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Well, it's taken a few days to get my account validated, and in the meantime, some of my questions have become a little redundant.

I was going to ask people about the ins and outs of buying precious metals, in Asia, where I am (although I'm British).

I've made an account with Baird's, despite reading the comments about them. I note they have an office in Singapore, but the Asia office never responded to my e-mail.

I had some cash in Thai baht, for visa reasons, and now I don't need to have it here, and the rate is going the wrong way relative to the pound, so I've moved the money back to the UK, and want to buy some precious metals to store the money in. I think I am looking at Gold, Silver, and Platinum, to hold onto for a while rather than leave it in any form of cash in a bank.

I was thinking about buying actual metal and having it delivered to my address in the UK, and then having it put into a safety deposit box in a bank, but when you start to think about all the steps involved, insurance, and paperwork, it seemed simpler to just buy metal and get it stored in a literal one-stop-shop. I don't know anything about ETFs or which trading app to use. I saw that the European Mint was competitive, but seems to be all about cryptocurrency, Royal Mint seems to be only for bigger buyers than me; the sort of glow-in-the-dark gold you see in Thai gold shops looks not quite right somehow, and I reckon they buy it from Hong Kong and mark it up, I hear its about 96.5% pure, and I guess not so straightfoward to sell. So I thought, buy some metal from a well-established dealer, that will come with all the right paperwork and be straightforward to sell at some point in the future.

I presume you can sell any share of any gold you buy, that you don't have to completely buy or sell a unit, like an ounce or kilo.


I'm basically here to learn the ins and outs of buying and holding precious metals, and probably not in what most of you might regard as enormous amounts, although they are big enough for me.

Do you have any guides about where and how to buy, sell, and store? 

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Do you want to buy and hold physical PMs or buy and store in Asia or the UK?

Technically, alcohol is a solution..

'It [socialism] poses a growing threat, however unintentional, to the freedom of this country, for there is no freedom where the State totally controls the economy. Personal freedom and economic freedom are indivisible. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t lose one without losing the other.'

"There is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers' money"

Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.

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Hello and welcome to the forum,

I would personnaly store in Singapore. You can contact Bullionstar ( https://www.bullionstar.com) or IndigoPreciousMetals (https://www.indigopreciousmetals.com) in Singapore : I have used their services for big amounts and they are both very nice and professionnal. IPM can propose you a storage for silver without VAT in their Allocated and Segregated vaulting solution in Freeport in Singapore. 

PS : don't store in a bank !

Edited by Frenchie
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53 minutes ago, Frenchie said:

Hello and welcome to the forum,

I would personnaly store in Singapore. You can contact Bullionstar ( https://www.bullionstar.com) or IndigoPreciousMetals (https://www.indigopreciousmetals.com) in Singapore : I have used their services for big amounts and they are both very nice and professionnal. IPM can propose you a storage for silver without VAT in their Allocated and Segregated vaulting solution in Freeport in Singapore. 

PS : don't store in a bank !

I am intrigued. Why do you say don’t store in a bank? Is that a recommendation for just Asia or the U.K. as well?

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1 hour ago, Chrisplym said:

I am intrigued. Why do you say don’t store in a bank? Is that a recommendation for just Asia or the U.K. as well?

We buy precious metals for collection, but we also stack PM in order to have a hedge over a SHTF scenario and the consequences (bail-in, bail-out, confiscation...). What do you do with your PM stored in the vault of a closed bank. You also can imagine that private safe deposit box could be opened by the bank in such scenario. Moreover, here in France, we have now to declare the content in safe boxes, so this is a step further for the loss of anonymity

There is no perfect solution but It is always better to hold PM ("if you don't hold it, you don't own it"), or at least you can store in private vaults from private and reliable companies , but no banks vault. That's my take for it   

 

Edited by Frenchie
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Very interesting. Thanks for your response.

I don’t want to have my precious metals at home for safety reasons and most household insurance don’t provide you with sufficient cover. As a result I have decided to keep mine in a bank safe deposit box.

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8 hours ago, Roy said:

Do you want to buy and hold physical PMs or buy and store in Asia or the UK?

I want to get PMs in the most sensible form. 

I don't actually know whether I want to store them in the UK or Asia.

I have a safe here in Thailand, but that's not gun-to-the-head-proof.

6 hours ago, Frenchie said:

Hello and welcome to the forum,

I would personnaly store in Singapore. You can contact Bullionstar ( https://www.bullionstar.com) or IndigoPreciousMetals (https://www.indigopreciousmetals.com) in Singapore : I have used their services for big amounts and they are both very nice and professionnal. IPM can propose you a storage for silver without VAT in their Allocated and Segregated vaulting solution in Freeport in Singapore. 

PS : don't store in a bank !

Thank you for the welcome.

I think I'm probably looking to hold mainly gold, with some platinum and some silver. 

I don't really know how storage charges compare in the UK v Singapore.

One issue is access. I'm more likely to go to the UK than Singapore, I guess the legal protections are comparable in both jursidictions.

I'm looking to hedge against inflation, i.e..: USD, which is pegged to the THB.

I see THB with a lot of room to go north against the GBP anyway; and I guess many of us are watching the US bond yield movement and potential for northerly movement v interest rates, and looking for some hedge against that, should the concerns of many regarding inflation and corrections materialise.

Any thoughts on rates and other (potentially unexpected costs), and insurance in UK v Singapore?

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You will have the informations you need on the dealers sites I mentioned earlier. IPM has also an office in UK so you can ask them for comparaison (I don't know if they have a vault in UK however). One more thing about Freeport Singapore is you don't have to pay the 20% VAT on Silver or Platinium (as long as your stack stays in vault of course)

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25 minutes ago, Frenchie said:

You will have the informations you need on the dealers sites I mentioned earlier. IPM has also an office in UK so you can ask them for comparaison (I don't know if they have a vault in UK however). One more thing about Freeport Singapore is you don't have to pay the 20% VAT on Silver or Platinium (as long as your stack stays in vault of course)

Thanks, I just mailed them. From their site they list themselves as having a relationship with BairdMint, offering their products by the sounds of it.

Do you mean that you have to pay 20%VAT on silver and platinum in the UK? and not gold?

I looked at both websites you posted - are they the same company? It looked like IPM was a category of thing rather than a company name.

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the end, that's what I did... I bought some at Bairds, and some at BullionStar. I didn't find the process at Baird's onerous. I like the ease of setup and variety of products at BullionStar; they should make an app.

BullionStar seems great on the face of it, and it's only newness to me that's the issue. I've recommended it to my dad, as a little hedge against inflation, and hypothetical pension issues if the markets correct soon.

I have a safe in Thailand, but I'm not sure I see much benefit in bringing metal into Thailand; Thailand has loads of gold shops with glow-in-the-dark metal. If my dad gets a safe in the UK, it makes sense to share it.

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What I've realised is that the spread at Baird is painful compared to the lack of spread at BullionStar. I'm just going to have to wait until it rises above the price I paid and sell it back and replace it outside the UK.

20%-30% on Silver, and about 3-5% on Gold, that's been an annoying lesson to learn. At least it's not unallocated, which I prefer, but yeah, I didn't notice any info about premiums and spreads before going ahead.

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