the draw below. 

As TSF is a worldwide forum, any member who enters does so under the condition that they agree to post the prize worldwide to the winner and to cover the cost of standard world-wide shipping. It is the receivers responsibility to pay any applicable taxes and import duties etc that may be imposed by customs when receiving an international parcel.

Entry is available to any Premium Member in any country worldwide. 

If nothing goes wrong with your sale it would seem like an unnecessary waste of time but if you got a scammer on the other end then the more evidence you have the better.
i would get the buyer to confirm the name and address via ebay messages. They cannot claim it went to the wrong place. Get them to confirm there are no special delivery requirements. Ideally i would have the parcel delivered to a post office near them - then they cannot claim it never arrived b/c it is tracked to the post office and they have to pick it up. The post office is very lax about parcels since COVID - now the postman signs and then anyone could have taken it or not as the case may be.
I would have a video of the item going into the packaging - clearly showing the item(s) as they go in - show the address label from Royal Mail with tracking code. i would show the parcel being handed over at the post office. Showing the label and that it was the same package the items went into. Then it is tracked and the tracking code is put into ebay as well.
Anything else?

There are shortages all over the place. i am still waiting for an order to complete at Goldsilver.be which i placed on 19th September - i see a banner on the site saying products won't ship for 6 - 8 weeks. Lots of the coins on their site are sold out or pre-order (most of the time code for sold out). 
i just checked some of the prices on sites well known to us, they are simply stratospheric. A single Philharmonic on Atkinsons is £30.71 - granted delivery will be included so this bumps up the price but if you bought several different single coins you would be stung. Chards is cheaper +delivery but nevertheless retail silver coins dropping through your letter box are now expensive. The spot price bears little to no relation to what you have to pay - and people are paying accepting demand is very strong.