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Does it make sense for me to purchase gold or silver first?


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Hi there, I am new to the game and would like to build up a small stack of gold and silver with the intention of selling for a profit in the future. Would I be better off purchasing a few ounces of silver to get me started or to buy some gram gold? I am pretty tight for funds at the moment. Looking at getting either 5oz of silver or 2grams of gold to start with. Thanks!

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Whilst being a relative newcomer myself, I would say buy whatever presents itself to you at your level of financial comfort. The current situation means that PMs have high margins at the moment but things will get back to normal. It might be an idea to do a bit of research and routing about in the forum as there is a wealth (sic) of information contained here. 

A forum member @Darr3nG has written a good website for comparing gold prices http://goldprice.eu5.net

I dare say there will be lots of people about with much more experience than myself happy to offer advice and upgrading your membership is a good idea also. 

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Just now, Airhead said:

Whilst being a relative newcomer myself, I would say buy whatever presents itself to you at your level of financial comfort. The current situation means that PMs have high margins at the moment but things will get back to normal. It might be an idea to do a bit of research and routing about in the forum as there is a wealth (sic) of information contained here. 

A forum member @Darr3nG has written a good website for comparing gold prices http://goldprice.eu5.net

I dare say there will be lots of people about with much more experience than myself happy to offer advice and upgrading your membership is a good idea also. 

Thanks 

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i would echo the suggestion to save a bit more and get some gold.
i have heard past comments from members here and others elsewhere that they have been disappointed in their silver purchases. They have gone off silver completely. Now in previous years silver got to high prices and if they bought at those times they are nursing losses but it goes further than that.

If we compare the spot price of silver and gold, silver is very cheap. The problem is buying silver coins and bars is not so cheap. The spot price of silver now is £12.07 but the cheapest silver coins on the forum are £19 + postage. A few Britannias on order at Atkinsons are £22.42 - post free. The cheapest on goldsilver.be - Maples £18.36 + postage. This is too much in my mind when spot is £12. i have bought a fair amount of silver in the past but i am not prepared to pay this amount of premium over spot. i have my silver so i am not desperate to get anymore. Gold is also a higher premium than it used to be but it is still much nearer spot price. Pound for pound if the price of an ounce gold coin were the same as silver it would be £2170 - You expect a very special gold coin for that, not the equivalent of the cheapest bullion coin. 

You really could do to save up enough to get at least a half sovereign. You might find smaller coins at similar premiums over spot but they is more difficult to find and will tend to be less popular designs which you might have problems shifting easily when you come to sell one day. Sovereigns and halves are pretty straight forward to sell. In just about every post where someone asked what they should buy, the answer is get a sovereign.

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25 minutes ago, sixgun said:

i would echo the suggestion to save a bit more and get some gold.
i have heard past comments from members here and others elsewhere that they have been disappointed in their silver purchases. They have gone off silver completely. Now in previous years silver got to high prices and if they bought at those times they are nursing losses but it goes further than that.

If we compare the spot price of silver and gold, silver is very cheap. The problem is buying silver coins and bars is not so cheap. The spot price of silver now is £12.07 but the cheapest silver coins on the forum are £19 + postage. A few Britannias on order at Atkinsons are £22.42 - post free. The cheapest on goldsilver.be - Maples £18.36 + postage. This is too much in my mind when spot is £12. i have bought a fair amount of silver in the past but i am not prepared to pay this amount of premium over spot. i have my silver so i am not desperate to get anymore. Gold is also a higher premium than it used to be but it is still much nearer spot price. Pound for pound if the price of an ounce gold coin were the same as silver it would be £2170 - You expect a very special gold coin for that, not the equivalent of the cheapest bullion coin. 

You really could do to save up enough to get at least a half sovereign. You might find smaller coins at similar premiums over spot but they is more difficult to find and will tend to be less popular designs which you might have problems shifting easily when you come to sell one day. Sovereigns and halves are pretty straight forward to sell. In just about every post where someone asked what they should buy, the answer is get a sovereign.

Thank you very much. I do some more reading for sure and look into getting some gold first.

 

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I echo comments above. Save for a Sov.

Personally, I would go for one of the first ones minted at the start of ERII’s reign.  
 

These have great detail and are priced well vs spot.  
 

Best

Dicker

Not my circus, not my monkeys

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my thoughts on what to buy first were: what motivates me. Personally, being new stacker, I find gram gold so tiny that is depressing. 😂  so i bought little nice stack of silver first to feel like I actualy own something. this would be one way of looking at it... 😆

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3 minutes ago, Chronix said:

my thoughts on what to buy first were: what motivates me. Personally, being new stacker, I find gram gold so tiny that is depressing. 😂  so i bought little nice stack of silver first to feel like I actualy own something. this would be one way of looking at it... 😆

Here is someone who thinks like me! Finally!

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8 hours ago, Airhead said:

 and upgrading your membership is a good idea also. 

Yes, it is principally, but not with this budget. It would be a considerable chunk of the total budget already, so I wouldn't upgrade my account.

It's a tough decision, I'm not sure myself what I would go for in this situation but it also depends on your further plans. Is this the budget for one month or the total budget you plan to spend on PMs? I started stacking with alternating between gold and silver each month. Now, I only buy gold (with the odd exception). If it's the total budget, I would say with he silver you don't need to sell everything at once, however, with this budget it doesn't make that much of a difference, certainly if you plan to send it in somewhere via mail. If you want to sell it in person in a shop, there is the question, do your local coin shops offer good prices (some small shops don't and some areas only have such expensive shops). In this case splitting the sale would make even less sense, so you could just as well go for gold. If you plan to buy a bit every month (and have some leve of certainty to keep your job , which many don't, of course), it doesn't make much of a difference what you start with, if you alternate each month (or maybe wait 2 to 3 months to be able to make bigger purchases at once)

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7 minutes ago, silenceissilver said:

Yes, it is principally, but not with this budget. It would be a considerable chunk of the total budget already, so I wouldn't upgrade my account.

It's a tough decision, I'm not sure myself what I would go for in this situation but it also depends on your further plans. Is this the budget for one month or the total budget you plan to spend on PMs? I started stacking with alternating between gold and silver each month. Now, I only buy gold (with the odd exception). If it's the total budget, I would say with he silver you don't need to sell everything at once, however, with this budget it doesn't make that much of a difference, certainly if you plan to send it in somewhere via mail. If you want to sell it in person in a shop, there is the question, do your local coin shops offer good prices (some small shops don't and some areas only have such expensive shops). In this case splitting the sale would make even less sense, so you could just as well go for gold. If you plan to buy a bit every month (and have some leve of certainty to keep your job , which many don't, of course), it doesn't make much of a difference what you start with, if you alternate each month (or maybe wait 2 to 3 months to be able to make bigger purchases at once)

The £100 budget is just for this month. A few members have offered me deals so I probably won't go for a membership yet. Nice idea about alternating. I don't really know of any local coin shops. I would probably sell online on forums and to other websites in the future when the price increases. If I was to invest £100 now and then save up for larger purchases later would silver be better to start with? Thinking about 5oz of 1oz coins.

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3 minutes ago, ARehmat said:

The £100 budget is just for this month. A few members have offered me deals so I probably won't go for a membership yet. Nice idea about alternating. I don't really know of any local coin shops. I would probably sell online on forums and to other websites in the future when the price increases. If I was to invest £100 now and then save up for larger purchases later would silver be better to start with? Thinking about 5oz of 1oz coins.

If there is still some available in a few days time the Buy and Sell section has some marvellous items for sale from reputable forum members at the moment. A few 2oz Queens Beasts would probably suit you down to the ground, 2oz is a lovely lump, and a Queens Beast is a nice introduction to the Numismatic side of things IMHO which may appreciate quicker than bog standard bullion. I myself am trying very hard to resist the collector urge as I am unsure where it will end. Whatever you do buy the general consensus is I think is to enjoy what you stack/collect.

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53 minutes ago, ARehmat said:

The £100 budget is just for this month. A few members have offered me deals so I probably won't go for a membership yet. Nice idea about alternating. I don't really know of any local coin shops. I would probably sell online on forums and to other websites in the future when the price increases. If I was to invest £100 now and then save up for larger purchases later would silver be better to start with? Thinking about 5oz of 1oz coins.

If you alternate over a long period, it doesn't matter where you start.

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1 minute ago, silenceissilver said:

If you alternate over a long period, it doesn't matter where you start.

Sure, looking into getting 5 1oz coins. Thank you for the help!

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21 minutes ago, ARehmat said:

Sure, looking into getting 5 1oz coins. Thank you for the help!

With a budget smaller than one gold coin I would make a purchase every two months. After another two months the other metal. Keeping the rest to 200, particular with gold, and using it the next time you buy the same metal. At current prices, occassionally, you will be able to buy two half sovereigns or even better a full sovereign. This method requires quite a lot of diciplin though.

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Just now, silenceissilver said:

With a budget smaller than one gold coin I would make a purchase every two months. After another two months the other metal. Keeping the rest to 200, particular with gold, and using it the next time you buy the same metal. At current prices, occassionally, you will be able to buy two half sovereigns or even better a full sovereign. This method requires quite a lot of diciplin though.

That sounds good. I think that after this purchase of 5x1oz Silver Coins i will probably wait out for a few months anyways untill I can afford a Half Sovereign. From what I can tell unlike stocks and shares their is no real risk of loosing the investment out completely over the long term anyway. Quick question. How do you store your gold/silver and when buying from other members on this forum, how do you obtain proof of purchase to prove ownership when looking to sell on?

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Re storage lots of options, but personally I wouldn’t pay for storage, just got to be a bit imaginative where you stash your coins away. Don’t have to all be in same place either. 
re proof of ownership, you will have bank records/PayPal etc. When I’ve sold to dealers all they have ever asked for (not always) is id and sign a declaration that you have the right to sell the metal to them. Then walked away with cash in pocket or wired straight to my account.

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Re proof of ownership, I asked for a kind of receipt, the first times I bought on the silver forum. It's important if you want to sell in a country where there is no capital gain tax on gold after having held it for over one year. That's not the case in the UK anyway, though. As I have bought most of my gold elsewhere - I haven't asked for such a receipt at my later purchaes at this forum as I have a receipt for most of my PMs anyway. And as @Zimmerman said, more importantly you have your bank receipts anway.

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4 minutes ago, silenceissilver said:

Re proof of ownership, I asked for a kind of receipt, the first times I bought on the silver forum. It's important if you want to sell in a country where there is no capital gain tax on gold after having held it for over one year. That's not the case in the UK anyway, though. As I have bought most of my gold elsewhere - I haven't asked for such a receipt at my later purchaes at this forum as I have a receipt for most of my PMs anyway. And as @Zimmerman said, more importantly you have your bank receipts anway.

 

9 minutes ago, Zimmerman said:

Re storage lots of options, but personally I wouldn’t pay for storage, just got to be a bit imaginative where you stash your coins away. Don’t have to all be in same place either. 
re proof of ownership, you will have bank records/PayPal etc. When I’ve sold to dealers all they have ever asked for (not always) is id and sign a declaration that you have the right to sell the metal to them. Then walked away with cash in pocket or wired straight to my account.

Thanks for the advice! Will ask for ID and Proof Of Purchase for sure. As for storage then with such a small amount of Silver I will not be going to pay for storage. Will have to come up with some hiding place.

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6 minutes ago, ARehmat said:

 

Thanks for the advice! Will ask for ID and Proof Of Purchase for sure. As for storage then with such a small amount of Silver I will not be going to pay for storage. Will have to come up with some hiding place.

Sorry, that was a missunderstanding. I didn't ask the sellers for their ID or their proof of purchase but to write a (rather informal) receipt for me, at my first purchases on the silver forum. Together with the bank statements that should do the job, should you need this proof.

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2 minutes ago, silenceissilver said:

Sorry, that was a missunderstanding. I didn't ask the sellers for their ID or their proof of purchase but to write a (rather informal) receipt for me, at my first purchases on the silver forum. Together with the bank statements that should do the job, should you need this proof.

Cool, thanks for the clarification.

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This is what I do. I put money, any amount when I have it, into BullionVault so I get a stake in the gold movement straight away for far less premium than a fractional coin. Then, once enough has been accrued in there, I sell enough for a decent sized coin.

Know what your emotions are towards gold and have a strategy to buy AND sell.

How quickly will you need to liquidate your gold?

Within a day for emergencies? You might think it's just for pension but emergencies happen. A coin won't help much there. A 'fast' gold coin in UK is Britannia and Sovereign but it will still take you days to do a transaction remotely.

Have a look at companies like BullionVault which isn't an ETF, you actually own the gold they hold for you.

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38 minutes ago, Prophecy said:

This is what I do. I put money, any amount when I have it, into BullionVault so I get a stake in the gold movement straight away for far less premium than a fractional coin. Then, once enough has been accrued in there, I sell enough for a decent sized coin.

Know what your emotions are towards gold and have a strategy to buy AND sell.

How quickly will you need to liquidate your gold?

Within a day for emergencies? You might think it's just for pension but emergencies happen. A coin won't help much there. A 'fast' gold coin in UK is Britannia and Sovereign but it will still take you days to do a transaction remotely.

Have a look at companies like BullionVault which isn't an ETF, you actually own the gold they hold for you.

This is a bad way to buy small amounts.

Bullionvault charge .8 percent to buy Gold at daily spot. Then another .8 percent to sell. Then there is a withdrawal fee back to your bank account.

Then they charge minimum of $4 a month to store the gold.

All theses fees and then you also need to pay premium when you buy the Gold.

 

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Personally, I would invest in silver to start with. It is cheaper and you can accumulate some metal (I prefer to have it in hand, so I have it all delivered) - like @Chronixsaid - you feel like actually you own something. When you accumulate nice ammount of silver, you could swap it for gold once gold/silver ratio is low - currently it is quite high I believe - 114. That is how I am planning to do it. I am also new to this game, so time will tell if I am right.

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