Stuntman

Personally @richatthecroft I think you should fund the start of your crown collecting project by selling your 1989 BU Quintuple sovereign to me, for spot plus shall-we-say £100? 😁

£1100 is a decent price for that, I would say. I think the days of buying one of those for less than £1000 from a reputable seller are probably behind us. For reference I paid £120 for mine in 2015 and with hindsight I think I overpaid.

There will definitely be both a 2 oz silver bullion version and a 10 oz silver bullion version. If you can wait for those and don't already have a silver proof - I would advise waiting. For the silver coin, I only want the 10 oz bullion version.

What a belter that 1818 crown is. A complete world away from my 1820, which I still love as a piece of history 😄

Some cracking coins there. Well done. As others have said already, your 1817 is particularly lovely. That or the 1989 for me, irrespective of value. I presume the 1937 is actually the most valuable at the moment?

Regarding the RM's ordering process for bullion coins - it's still a real pain in the behind, though - and not one that the other online dealers put you through. I choose to buy from other dealers unless the RM is the only place that I can find the item that I want in the UK at that time.

If I owned one of those proofs, I would either just put it away and keep it as a collector, or I would flip it reasonably soon for as much profit as I could get. For me, they are either very expensive lovely things to hold forever, or things to trade quickly. The bullion coins are more about the enjoyment of collecting them, and/or the store of value. Trading them for a profit is much lower down the agenda. And with the RM quality control, I consider myself fortunate if the coin I receive has actually been put into the minting machine at all, rather than just being randomly struck with a hammer 🙃

^^^ I'd probably just live with that, if it were mine. But I completely understand your frustration. Lovely coin though, nice one 🙂

This is broadly what I've been doing every year for about 20 years. Get rich slowly but build solid foundations, albeit with riskier assets.

I'm between 5% and 10% in PMs now with about 80% in the stock markets and about 10% in cash.

I am of similar opinion to Tommy regarding the relative values of the stock markets versus gold, which is the opposite of Pete's opinion. But that's what makes the world go round! However I do agree with Pete that some markets/some sectors may have quite a bit more upside potential in the short to medium term. But I am currently tempted to take some risk off the table and sell some of my holdings that have done well recently (for example UK smaller companies, the US market generally). I very rarely take risk off the table, I am very much a buy-and-hold investor - but I feel that it would certainly not be a bad time to do it now.

I've also got a 1 oz gold bullion coin on order. I'm not interested in collecting the proofs and was never going to be able to join the bunfight for them on initial release. There will be a 10 oz silver bullion coin version, that will be a beauty I reckon and I'll definitely be ordering one of those once it's released. And if I can justify it, the forthcoming 1 oz platinum version as well.