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Bars or coins, whats your preference?


LadySilver

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In our household stacking is a family affair, yet we can never agree between bars or coins. He prefers coins whereas I like bars. Now I know the premium is generally higher on bars but theres just something about them I like. Perhaps it's that they can be stacked more neatly.

Whats everyone elses preference?

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Fractional (and preferably CGT exempt) coins all the way for me.

Its based on nothing but I’ve always felt for some reason that gold bars are quite crude and little less refined than coins 🤷‍♂️.

Oddly enough though if we were talking silver I would say I prefer bars due to associating it with being a more industrial metal.

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Coins - more liquid, value for money unless your buying 100g/kg bars and a few others, cgt exempt, find them better to look at, although if I had a 10oz+ bar im sure id say otherwise lool

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Vintage bars - proper odd weight, hand poured - often unique creations. 
i love high quality proof coins but if we are simply comparing the run of the mill coin with a bar - i go for bars.
In the past bars didn't sell as well on the Silver Forum but now i feel they sell better and command better prices.

So this type of thing:

Misc. Small 1-Ounce 999 Silver Bars "Old Pour" | Collectors Weekly

Always cast your vote - Spoil your ballot slip. Put 'Spoilt Ballot - I do not consent.' These votes are counted. If you do not do this you are consenting to the tyranny. None of them are fit for purpose. 
A tyranny relies on propaganda and force. Once the propaganda fails all that's left is force.

COVID-19 is a cover story for the collapsing economy. Green Energy isn't Green and it isn't Renewable.

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16 minutes ago, LadySilver said:

So are gold bars not CGT exempt?

I assumed all gold bullion/bars where....

UK coins are CGT exempt in the UK. A coin is legal tender by definition. The shape of the metal does not define it as a coin - hence we see coin bars and Coco Cola caps as coins. It is the legal tender part.
All UK coins are CGT exempt in the UK whatever the metal.
i suspect there are probably some 'ex'-coins which should be liable for CGT - silver sixpences and the like - they are no longer legal tender and thus no longer coins.

There is no VAT on investment gold - HMRC does define this more exactly. Gold jewellery is not VAT free. Not sure how sovereign rings etc work out.

Gold bars are liable to CGT if allowances are breached and declared but as investment gold are VAT free.

Always cast your vote - Spoil your ballot slip. Put 'Spoilt Ballot - I do not consent.' These votes are counted. If you do not do this you are consenting to the tyranny. None of them are fit for purpose. 
A tyranny relies on propaganda and force. Once the propaganda fails all that's left is force.

COVID-19 is a cover story for the collapsing economy. Green Energy isn't Green and it isn't Renewable.

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I see. So what exactly is it that defines something as legal tender? Most people would say its the queens head, but obviously this would change from one country to another. 

Its funny how so many coins, like the ones we collect, are legal tender yet the local supermarket probably wont let you pay for your shopping with it. Makes me wonder on the point of legal tender if its not accepted as payment by anyone but the courts....

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12 minutes ago, LadySilver said:

I see. So what exactly is it that defines something as legal tender? Most people would say its the queens head, but obviously this would change from one country to another. 

Its funny how so many coins, like the ones we collect, are legal tender yet the local supermarket probably wont let you pay for your shopping with it. Makes me wonder on the point of legal tender if its not accepted as payment by anyone but the courts....

A law makes it legal tender. In the UK it will always bear the head of the Sovereign. In other countries you have different CGT rules for gold, e.g. in Germany it's all 100% CGT free regardless of what (bullion) gold it is, provided you can show you held it for at least one year. That makes more sense since gold doesn't bear dividends or interest and thus shouldn't be subject to CGT but of course there is the possibility of short term speculation, thus the one year rule in Germany. I have no clue if, from the viewpoint of the UK legal system it would be illegal to drive over to Germany to sell it there to avoid the CGT on gold. Probably it would as long as you are a UK resident but I don't know that for sure. 

In practice it will make little difference for most stackers anyway as you need to have a profit of 13K (or thereabouts, it changes over time) and that within one year. If, e.g. you buy gold for 100K and sell it for 113K (if the treshold currently is 13K) there is no CGT at all. Also if you split the selling into two financial years, the threshold applies again for the new year. So, if you bought gold for 200K and sell half of it for 113K the last day of the financial year and the other half for 113K on the first day of the new financial year, again, there is no CGT whatsoever.

That's my understanding. I'm happy to be corrected by anyone should there be a mistake.

Now to your original question:

Of course he is right and you are wrong.

Big bars: A test, of almost any kind, is not as reliable for a big, fat bar as it is for a small bar. There could be a core composed of 2 metals that together have the same density as gold with a thick layer of gold on the outside, theoretically. In practice this wouldn't be easy to do but it wouldn't be  impossible. (E.g. one being Osmium which has a higher density than gold but is cheaper than gold, at least currently). This doesn't work for thin bars with only thin layer of gold as magnet tests will not show the same results as with a full gold bar.

But thin bars, at least gold bars, come in packaging that you can't put it back into. This means you can't test it yourself unless you take it out. But because it's sold in such packaging, there will be many people who will insist on the original packing or not buy it otherwise. Although you can buy and sell small, gold bare bars, they are not as liquid as it seems to me.

Of course bars have the advantage, for stackers, that they can have more scratches without being considered as gold that had to go into the melting pot, which is additional work that makes your totally scratched gold coin worth less (not worthless though). But that's easily dealt with. Keep them in capsules and or tubes - problem solved.

 

 

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9 hours ago, sixgun said:

Vintage bars - proper odd weight, hand poured - often unique creations. 
i love high quality proof coins but if we are simply comparing the run of the mill coin with a bar - i go for bars.
In the past bars didn't sell as well on the Silver Forum but now i feel they sell better and command better prices.

So this type of thing:

Misc. Small 1-Ounce 999 Silver Bars "Old Pour" | Collectors Weekly

Can't argue with this, since poured bars certainly have a charm of their own.

However for me it's all about the coins. They're easier to stack than bars (using tubes, for example), they have the look and feel of real money (because they are or were real money), and they have various designs on them. All of that gives a collectibility and practicality not really found in bars.

The closest thing I have to bars are four 5 ounce rounds from Swiss of America, and even those all fit neatly into one coin tube.

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14 hours ago, silenceissilver said:

In practice it will make little difference for most stackers anyway as you need to have a profit of 13K (or thereabouts, it changes over time) and that within one year. If, e.g. you buy gold for 100K and sell it for 113K (if the treshold currently is 13K) there is no CGT at all. Also if you split the selling into two financial years, the threshold applies again for the new year. So, if you bought gold for 200K and sell half of it for 113K the last day of the financial year and the other half for 113K on the first day of the new financial year, again, there is no CGT whatsoever.

This is correct however one must consider that the allowance is based on total gains across all assets not per asset class. So for example if you make capital gains selling an investment property, stocks, crypto, art etc that would all count to the yearly allowance of 13k which is why stacking UK legal tender coins is advantageous. The allowance might seem healthy but as covid has shown that anything can happen, if there is a crazy spike in the gold price due to a world event legal tender coins will most definitely be the better choice when its time to cash in

15 hours ago, LadySilver said:

So what exactly is it that defines something as legal tender?

Reading this article by @LawrenceChard simply put legal tender in the UK are coins issued by the Royal Mint. Would be good to know if there are any coins the Royal Mint have minted which are not considered legal tender: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/legal-tender/5

Looking for 1965, 1981 and 1983-1984 GOLD Ghanaian coins

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8 hours ago, Heirlooms said:

This is correct however one must consider that the allowance is based on total gains across all assets not per asset class. So for example if you make capital gains selling an investment property, stocks, crypto, art etc that would all count to the yearly allowance of 13k which is why stacking UK legal tender coins is advantageous. The allowance might seem healthy but as covid has shown that anything can happen, if there is a crazy spike in the gold price due to a world event legal tender coins will most definitely be the better choice when its time to cash in

Reading this article by @LawrenceChard simply put legal tender in the UK are coins issued by the Royal Mint. Would be good to know if there are any coins the Royal Mint have minted which are not considered legal tender: https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/legal-tender/5

Sure, the RM make coins for many other countries, none of which would be legal tender in the UK.

Chards

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27 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Sure, the RM make coins for many other countries, none of which would be legal tender in the UK.

Thanks. My apologies, should have mentioned coins for the UK that are not classed as legal tender

Looking for 1965, 1981 and 1983-1984 GOLD Ghanaian coins

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2 minutes ago, Heirlooms said:

Thanks. My apologies, should have mentioned coins for the UK that are not classed as legal tender

They have made a number of pattern "coins", and trial pieces, which would not qualify.

Also older coins, such as guineas, which were demonitised a long time ago, are not legal tender now, even though they used to be when in circulation.

Chards

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On 23/01/2021 at 18:12, sixgun said:

All UK coins are CGT exempt in the UK whatever the metal.
i suspect there are probably some 'ex'-coins which should be liable for CGT - silver sixpences and the like - they are no longer legal tender and thus no longer coins.

Only sovereigns and half sovereigns issued after 1837 are legal tender and thus capital gains exempt, to my knowledge.

Pre-Victorian sovereigns were demonetised in the 1890s and thus are probably liable for CGT, along with guineas etc.

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As a UK resident and taxpayer, definitely UK coins for gold for the reasons that others have said already.
For silver - either coins or bars.  Coins for anything less than or equal to 2 oz, coins or bars for anything more than 2 oz up to and including 10 oz, and definitely bars for anything over 10 oz.

If stacking silver for weight I would probably choose bars, unless I was in serious danger of triggering a CGT charge - in which case I'd be stacking 10 oz Valiants or similar.

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For the gold stack definitely coins, sovereigns (low premium) or Brittania’s (great design but higher premium)

For silver I just can’t make up my mind whether to make any significant investment but if I did almost certainly bars to keep the premium as low as possible

Although I love the feel, weight, and look of a good shiny silver coin😀 but the premiums are hair raising.....

CGT doesn’t come into my decision making process I’d be very happy to have made enough profit to have to worry about it

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