Your gold story. How it happened.

[Ravoma]

To stop my misses spending my money.

[Happypanda88]

This is an interesting thread so I will add my little story.

I collected coins since I was a kid. I like the intricate design of coins and its history. My collection at the time were mostly British pre-decimal and world coins.

There was a local coin shop in my town back in the day. So when I had spending money, I would pay them a visit and buy silver and anythings else of interest that I can afford. I have all the coins from that time, including a nice 1820 George III silver crown, a 1889 Victoria silver crown and a pristine 1915 George V half crown.

My first gold coin was a 1982 half sovereign. This was when I had a part-time cleaning job after school. I remembered walking passed a coin shop in Central London and saw some shinny sovereigns behind the window. I think it cost a princely sum of £25.

After starting a family, I had little time nor funds to continue my hobby. Back then, I viewed coin collecting, whether in silver or gold simply as a hobby and not as a way to preserve wealth.

I started waking up to precious metals after the 2008 financial market crash.  I got burnt investing in the shares of the company I worked for !

I was still reading up on the financial markets in the evenings until ISIS came into the living room. The British Brainwashing Corporation (BBC) and ConJob4 (C4) would have you believe it was a civil war.  But nothing made sense on the news. How can a small faction of fighters and Jihadi John can defeat and outgun a national army of Syria with tanks and fighter jets !  After much reading and research on alt-media, namely Zerohedge, globalresearch.ca and many other platforms, I came to understand it was a conflict over money, power and control. If you control oil you control nations, control food you control the people, control money then you control the world !  The New World Odor as some would say !  

After many months of research, reading, watching and listening, I got to understand these two famous quotes :-

1.  "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning" - Henry Ford

2.  "Money is Gold, and nothing else" - JP Morgan Testimony before the Bank and Currency Committee of the House of Representatives, at Washington, D. C. 18 & 19 December 1912.

After this waking moment, I withdrawn my savings and exchanged them for the shinny stuff. I basically continued with my hobby !!  LOL !!

That's it. My short story !  😎 

[The1GramMan]

My fascination was realised only recently, i had a company for 9 years that was giving me a very reasonable living and i was 4 months away from getting a mortgage when unfortunately I had to contact the insolvency services to close my company, I was renting at the time and had to leave due to not being able to afford staying there. Me, my wife and my son was made homeless and lived in a hotel for a week until we was moved into a hostel, most horrible place I have ever been and not very nice people living in there either. Never will I let my family be i a place like that again.

We finally got a permanent place with the council after being moved about 3 times, unfortunately my credit was now utterly devastated I cannot get credit for anything I cannot get mortgage but i am working hard to repair. 

The worst thing is knowing you can afford a mortgage but no one will give you one.

Not being able to get A mortgage i wanted to put my efforts into a new source of investment. I was watching gold rush, watched every season on sky, now I am hooked and am hoping that along with my general savings that my venture into gold will help me along in the future to repairing the horrible couple of years i have had.

I'm hoping gold and silver will help me along the way. 

[Smiler999]

Only started this year, took fright at how the fiat system is on the point of collapse and wanted to keep some value in my savings

[Vern]

It all started off as a normal interest and then entered the bloody twilight zone, not by choice at first.

oh well, at least it hasn't been boring.

Sometimes the lessons in life come from the most unusual places.

[HerefordBullyun]

I don't own any gold , but I still lived happily ever after, the end. I used to but missed the boat when it was cheap. And I had to sell it in difficult  time.

[dicker]

Bought Sovs originally in the 90’s to be able to buy my way out of very dangerous situations in a 3rd world country.  
 

Luckily never had to use them, but had an appreciation from that point onwards. 
 

One marriage later and I met an Aussie from Perth.  Her parents were very old but they were collectors, and we had shared interested.  
 

Always bought from the point I met her.  
 

Best

Dicker

[Bratnia]

Stacker (stock and gold ETF's) whose venture into physical gold story starts here 😄

[Paul]

I'm 43 now and through my twenties, i guess I must have staked and wasted around £75k-£100k at a rough guess through FOBTs, online poker and land based casinos.

Some good days but it all quickly went back as losings in the end.

I went cold turkey at 30-31 and managed a few months until i relapsed again.

Told myself never again.

It was this time I found about gold, since 2008-2009 I have bought investment gold every month, a gold sovereign here, a half sovereign there, 1/2 oz on a good month, a full oz of fine gold when bonus from work.

What this did was separate actual cash i could gamble and move it into another tangible thing with value that i couldn't easily spunk away or spend.

Slowly but surely, my gold stack has grown, every month, as i would buy a another gold coin every fortnight or so.

The ancient Aztecs called Gold 'the sweat of the sun'

Blood, sweat, tears and toil getting it out of the ground.

YOUR blood sweat and tears represents how hard you have worked to get this coin you now hold, and continue to hold ongoing.

Your pile of gold increases monthly.

Gold is also a little bit of a gamble, it will never go to zero, it has been money for 5,000+ years, and can also go up in value

Currently im now VERY nicely up in £ terms if i chose to cash in and take some profits.

A quote stuck with me quite prophetically, as i've never believed in loans or credit cards.

“Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.” ― Norm Franz, Money & Wealth in the New Millennium: A Prophetic Guide to the New World Economic Order

The bigger my gold stack grows the more satisfied I become and want more. A positive kind of addiction.

I have not yet cashed in one single coin for gambling and my investment pile has grew.

I have cashed gold in here on the forum and realized better than dealer prices to increase my business and expand/buy new vans/staff/tech

This degree of separation that takes place between the gold coin and actual cash i can spunk gambling is awesome.

Yet i know at a glance my total gold grams i have on any given day, and know how much it is worth should i cash in.

When money is in a bank AC it is just like figures on a screen to me, cash in my hand just gambling token/betting voucher credits.

I could never hold onto money while it was in a bank account, savings account would be were there for good intention but the money came out for gambling.

Gold doesn't do that for me, the degree of separation between between the time and effort it takes to cash in a gold coin, packing posting, sending, waiting for bank transfer for payment etc. is a few days minimum.

By which times my urge to gamble has long since past.

whilst i will always have that gamble bug inside me, i cant extinguish that flame as i like to to take risks, i'm self employed and risk = reward. and i have done well working over the years.

I still have my monthly little gamble, but as my priority with my spare cash is always to buy a minimum amount of gold, i'm never exposed to loose mega money EVER, fact these days, as the money isn't there because it has been converted from one asset class cash into another asset gold.

The small amount i assign myself to have a gamble is minimal, £100 or £200 for a month. should i win, i actually treat myself to some more gold coins for my stack.

With doing this approach and putting what used to be gambling stake money cash into gold, i've got my good nest egg of gold if i cashed it in from my safe deposit box.

I purposely store the gold in a safety deposit centre in a city that is over 2 hours drive/train ride away to resist the sudden urge to gamble/cash in.

A financial advisor would tell you it is stupid and daft to put all your eggs in one basket with one asset/investments, but to a gambler?

would i sooner have this,  lots of gold is much better than having nothing at all, **** all to show for it - so it works for me

Knowing this fall back of savings is there for any of lifes eventualities makes me sleep wonderfully at night.

This approach may not be for everyone but if you can never hold onto money it has worked wonders for me.

Sorry for the rambles length here today but to those nodding their head to this and this life course maybe sounds a familiar path to yours, if my narrative resonates with you, give gold a try. please try it, you might just like it, or start just buying gold with your big wins.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Paul

[Chrissyblards1]

I’ve always wanted to own gold and silver from when I was young. All nice and shiny. Had earrings, gold chains and a couple of small sovereign rings. Probably looked right wholly. 😂 Then nothing for ages from teenager to adult with a couple of children around 2011-12  I started buying some silver and a couple of small 5g bars as I could only really afford silver. Small amounts at first but not a bad little stack. But everyone was elsewhere and not into it so only the good lady knows really that I stack which is good. It was more about having “real” money in my possession and I was happy not touching it. Then I started again late last year with a few oz’s of silver then decided I had the money for gold. So I have been buying 1/10 gold coins and half sovereigns plus a couple of 1oz krugerrand coins and a full sovereign. Yes it’s high at the moment but I can sit on all of my stack if I want but I may sell some silver for gold if it goes down quite a bit anytime soon. It is an addictive thing this yellow stuff. I have also been collecting Whisky which has been a not bad at all store of wealth at the minute. Always a risk but I’m in that for the long haul also and it’s being kind. So far. Who knows what these next few years bring??? Could be a rollercoaster! Will keep stacking though!! Can drown my sorrows if all goes tits up! 😁 I’m New to this site and I am enjoying learning from other like minded and very knowledgeable people. Everyday is school day as they say. 👍

[iodio]

I was stacking silver and started to run out space in my box. So I started stacking gold to save space and liked how 1 gold coin equals to 80 ounces or so.  Collect silver based on better designs and new releases. Gold I buy bars.

[KevinFlynn]

On 04/08/2020 at 21:08, Paul said:

...

I'm tipping my hat to you, sir.

[SidS]

Although I haven't owned any gold since 2008-9, there was a time when I did.

My fascination started when browsing through my old 1985 Seaby catalogue of British coinage. I just found the history of coinage fascinating, all of it. Gold, silver, hammered etc. I just couldn't fathom how something sold old could survive so long and be available to buy. I guess in essence it gives you a real meaning to value. Whilst the personal items, clothing, houses, weapons and jewellery have for the most part completely disappeared over time, the money survives. Simply because it had value, it wasn't refashioned like the jewellery, it wasn't thrown away like old clothes etc. It retained its function, a store of value.

Gold coins fascinated me, they seemed so expensive and unobtainable. My first gold coin was a 1912 half sovereign bought in around 1995, for the princely sum of about £30. It was overpriced at the time.

I bit the gold bug hard in about 1999 and started acquiring half sovereigns (I was building a date run from 1900), half guineas, quarter nobles etc. Even the odd full sovereign, my first being an 1889 Sydney.

Then the financial crash happened, gold went sky high, I saw an opportunity to sort out some finances and I sold the whole lot of them and cashed out of gold. Paid off my university course, paid off a lot of my student loan debt too. I don't regret selling them for one second.

I haven't bought any more gold since, because when you are used to purchasing sovereigns at £50-£60 per coin, to go to £280-£350 per coin just hurts and I won't do it.

If it ever drops to $350 an oz again, I'll rejoin the gold market. Can't see that happening though!

Edited November 1, 2021 by SidS
Spellings

[Robda1986]

Clearing my late great uncles flat and found a krug in a matchbox in the kitchen when I was 14 maybe 15 never gave it much thought other than I liked the weight didn't think it was valuable till I was 18/19 and found it in a draw ended up selling it to pay for car insurance 😢