Reputation from Booky586 - Page 99

Booky586 reacted to Minimalist in The coming Gold crash March 26, 2020

Booky586 reacted to sixgun in Gold Monitoring Thread £ GBP only March 23, 2020

Booky586 reacted to LawrenceChard in Website for comparing UK prices for gold sovereigns, britannias, etc March 11, 2020

If you were meaning us, I can give a few insights, but this will need to be the short version, although there is already a longer version on one of our websites, probably TaxFreeGold:
Managing and balancing supply and demand is always our main problem, and that includes not only stock but also cash.
Once upon a time:-
Back in about 1964/5, there was only one gold bullion investment product available or frequently traded on the UK market, which has always been small compared with bullion markets in many other parts of the world.
That one single product was the British Gold Sovereign.
For some time, we used to run a weekly advert in Exchange and Mart, which read:
Gold sovereigns £4 each, £365 per 100, £3500 per 1000...
Krugerrands had not been invented, or even thought of.
No serious investor bothered with half sovereigns, they were relatively more expensive, and the market was not sufficiently liquid (and still isn't).
There were some other gold bullion coins, some of which I guess were important in their own domestic markets, but none were important in the UK.
Keeping track and control of stock was easy, we could do it with pen and paper, or even just in our heads.
There were actually a few options, such as:
"New" sovereigns (QEII), Old sovereigns (anything earlier), Kings (Edward VII and George V), Victorias (sometimes split into different heads and reverses),
but, most investors simply bought "sovereigns", which in effect was "our choice" of sovereigns, a category we still use and run today. This was always the cheapest and best option for investors.
Sometime after 1971, most high street banks (remember them?) joined in, and started offering to sell gold sovereigns via their foreign exchange departments.
Whey were always more expensive than us, but of course, they had a vast branch network, were trusted household names, and for a few years they dominated the market.
One odd side-effect was that because they lacked the local experience to check incoming "old" sovereigns, they almost exclusively sold only "new" sovereigns, and "new" sovereigns went to a premium price above "olds". We always advised people to buy the cheapest within reason (and still do), which usually meant "old" Sovereigns. Some investors wanted to pay more for "new" sovereigns, and we always tried to advise them, but we remained happy to supply them if they were adamant. Similar stuff still happens.
When there was a wave of selling, most investors owned new sovereigns, so the market flooded with them, and they went to a discount compared with "old"; then when the market changed, "new" would go back to a premium. At those times, we made an active market in "swaps", where we would take in the higher priced coins from our customers, and swap them for the lower priced ones, sharing the cash difference with them. Sometimes we did the same in reverse a few weeks later, so any investor who did two opposite swaps ended up with the same type of coin they started out with, plus a cash profit on them, almost for nothing. Incredibly, some of these investors were only prepared to swap half their holdings at any one time, so they, and we, lost out.
Then Krugerrands happened.
At first, this did not affect the UK market, for a few reasons. First, in 1966, the UK government had banned the British public form buying gold, and this continued until 1971; then there were international embargoes on South Africa and its products, because of apartheid.
In 1971, everyone wanted Krugerrands, partly because they were cheaper (lower premium), although the previous high market premiums on sovereigns gradually reduced, and partly because the concept of a one troy ounce gold coin was a piece of marketing genius, which made it easy for anyone to understand and compare prices and premiums, whereas traditional gold bullion coins such as sovereigns require arithmetic, a calculator, or a transparent dealer enlightened enough to quote percentage premiums.
So, now we had two different gold bullion stocks to manage. In truth, this was not much more difficult than managing one, but then...
Then:

A lot more countries started issuing their own one ounce gold bullion coins, some people wanted Canadian Maples (they were 999 instead of 916 gold), others wanted...
Rand Refineries introduced fractional sizes in 1980, being half, quarter, and tenth ounce version.
Canada introduced 9999 then 99999 versions of its Maples.
Some mints introduced fine gold (9999) variants of their own.
From 1st January 2000, "Investment Gold" became VAT exempt in the EU including the UK, and this included gold bars in addition ot most existing "investment gold" bullion coins.
Some time after that, we remembered that disposals of sterling used to be exempt from CGT (Capital Gains Tax). We researched and checked this, which was not easy at the time, then published our findings. The British Royal Mint undoubtedly noticed this on our TaxFreeGold website, and eventually started promoting the fact. Now (almost) everybody knows.
Fast Forward to Now:
I have tried, and generally lost count and given up, trying to work out how many different investment gold bullion stock lines and categories we now need to manage.
A brief summary of the categories includes:
CGT Exempt:
"Our choice" gold sovereigns. (Still often one of the best options)
"Minty" gold sovereigns.
The current year's gold sovereigns (yes, some investors want to pay more to get this year's)
"Our choice" gold Britannias (one ounce).

"Minty" gold Britannias (one ounce).
The current year's gold Britannias (one ounce).
Other British one ounce bullion coins (I have lost count!)
Fractional gold Britannias (why).
"Our choice" one ounce gold coins, non CGT exempt, (usually the lowest premiums of all).
Krugerrands (one ounce), usually only slightly higher premium than "our choice".
Fractional troy ounce coins, half, quarter, tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, ounce, one gram (why?).
Multiple ounce gold coins, 2 ounce, 10 ounce, kilo.
Chinese metric gold pandas, recent years, 30 gram, 15 gram, etc.
Gold bullion bars, mainly one kilo, half kilo, quarter kilo, 100 gram, 50 gram, 20 gram, 10 gram, 5 gram, 2.5 grams, 2 gram, 1 gram, one ounce, half ounce, plus taels, tolas, and a few other types.
Gold proof sets and individual proof gold coins.
Traditional, previous circulation gold coins, the foreign national equivalents of gold sovereigns.
Some older, historic "non-investment gold" coins, guineas etc.
Not Only, But Also:
Silver coins and bars.
With almost as many variations as for gold. (Even got its own Forum!)
Platinum.
Palladium.
Short Version?
You can imagine what the long version would look like!
Market Makers
We do not act as distributors or resellers for most of this stuff, but as active "market makers", which means we try to be ready to buy whatever anyone wants to sell, and to provide whatever anyone wants to buy.
It's not often, but people do sometimes want to sell 1,000 Krugers. That's about £1.3 million.
Similarly with gold sovereigns. Hey that's only £0.3 million!
Also, any and all of the above list.
Plus collectable numismatic coins. We recently bought in two collections, each for about £75,000; on two consecutive days.
The Result?
We have to spread our stock investment over a far greater number of products than we ever needed to in the past. I am not complaining about this, it's just another fact of life, and another challenge.
One Last Historical Note
During the 2008 global credit crisis, banking crisis, stock market crash, demand for gold bullion shot up. Stocks and supplies dried up. Big American demand hoovered up most of the physical gold stock in Europe, from which we used to source most of our shortfall. The British Mint could not keep up with our demand. Premiums jumped up to stupid levels. Some UK dealers were paying over 10% premium for sovereigns, and reselling them for 15% plus. I remember seeing a Krugerrand sell on ebay for an absurd 27% premium! We tweaked most of our selling premiums up slightly, but only by about a half percent. We took a decision that rather than charge what we knew to be rip-off levels of premium, we would maintain near normal premiums, and we offered investors the choice of buying provided they were happy to accept delivery as and when we could source actual physical stock. Many investors understandably wanted immediate delivery, bought elsewhere, and usually paid rip-off prices. Nevertheless, many investors placed their trust in us, and we sold considerable volumes of investment gold. The only world mint who could cope with demand was the Perth Mint. During the period, we had two x 3,000 ounce old shipments from them (think £4 million each at today's prices), including 66 x one kilo gold coins in one shipment (£2.7 million). We also had one shipment of 100,000 ounces of silver,mainly kilo coins. To ensure none of our customers were at any risk, at no time did we own less physical gold than we owed. At times, we owed about £4 million worth of gold, at 2008 prices. Naturally, we did deliver all the gold for which we had contracted. Our thanks to all those customers and investors who trusted us, at a time when most people did not trust their banks. In retrospect, I am still not sure that maintaining our low premiums was the best solution, but I still remain proud that we managed to cope with the demand in our own way, repay the trust of our customers, and deliver on all our commitments, even if not as quickly as we would have preferred.