First time investing

[sixgun]

3 minutes ago, Jumbosausage said:

It's just the British legal tender coins, isn't it?

Legally a coin is a piece of metal that is legal tender - bars can be legal tender and so are coins. Rounds and medallions aren't legal tender - they don't come from a government recognised mint. i say government recognised b/c for example Pobjoy mint produced Isle of Man coins.

Yes i would say non legal tender UK 'coins' would be liable to CGT - sovereigns for example are still legal tender. When we speak of non legal tender 'coins' we are usually talking about junk silver. i doubt there is anyone here who is remotely likely under current prices for silver to have a CGT issue with their junk silver. i will never be paying tribute to the pirates for my junk silver.

[Ryan]

21 minutes ago, sixgun said:

More recently i have been buying bars - this is not an issue with bars and they seem to be becoming more popular on the forum. i think this is partly a product of experiences with spotty coins. It is a disaster if you have paid a chunk of premium for a coin - you will not get that premium back, no-one is going to pay significant premiums for spotted coins.

Thanks @sixgun, i was originally thinking stacking bars for weight but switched my mind because i thought i might get lucky on certain series of coins that might appeal to collectors. Is there much interest in collecting bars?

[sixgun]

@Ryan i would say yes and growing. i feel the interest is growing on the forum. The problem with bars is the VAT slapped on them. Because of the VAT legislation in Germany in particular we can get low VAT coins - they are advertised as VAT free but they aren't, there is a lower rate of VAT rate incorporated into the price and sold as second hand. The coins from Estonia are however VAT free.

You will see that bars sell quite well on the forum. i like vintage bars. Some of these can go for high prices. You just need to keep your eyes open and be patient. i have got some from America and been fortunate not to be charged VAT.

i think some of us have tended to switch more into bars b/c we are either paranoid or disappointed when a cherished coin becomes tarnished and especially when it develops milk spot. Tarnishing of a coin can actually add to the value - some people collect tarnished coins and will pay a good premium for them. This is especially with the American Silver Eagles.

[Ryan]

Thanks @sixgun I guess it's wise to diversify and adopt to whims of the market on collectables.

[Jumbosausage]

Best price I could find on the Brits was from goldsilver.be who are based in Belgium I believe. Also VAT free and Just over a £1 cheaper per coin than anywhere else that I could see. 

[JunkBond]

17 minutes ago, sixgun said:

@Ryan

i think some of us have tended to switch more into bars b/c we are either paranoid or disappointed when a cherished coin becomes tarnished and especially when it develops milk spot.

Exactly so, I wanted to start buying silver again after a modest start before I moved on to gold, but was put off by milk spot. So I have decided on vintage 1oz bars.

[Lowlow]

5 hours ago, sixgun said:

@Ryan The problem with bars is the VAT slapped on them.

Someone needs to tell your politicians that silver is an investment metal, and how politicians are hurting the children by imposing a VAT on silver.  In fact, they are hurting minorities too, and it is Islamophobic because a lot of people in the middle east like silver too, and .. erm, India-a-phobic, since a lot of Indian people like silver.  Not supporting silver as an investment is contributing to the rape culture.

[vand]

13 hours ago, Jumbosausage said:

Best price I could find on the Brits was from goldsilver.be who are based in Belgium I believe. Also VAT free and Just over a £1 cheaper per coin than anywhere else that I could see. 

TBH I think you did good.

I would normally say that its bad practice to buy everything in one big go because you have nothing left if prices continue to go lower, but in this case there is no denying that silver is very cheap and we are very likely near a long-intermediate term bottom. The smart money is going underweight equities and overweight commodities/PMs imo.

[Pete]

14 hours ago, Jumbosausage said:

Best price I could find on the Brits was from goldsilver.be who are based in Belgium I believe. Also VAT free and Just over a £1 cheaper per coin than anywhere else that I could see. 

Definitely a good place to buy most ( but not all ) silver coins.
Just a correction - the coins are not VAT free they are charged using a differential VAT scheme which is a loophole permitting dealers to charge greatly reduced VAT. Real pity our UK main dealers don't follow suit but if they are happy to loose hundreds of thousands of pounds in business that's their choice.
Just had a back-of-the-envelope look at CGT.
This year you can gain £11,700 before paying any CGT.
If you are married or living with a partner you could gift / transfer some coins and effectively double this threshold to £23,400.
If you were to sell 1,000 one ounce coins they would have to have made you a profit of £11.70 each
Suppose you bought 2 monster boxes of Britannias ( I realise they are not subject to CGT but use this as an example ), today they would cost from GS.be €7,410 per box, roughly £13.23 each coin.
Adding the CGT threshold means tax would be charged on any figure higher than £24.93 each.
Can this price be realised in future years ? - absolutely.

One caveat is that how likely would you want to unload all your stack in a single year ?
Each year you get a fresh full CGT allowance so you could in theory quadruple your allowance by selling at the end of a tax year then a few days later into a new tax years repeat and use your spouse/partner allowances as well.

Reason for this blurb is to not get overly fixated about CGT and thereby restrict your bigger purchases to Brits or other UK coins.

Because the government is being forced into raising taxes in the future there is a real chance that CGT will be affected and the thresholds reduced significantly. If labour were elected they would target CGT whereas under the Conservatives they might not.

Also, post Brexit it is highly unlikely we will have the opportunity to use the differential VAT schemes adopted by GS.be and others but if we have a 2 year transition period that would help.

Like squirrels gathering nuts for the winter, perhaps this is a good time, right now, for fellow stackers to pile into silver.

[Ryan]

8 minutes ago, Pete said:

Suppose you bought 2 monster boxes of Britannias ( I realise they are not subject to CGT but use this as an example ), 

I was under the impression that Brits were not subject to CGT? As they are legal tender? 

 

12 minutes ago, Pete said:

Also, post Brexit it is highly unlikely we will have the opportunity to use the differential VAT schemes adopted by GS.be and others but if we have a 2 year transition period that would help.

What about the Republic of Ireland? Are the subject to VAT buying from Estonia for example? 

[Pete]

5 hours ago, Ryan said:

I was under the impression that Brits were not subject to CGT? As they are legal tender? 

 

What about the Republic of Ireland? Are the subject to VAT buying from Estonia for example? 

As I mentioned the UK Brits ( and legal tender ) are not subject to CGT but because I could get a price on a monster box from GS.be I used this purely as an example.

All members of the EU have free movement of goods without incurring further import taxes.
Post Brexit the Republic of Ireland will still remain unaffected as a full member of the EU so no change.
If you can purchase silver from Estonia with negligible VAT, post Brexit this will still continue.
This is what is causing the politicians so much bother because as the UK government insists there will not be a customs or hard border between North and South of Ireland, how can we prevent the truck carrying monster boxes from the South dropping its load across the border ?
Imagine you lived in a village right on the border. You could take delivery of your 'pieces of silver' VAT free, carry them across the square to your neighbour and "illegally" sell them VAT free. If you attempted to post a coin to the UK the recipient would pay 20% VAT plus a fee as applies for goods today shipped from the Channel Islands. However if you were posting from an address in N.I. which could possibly be next door, then there would be no VAT charged.
There's your new source of post-Brexit silver because goods shipped from N.I. are not subject to controls as part of the UK.
What a frikin' mess this is becoming.

[Ryan]

32 minutes ago, Pete said:

Imagine you lived in a village right on the border.

I pretty much do (N.I. side). Thats what got me thinking. Thanks for that. 

What a mess indeed, a total headache.