kimchi

Finally tracked down a 1904 Half Sov to complete my Edward, London Mint date run.
It's the lowest mintage of the lot and has proved the most difficult to find at a reasonable price.
 

2 x 2018 sovereigns.
I started collecting 2017 sovereigns last year to fill a tube. I am now up to 22 so a few more and tube 1 done! 1 sovereign on its own can be quite boring (IMO) however once you hit 5 the density of the metal is apparent and it becomes a good way to save money without storage issues.
 

Little and Large.  
A couple of finds this week on fleabay at low premiums

I got my first 1g gold bar from Lea79 and a 2oz Lion from Kamikaze.
Really interested what everyone thinks of the bar. At 1g they’re a high premium over spot, but can be resold with that premium - however lots of people don’t seem to like them. Also think the Perth Mint packaging offsets the metal beautifully. The black and gold looks gorgeous and really adds to my enjoyment of the item. Think some other bar manufacturers could up their presentation game! I don’t plan to collect many this size, but they’re relatively cheap and attractive objects.

End of manipulation, market disruptions...
Maguire went to the CFTC in NY as a whistle-blower.
At the end of his deposition about the manipulation of the silver market and his demand of end it, the reaction of other side was Yes but what about the economic consequences. Maguire understood they were going to do nothing about it. Privates had to end it by themselves. Maybe, that was the beginning of Kinesis.
Let's play the devil's advocate.
There is this line, Be careful for what you wish because it could take place. Something like that.
Reset. Market disruptions. Only PM markets? Maybe currency markets too. Currencies disruptions? Hyperinflation?
Is it better to be an above water bum within a rich neighborhood or a rich within a neighborhood of paupers?
Some people know guns, defence, security etc. I don't. I would sink gloryless within two weeks
What I'm just saying is I'm not sure that PM investors will be better off after the upcoming reset, at least not all

Bought these lost as scrap pre47 coins on eBay literally a few mins ago. (roughly 0.17 per gram). However I am not sure that the seller realised that the Wilhelmina coin is 72% silver (its badly damaged, but still scrap value is £7) and that the Crown is actually an Australian crown which makes it 925, melt value £10, but still saleable for more than that despite its condition. Also spotted a couple of other pre20 coins - which makes at least some of these coins worth more. So in general, even if I scrapped the whole lot I am probably going to make £10 profit...   
 

 

Today I bought a 2018 Perth BU swan plus a 1/4 gold Britannia from Sharps Pixley. As I proceeded through the payment, Sharps have a timer. I had to speed read the terms and conditions and accept before the timer ran out. Had to make sure I wasn't going to wait a while for my coin whilst they sourced it but all was fine in the small print

My 3rd place win package from @JohnAnsink GAW such nice coins and are going to go well in my collection thank you again and he was right I think i got the best of the bunch ?

A stunning US Dime 2014 P 
Found in the street as I was taking out the recycles. Keep your eyes peeled, Stackers
Sorry, I haven't purchased much lately, been selling. Waiting for the Perth Lunar and the next Queen's Beast.
 

This beautiful hand poured Silver Forum / @BackyardBullion bar.
Thank you BYB!
 

100g cast bars 
Metalor 999.0, BYB 999, Heimerle 999.9
 

999.9 silver cast bars

(the footprint of the 500g bar is 4x8 cm and the 100g bars are 1x2 cm; without the packaging the footprint of the small bars exactly matches the one of the large bar)
 

Hello, two Pandas arrived in the post today purchased from an eBay seller in the US. 

I'm sure it will.
Scene: Belgian central post office, Union office:
Strike co-ordinator #1: (opens laptop) "Email here from Eva...."
Strike co-ordinator #2: "What does SHE want now?"
Strike co-ordinator #1: (ashen faced) "it's just one line....'don't. make. me. come. down. there' "

Hello all, package arrived in the post today from Noble Numistatics. This was my only successful bid in their April auction that was held in   Sydney over three days. Bought the 1952 South African 11 coin proof set. They had two sets available in the auction and I think I paid a fair price for it given condition. As you can see from the photos there are some condition issues with respect to copper spotting (the King seems to be staring at it on the £1 coin!) but I think they will come out of conservation ok if I have them graded in the future. 
I saw a Numistacker YouTube video on this set a few months ago and I recall he said the mintage was 12,500. 
A bit disappointed about how they packaged the coins. They were loose and had moved about in the case during transit and were not in flips. 

Wet day in Perth today and so dropped into the mint and bought the new 1oz silver bird of paradise coin. See photos below. Took a look at the gold version which is much nicer but will give that one a miss for now (the gold have a 5,000 mintage and so will be available for a while yet).

A good result on a 1oz Griffin!
 

Not every time a proof purchase is even better than i hoped. Love this one. A real bugger to photograph these convex coins, though.

Today I received a 1/4 ounce Gold Britannia. Just steadily adding to the very modest stack, not very interesting you might think.
But the journey DHL managed to send it on is the real story...longest route from Bristol to Cambridge ever?

Somewhere abroad where it's not illegal to melt them down!
That or 'have a very unfortunate trip' somewhere near a furnace (should you perhaps know of someone who has such a thing)

Somewhere abroad where it's not illegal to melt them down!
That or 'have a very unfortunate trip' somewhere near a furnace (should you perhaps know of someone who has such a thing)

I used a VERY large magnet to separate my lot. It makes picking the rest out much easier to isolate the copper ones.  

Technically not precious metal - but I took delivery today of a very large pile of pennies!
Fun video (and much more!) coming this weekend to celebrate the 3000 subscriber milestone!

WTF !!!!!
 

Some perspectives:
1. This venture is attempting to create an entirely new currency to compete with existing ones. This is so ambitious that governments and central banks are likely to try to put a stop to it. The corporation may be based in friendly jurisdictions, but if major governments outlaw its use, or even just regulate it so heavily that it becomes too irksome to use, customers in most countries will not use it. Financial regulators are already gearing up to regulate cryptos. The cryptocurrency space will not remain a wild west indefinitely. The case for banning cryptos will be the same as that for banning cash: it is used by criminals, drug dealers, money launderers, terrorists, etc. Not a good argument, of course, but it carries weight with the ignorant.
2. At a minimum, regulations will require proof of identification, proof of source of funds, anti-money laundering provisions, and FATCA style disclosure requirements. Switzerland, Singapore and Lichtenstein may be sovereign states but they are coming under huge pressure to comply with regulations like these. Some financial institutions have avoided trading in cryptos precisely because they couldn't prove source of funds.
3. Price volatility may become an issue, as it has for other cryptos. Speculators in gold and silver have simpler ways to expose themselves, including leveraged vehicles. Users who just want to transact worldwide at low cost can use Litecoin or the Bitcoin lightning network. Yes, they're not backed by anything but confidence, but most users are unlikely to care: they'll go where the fees are lowest.
4. Cryptos generally are not ready for mass adoption because they are too awkward to use for the non-tech-savvy. You have to install wallet software on your computer and smartphone and learn how to make safe copies of your keys to cold storage. You also have to worry a lot more about security. One piece of malware and all your crypto has gone and is never coming back. Smartphones are completely and utterly insecure. They are designed to share information and that is what they do. You should never put any data on a smartphone that you would not wish the whole world to know. John McAfee has been working on the design of a secure smartphone, but it is likely to retail at $1000 or more. Most people do not know how to secure their computers adequately. This might be less of a problem for Kinesis, if it is centrally managed, but there still remains the issue of user authentication. With my bank, I need my card and PIN to log in to online services, and I have several other channels for authenticating myself if I need to. Without two factor authentication with physical tokens I would be reluctant to trust a transactional money system.
5. Gold backing is nice, but if there is a systemic financial collapse, governments might decide to ban all private ownership of gold. Even if the gold is safely stored in Switzerland or Singapore, it doesn't help me if I can't get it, and I am forced to sell it to the central bank at some nominal price.