Coins or bars or both?

[austack]

Hey all I am planning to start buying PMs again after a year or two away, I only want to spend around £100-£250 a month, I use to buy a sovereign each month but obviously they have gone up a bit since I was buying them so I am looking to silver, my issue is milk spots, is this less likely to bars of silver? I prefer coins but the milk spots ruin them completely for me, I am half collector, half stacker, are there any coins that don't have these issues or should I just stack bars like metalor etc or just stack fractional gold?

[Blockhead]

If you buy melted poured silver bars then it's less of an issue. 

You could buy half sovereigns each month. 

I think milk spotting can happen on any coin potentially. 

[Nick1368]

Hi

sovereigns haven't gone up , price of gold has gone up .

If I were you I would continue buying sovereigns , there is no VAT on gold and it's much easier to store it and in my opinion it's a better investment than silver , you can easily buy a half sovereign each month or wait two month and buy a full sovereign .

[silenceissilver]

There is the Canadian Mint Shield technology, basically a thin layer of a chemical that is supposed to prevent spotting. It seems it works. I has only been introduced in 2018. Others in the forum have also mentioned Perth Mint coins don't spot. I have only a few. They don't spot indeed but it's certainly not enough coins to make an overall statement.

https://mint.ca/store/campaign/Mintshield-7700022?lang=en_CA/

Bars don't spot.

[sixgun]

The argument here was that coins could be bought for less b/c of the VAT issue. This has disappeared for UK buyers. Over the time i have been here bars are more popular than they were.
If we exclude the 'proof' like bars where a knock and a scratch is significant; in general the value of a bar will not be affected much if it has sustained some damage. Milk spot isn't something i have noticed in bars. If it does exist then no-one speaks of it. It really doesn't matter. If you have a half decent coin and then it develops milk spot it will have lost value. The better the coin, the bigger the loss. This is not a problem with bars.

i have some Pamp bars i do not touch. Otherwise most of the bars i have i can handle with impunity. 

Sovereigns are the bedrock of precious metal collecting/stacking in the UK. In the medium to long term i feel silver is going to perform much better than gold.

The only issue is the capital gains. That UK coins are free of CGT. Personally i suspect almost no-one has paid capital gains on their collections. 

[Troy77]

I have transferred all of my coin collection into bars. 99% of which I'm happy to handle. For me I am much happier now I don't have to worry about my coins devaluing with milk spots.

[LiquidMetalsUK]

Love both 😂😂😂

[Aknot]

Buy the ones you want to collect and have them properly sealed to prevent milk spots. Stack the rest? I used to buy comics in pairs (when something caught my fancy) and have one properly backed and sealed and one to read just keep around.

[Pete]

There is no perfect answer here.
If gold was to retain its value then I would buy a half sovereign each month.
Personally I think it is due a correction downwards so I am not buying gold and waiting to see what happens over the next 12 months.
Silver is still relatively cheap and has more upside potential.
I use the word "potential" because no-one knows how the metal will perform relative to gold.
I would always buy a one ounce silver coin before a one ounce bar unless the bar was minted and had an attractive design assuming prices were similar.
Milk spots will impact the resale of semi-numi or collectible coins and proofs but low risk.
Some mints are renowned for badly milked bullion - Canadian ( pre 2020 ) and UK ( 2013 to date )
This does not affect the resale price selling to a dealer.
The problem with silver now is you cannot recover the 20% VAT so you need to look on this forum or elsewhere for coins sold for much less than our dealers.
There will be always be sellers of silver because they know that they will only get spot price selling to bullion dealers and they have to undercut the dealers.
If buying silver to the tune of £250 per month I would create a listing in the UK Trade Section - WANTED.
Establish your target price, the coins of choice, but be realistic and not go bottom fishing, and wait on the offers.
You could also try this buying sovereigns from reputable forum members.

[Hunter87]

I would stick to gold coins and buy half sovs as and when you can afford them.

[ssvp]

Hi I am new to the PM world, I see lots of people referencing 'sovereigns' here, can someone explain what that is? Also what is VAT? Is that some kind of tax in the UK or something?

Thanks

[silenceissilver]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_(British_coin)

Value added tax

[RoughDog]

19 hours ago, silenceissilver said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_(British_coin)

Value added tax

Value removed tax?