goldbones

On 2/11/2016 at 16:09, Bumble said:

The damn thing about being right is that you still beat yourself up for not committing more. Last week I bought shorts on FTSE and various holdings in gold miners and instead of being happy I'm kicking myself for not holding more.

As to whether it will continue to rise, bear in mind: (1) there is a cyclical element to gold's price - it rose sharply in Q1 last year and still fell back; (2) governments are much more inclined to intervene than they were 8 years ago, either to prop up the stock market or to hold down gold, or both; (3) despite point 2, if the hedge funds smell weakness they will pile in and create a big bandwagon.

Shorting the FTSE 100 is annoying and will continue to be annoying even when you know you are fundamentally correct, a good example would be the first low in march 2008 at 5500 when Bear stearns collapsed by may that year the ftse was back at 6300 even though banks were clearly going belly up people were still in denial.

You will get that again, people will say "this time it is different" and find some positive spin on it and stay in denial, it's annoying but get used to it if you're shorting this market it's par for the course.

On 12/21/2015 at 00:25, shemyaza said:

I believe Gold will begin the sell into Platinum first as the ratio is at an unusual high for the last 25yrs. If Gold comes down via Platinum expect the second wave to begin of Gold selling into Oil and Silver. Palladium holders are selling into Gold creating support as that ratio was strongest for Palladium but weakening now. Note, I have 53 weeks of pricings on another topic section covering everything. Feel free to check. I won't say blindly support is occurring I'll tell you where it's coming from as well! Goes for resistance at tops in a few years.

The platinum price could go up rather than gold go down, bare in mind platinum is very much dependent on China and car manufacture and in a failing economy them catalytic converters just are not going to get made it just isn't going to happen. Platinum miners could all go bust though or shut down operations so eventually they'll be a huge shortage when the demand comes back. 

On 12/19/2015 at 14:49, sovereignsteve said:

People who vandalise coins in this way should be sent round to @goldbones house dressed in stripes wearing a mask

Sure send them round for dinner, i've set the cutlery on the table ready:

6 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

So it's a straightforward proportion calculation. I'm surprised metal alloys behave like that, I always thought there was more interaction between the elements on being alloyed which would affect the volume (obviously the weight would be fixed) and thus the density.

The elements are stable and do not react with each other and do not react with water i suppose.

The volume only changes when there is a reaction, the only reaction you can create is temperature change, the volume will change with delta (like sub zero or over 50 Celsius).

Oh i know how you do the calculation now:

For a gold eagle very interesting:

(1/19.3x916.67) + (1/8.96x53.33) + (1/10.49x30)= 56.30

1000/56.30=  SG 17.76

A gold eagle has a specific gravity of 17.76, that cannot be coincidental lol 1776 the date of independence.

Additionally this website calculator lets you calculate density in a given alloy composition, so you have a reference number rather than a guess:

http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/density.cgi?submit=Entry

10 hours ago, sovereignsteve said:

That's quite an elaborate setup you have there GB. Is it home made or obtained from elsewhere?

I like the way it is only the coin that is acting on the scales. With methods that involve the container of water resting on the scales, it is difficult to get the required accuracy unless you can get a balance accurate to 4 dp that reads high enough to account for the water. The one I currently have at work only goes up to 120g. I think the previous one was up to 500g but it broke.

BTW How do yoususpend the coin?

I purchased it from quicktest UK, you can see in photos how its suspended below. I supose you could make a setup like this without spending like £100, but i'm too lazy for that, it's overpriced for what it is but they are the only ones who do it as far as i know.

For bullion dealers/coin dealers i'd suggest this : Densometer  product from china, which is a laboratory accurate automatic specific density balance, you stick the item on the top press a button then throw it in the tank below and press a button and it spits out SG value and can be programmed with various copper/silver ratios and other stuff.

1 hour ago, HawkHybrid said:

I would:

1. weigh coin.

2. set up water etc and zero the scales with the

water etc. on it.

3. dip coin and read weight of water displaced.

(for a silver 1 oz it'll read something like <3 grams)

4. calculation would then be (~31 grams) divide

by (less than 3 grams). or a little over 10 for pure

silver.

by my method I would expect to be reading 0.4-0.5 grams

for the sovereign.

my set up is a little more crude than yours

 

HH

That does work quiet well, but i find with things weighing less than say 15 grams the accuracy starts to drop. 

In true lab conditions you'd keep the water at 4 Celsius and only use distilled water and scales that measure accurately to within 0.00001g ,i'm not going that far.

You need it to check for lighter metals but for heavy metals like lead and tungsten the ping test (putting a coin on one finger and giving at tap to make it ring) is usually enough since lead and tungsten have a dull thud sound, it wouldnt ring, someone got a coin made of tungsten and the ping test pretty much confirmed it (along with the coin looking terrible because it can only be electroplated (electro brush) and cast (cant be struck).

3 minutes ago, HawkHybrid said:

I'd normally zero(tar) the scales with the water to

just measure the weight of the equivalent volume

of water displaced by the object(coin).

less calculations means less chance of typos.

it's a good test.

 

HH

If you mean measure the water on the scales and measure difference, i'm not doing that, the scales don't know the water is there and thats the way you need to keep it otherwise changes in volume (due to drips and so on) would alter the result.

I've seen many people speak of it but never really seen anyone go into it or any detail of how its done and showed some math,  i did the following with essentially 3 types of metal, aluminium, 22ct and 24 ct, 22ct red( crown) gold is expected to have a density of about 17.5 while 24ct pure gold is expected to be around 19.3, while aluminium is 2.7:

In air (the normal weight checking on a scale):

Piece of aluminium= 1.5 grams

2015 Sovereign = 8.00 grams

1/2 ounce Krugerrand = 17.00 grams

Perth mint goat 1/2 ounce= 15.60 grams (see pic)

-------------------------------------------------------------

suspended in water (this is the actual test):

aluminium=0.95 grams

krug= 16.02 grams

Sov= 7.54 grams (see pic)

Goat= 14.80 grams (see pic)

--------------------------------------------------------

The math:

weight in air - weight in water = displacement

weight in air / displacement= specific gravity

So Aluminium 1.5 - 0.95= 0.55 (displacement)

1.5 / 0.55= specific gravity 2.72

Krug 17.00 - 16.02= 0.98

17.00/ 0.98= specific gravity 17.34

The goat has a specific gravity of 19.5

The sovereign has a specific gravity of 17.39

That's more accurate than x-rays and less destructive than just about any other method. Considering i'm not set up to lab perfect conditions  this is pretty accurate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the specific gravity results in order again:

Aluminium= 2.72

Krugerrand= 17.34

Sovereign = 17.39

Perth Goat = 19.5 

On 11/13/2015, 12:12:19, HighlandTiger said:

My thinking is that as we now have Base metals sitting at 50% of their 2011 highs, gold and silver may follow that trend. Hence my thoughts about £600 an ounce.

Silver might because it is more seen as industrial, gold isn't affected as much by industrial demand, its industry which is collapsing and taking the prices of most metals with it.

Longer term governments will likely debase currency further in order to stop the bleeding (QE, negative rates) if that doesn't work then currencies may start to hyperinflate due to confidence being lost, and thats the only thing that holds up the paper game is confidence , confidence in banks and confidence in government.

The stock market is always a confidence game based on what future earnings are likely to be, lately its just been a joke where even though earnings are obviously going down people are still buying or holding based on what Janet yellen says rather than what the reality is.

Today i received not a coin but the royal mint publication on the gold sovereign history for £25, its about 11.5" x 9" 112 pages and is a very good quality hardback book, i've not read it cover to cover yet, but it details history of gold coinage leading up to the coin we know.

Has some great photos of earlier coins.

26 minutes ago, HighlandTiger said:

Worth a listen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTZj58qpnFA

Now he mentions about an opinion on gold falling further if rates do indeed rise, however the whole reason it has fallen back from $1190 only a month ago is because they expect a rate rise in December, so if the rates actually do rise i'd expect gold to also rise "sell on the rumor and buy on the fact" or stabilize  if rates do not rise then it would probably rally back towards $1190.

Rates rising isn't going to boost the economy, rate rises are meant for when an economy is booming and to control inflation, well everything is tanking look at Rolls Royce today it nearly tanked 25% at one point and ended the day down 20%, this is a big name industrial blue chip heavyweight on its 4th consecutive profit warning.

Mining companies like glencore only came back from lows on the back of copper moving back up and sentiment presuming no rate rises , that will go south fast if metal prices continue to fall and rate rises happen given their debt pile.

Companies like Lonmin who are basically already broke will be sure to go into administration, that's the state of the economy its so bad that big blue chip companies will be destroyed by a 0.25% rise.

You would normally cut rates in this environment. 

Again they think interest rates are going up in December so commodities are getting smashed across the board, i don't think i've seen copper this low for like a decade or something, the picture looks bleak if industrial demand is falling that much.

The stock market and real estate market are only holding on by their teeth because of the search for yield (no place else to go for income) , the stock market is fickle where people don't know if rates going up is good or bad, instead of being focused on real numbers it instead just moves up or down based on what the fed says which seems ridiculous to me.