Ethically sourced gold - opinions

[Darr3nG]

13 minutes ago, stefffana said:

Yes, I found two products underpriced

👇👇👇

 

[Shep]

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

If all parties act ethically, then nobody should lose any sleep, so everyone benefits.

@stefffana's question seems to demonstrate that he is one of the ethical good guys, and I liked @Gordy's answer too.

Not to go all “Barry” on this thread but is it really as black and white as that? 

1 hour ago, LawrenceChard said:

Only a very small proportion of our customers ever try to take unfair advantage. On the small number of occasions where someone does try to take unfair advantage of something, I make a mental note, because I have learnt something about that person.

You talk about customers taking advantage here but I put to you the recent events of dealers selling the 2022 SOTD prerelease in batches. Each time they reappeared they were sold at increasingly steep premiums over RRP.

Is this not taking advantage of the fact dealers know the average joe has very little chance of succeeding in the Royal Mint queue? I have no issue with this personally but is it ethical? - probably not. Is it taking advantage of a situation to make a profit? - definitely, and why shouldn’t they, they’re not charities after all.

I really don’t think any company can claim to act wholly ethically. 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Shep

[LawrenceChard]

23 minutes ago, modofantasma said:

How do you know what's an error? Or publicity stunt?

If it is an issue then the dealer has the power to cancel your order in reality... The golden rule... He who holds the gold makes the rules 

Another spin on the ethics... Would you feel bad for the bank if you are spending on your credit card, thousands of pounds every month, but paying it off and carrying zero balance therefore paying £0 interest? 

🤔😂

If you are unsure whether an advertised deal is an error, either go ahead and buy, or contact the company to check before buying.

At worst, the business could reject your offer, or cancel your attempted purchase. In borderline case, the business might consider retaining your goodwill worth a small loss of profit.

If banks, after much careful thought, chose to offer interest free credit on monthly cleared balances, why should consumers be worried about it? In earlier times, when banks and card companies charged merchants up to 7.5% fees and commissions, then paying by credit card created extra costs for businesses, who mainly passed them on to the "average" consumer. Under legal regimes where merchants were not permitted to charge differential amounts to cash or card customers, this handed an unfair monopolistic advantage to card companies at the expense of both consumers and merchants. This abuse has largely been reduced or eliminated by caps on interchange and other fees. 

 

 

[LawrenceChard]

5 hours ago, modofantasma said:

Not quite the question you're asking but on topic in terms of ethically sourced gold there is 'Green' gold by Valcambi. The bars come in their green assay card rather than the orange. 

That might be a source of potential conflict in parts of Ireland. Green versus orange!

😎

[LawrenceChard]

25 minutes ago, stefffana said:

Thank you for your answer, @LawrenceChard.

About having your children involved in small working activities, in accordance with their power, age and interest, I totally agree. It is very important in their education and future evolution. I was talking about gold and other resources mined in Africa, Asia and in some countries from South America, where modern slavery is very obvious.

About spotting mistakes on your site now.😊

Yes, I found two products underpriced, with a total price of £9313 according with the number of coins in stock, but with a melting value of £11063, so a pure profit for buyer of £1749. With your permission, I will PM you soon for details.

Of course, after you will fix the problem, it is up to you to reveal on this topic what and how this error happened, I will not do it.

I have started this topic only to see another opinions, not to decide myself easier what to do. 

Kindest regards,

Stefan.

 

I completely agree about modern (and all other) slavery. Also it is not just children who are affected.

Mistakes on our website:

We do offer a "Win a Pint" prize, even it is only a typo, grammatical, factual, or logical error. (Excludes my TSF typos).

Any relevant P.M.s would be welcome, especially if you copy @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer in to the conversation, which save me doing it.

I agree with the suggestion to take a screenshot of the error, and you are more than welcome to post it here or elsewhere, preferably after we have had chance to fix it. 😎

 

 

[stefffana]

1 minute ago, LawrenceChard said:

I completely agree about modern (and all other) slavery. Also it is not just children who are affected.

Mistakes on our website:

We do offer a "Win a Pint" prize, even it is only a typo, grammatical, factual, or logical error. (Excludes my TSF typos).

Any relevant P.M.s would be welcome, especially if you copy @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer in to the conversation, which save me doing it.

I agree with the suggestion to take a screenshot of the error, and you are more than welcome to post it here or elsewhere, preferably after we have had chance to fix it. 😎

 

 

Thank you, I will.

Now I am going out for one hour to take my wife from work, but I will PM you this evening.

Regards,

Stefan.

[modofantasma]

35 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

That might be a source of potential conflict in parts of Ireland. Green versus orange!

😎

Blackpools soccer team are orange aren't they too? 🤔

[LawrenceChard]

36 minutes ago, Shep said:

Not to go all “Barry” on this thread but is it really as black and white as that? 

You talk about customers taking advantage here but I put to you the recent events of dealers selling the 2022 SOTD prerelease in batches. Each time they reappeared they were sold at increasingly steep premiums over RRP.

Is this not taking advantage of the fact dealers know the average joe has very little chance of succeeding in the Royal Mint queue? I have no issue with this personally but is it ethical? - probably not. Is it taking advantage of a situation to make a profit? - definitely, and why shouldn’t they, they’re not charities after all.

I really don’t think any company can claim to act wholly ethically. 

 

I wonder if "Barry" realises or cares that he keeps getting extended "bad press"?

A few months ago, I thought about creating a blog and TSF post about 2022 proof sovereigns, and pricing. I did contribute a few scattered comments, but was too busy (mainly skiing) to develop a thorough article about it.

It would also have involved considering the differences between dealers, retailers, and distributors.

If we consider pure dealers who only deal in secondary market coins. The main function here is to make a market between buyers and sellers, while making a profit for the dealer. Dealers need to be guided by market factors as supply, demand, and market prices. No dealer can successfully ignore these factors and hope to stay in business. Don't blame such dealers for their pricing decisions. You can choose to buy or not, sell or not. You are not forced to deal with him, but if you have an opinion of the dealer, whether good or bad, you are entiled to it.

Some coin businesses are not real dealers, they are only coin marketing companies, or retailers. they are entitled to exist, but I would prefer it if some of them were not around, and many of them would not be missed greatly.

Of course, some traditional coin dealers also act as marketeers, retailers, or distributors. Our company has managed to combine secondary market trading and new issue distribution, with reasonable success, since about 2000.

Most years since 2000, one new issue product category we have actively embraced have been each year's proof sovereign issues. Typically, we would contract to buy several hundred proof sovereigns each year, often about 500 pieces, although in 2005, we committed to 650 pieces, out of an issue limit of (from memory) 5,000.

In most years, we have offered pre-release or early bird discounts, often as much as 10% discount. I strongly suspect the Royal Mint disliked us discounting them, but that's probably another story. There are at least two good reasons here. One, I think regular buyers, and sovereign collectors, are entitled to competitive prices. Secondly, we don't want to hold big stocks all year, so we used to try to sell at least half in the first month. If we expect the puble to buy from a small provincial dealer instead of the Royal Mint, we need to give them good reasons for doing so. We know that demand for proof sovereigns does not all happen in the first month, so we like to be able to stock and offer them all year, at least until the next year comes out. It costs money to hold extra stock, for after a few months, we switch to thinking about market prices. Some years, we have beens tuck with surplus stocks, and have had to discount them to reduce our inventory levels. Other years, we have increased prices to try and control our sales, and avoid a complete early sellout. I believe this creates a fair rationing system. 

When there is a "special" year, lots of other non-dealers jump onto the market, and it is a struggle for us to get sufficient allocation to be satisfy our normal demand. 

For the 2022 issue, we bought our coins from a number of different distributors, paying different prices, and with different delivery dates. We allocated a proportion of our first batch for regular customers at a small discount compared with the RM issue price, even though we could easily have sold them all at RM issue or more.

If we had been given a free choice, we would have been happy to buy 1,000 pieces, and to offer the first 500 at a discount.

Subsequent batches we priced according to market factors. I think that it fair, reasonable, ethical, and practical.

The first batch we sold were at lower prices than we had already contracted to pay for some of our later deliveries. Some might think that was stupid of us, and they could be right! 🙂

I know you specifically mentioned the SOTD soveriegns, but similar principles applied.

Lastly, there are a few recent RM issues we would happily sell at less than our cost.

 

[LawrenceChard]

43 minutes ago, modofantasma said:

Blackpools soccer team are orange aren't they too? 🤔

Yes, but we tend to try and keep quiet about them. At least they play on green grass (I think).

😎

[Martlet]

I once faced a similar dilema, finding a mis-pricing and wondering if i should take advantage or inform the business.  When I rechecked, realised i'd misunderstood the specification and it was not mis-priced at all.  I wonder if thats happened here. 

[Midasfrog]

I once spotted some errors on the Royal Mint Bullion website with the sovereign listings , the half sovereigns had been listed with the same diameter and weight as a full sovereign 🧐

I contacted customer service and passed on what I had spotted , I didnt get any prize for my information 😂 the RM are hard up I suppose 🤣

[Darr3nG]

5 minutes ago, Midasfrog said:

I once spotted some errors on the Royal Mint Bullion website

I did too... all their coins were pictured in perfect condition, with no scratches, marks or even milk spots

[GoldDiggerDave]

I spanked the RM last year on black friday.....their 50% discount code worked on 1/4 proof platinum coins!!!!!!!!  Ethical?........I consider it money back for the c**p they have sent me over the years. 

Edited February 19, 2022 by GoldDiggerDave

[Midasfrog]

Its easy to spot a silver forum member when I am in town , they always ware their RM half sovereign earrings with pride 😂 ( 50% off earrings promotion )

[stefffana]

3 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

I completely agree about modern (and all other) slavery. Also it is not just children who are affected.

Mistakes on our website:

We do offer a "Win a Pint" prize, even it is only a typo, grammatical, factual, or logical error. (Excludes my TSF typos).

Any relevant P.M.s would be welcome, especially if you copy @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer in to the conversation, which save me doing it.

I agree with the suggestion to take a screenshot of the error, and you are more than welcome to post it here or elsewhere, preferably after we have had chance to fix it. 😎

 

 

I have tried to send you, @LawrenceChard a private message, but it is not possible. Is coming back this message:

 "LawrenceChards cannot receive messages" .

Please, contact me for details I have promised.

Kindest regards,

Stefan.

[Tn21]

I have had a few HGM orders cancelled on me in the past pretty sure due to pricing error. Did I stop buying from them after they cancelled their sale on me tbh no I didn't. 

Whilst getting some milk and a lottery ticket I confused the Sainsburys cashier as I wanted a £5 note back, long story short she gave me back too much change £10 extra to be precise. I am fortunate to be working, have a roof over my head, food etc so without hesitation I alerted the cashier and gave the £10 back. Would Sainsburys feel that £10 hit on their P&L account absolutely not,

Having said all of this, if I was to stumble across a pile of gold coins and not being able to find the rightful owners, the coins are going straight into my pocket. 

In response to your scenario I would put the order through and alert them during the order stage in the 'Notes' part. 

[stefffana]

10 minutes ago, stefffana said:

I have tried to send you, @LawrenceChard a private message, but it is not possible. Is coming back this message:

 "LawrenceChards cannot receive messages" .

Please, contact me for details I have promised.

Kindest regards,

Stefan.

Sent😊

 

10 minutes ago, stefffana said:

 @LawrenceChard

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by stefffana

[stefffana]

3 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

I have had a few HGM orders cancelled on me in the past pretty sure due to pricing error. Did I stop buying from them after they cancelled their sale on me tbh no I didn't. 

Whilst getting some milk and a lottery ticket I confused the Sainsburys cashier as I wanted a £5 note back, long story short she gave me back too much change £10 extra to be precise. I am fortunate to be working, have a roof over my head, food etc so without hesitation I alerted the cashier and gave the £10 back. Would Sainsburys feel that £10 hit on their P&L account absolutely not,

Having said all of this, if I was to stumble across a pile of gold coins and not being able to find the rightful owners, the coins are going straight into my pocket. 

In response to your scenario I would put the order through and alert them during the order stage in the 'Notes' part. 

Thank you for your answer.😊

[LawrenceChard]

4 hours ago, chrisdobb said:

Suggest you buy some sleeping tablets, you will be asking for organic gold next!

Who can say for where or how the gold we are buying was sourced?

Sleeping tablets probably aren't a good long term solution. Exercise, stretching, meditation, are almost certainly better. Melatonin is probably OK, but I don't think it can be easily obtained in the UK. In any case meditation beats medication.

😎

[James32]

23 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

Sleeping tablets probably aren't a good long term solution. Exercise, stretching, meditation, are almost certainly better. Melatonin is probably OK, but I don't think it can be easily obtained in the UK. In any case meditation beats medication.

😎

Agreed. no good longterm , but tonight I'm floating 🤣

[GoldStandardPartyUK]

6 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

I have had a few HGM orders cancelled on me in the past pretty sure due to pricing error. Did I stop buying from them after they cancelled their sale on me tbh no I didn't. 

Whilst getting some milk and a lottery ticket I confused the Sainsburys cashier as I wanted a £5 note back, long story short she gave me back too much change £10 extra to be precise. I am fortunate to be working, have a roof over my head, food etc so without hesitation I alerted the cashier and gave the £10 back. Would Sainsburys feel that £10 hit on their P&L account absolutely not,

Having said all of this, if I was to stumble across a pile of gold coins and not being able to find the rightful owners, the coins are going straight into my pocket. 

In response to your scenario I would put the order through and alert them during the order stage in the 'Notes' part. 

That's funny because once I stumbled on a pile of milk and lottery tickets, long story short the sainsbury cashier didn't want it in her pocket

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, GoldStandardPartyUK said:

That's funny because once I stumbled on a pile of milk and lottery tickets, long story short the sainsbury cashier didn't want it in her pocket

If the milk was "gold top", I hope it was ethically sourced.

😎

[LawrenceChard]

9 hours ago, James32 said:

Agreed. no good longterm , but tonight I'm floating 🤣

I hope you don't have a boating accident.

😎

[JJH]

On 2/20/2022 at 4:48 AM, LawrenceChard said:

Lastly, there are a few recent RM issues we would happily sell at less than our cost.

 

I really want to say that I actually have a recently released coin I've noticed for a long time that I want to buy
😏I think you are egging me on to spend money and making your profits lower

Just @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer  said to check the status of the coin and didn't reply to me again

[BleyerBullion]

Hi Everyone

Thanks to @stefffana for raising this interesting topic on the subject of ethics. 

As a few people have mentioned, we had a technical issue on our site that meant that the 2022 Sovereign was sold unintentionally at below cost prices. Many people spotted this and benefitted from the error, costing us a couple of thousand pounds or more. As has been mentioned, we could have cancelled the orders (as per our Ts and Cs), but as an act of goodwill, decided that more could be gained from taking a hit, rather than upsetting several good customers and some newbies we hope to retain. I can assure you that as owner of the business, I absorbed the full loss and whenever there is an error that costs us money, I pay the price personally. Sorry to the people who approached us the following week, wanting us to sell more to them at the old wrong price, sadly my generosity could not extend that far.  

For those who set out to comb sites for underpriced products, we do have to deal with this on a case by case basis, but will always err on the side of the customer whenever we can.

Regarding ethics generally, we do some good by commissioning charity bars and rounds from @BackyardBullion who have made some beautiful Owl bars and the Unity Rounds which we sold to raise money for metal health charities. Bullion companies have benefitted from additional interest 

I also like the idea of the Valcambi green, ethical bars and plan to stock them when supplies become a bit more stable. We sell a lot of Baird bars too, materials for which are also ethically sourced but they don't shout about it. Their bars are made from recycled metals taken largely from the jewellery industry. 

Have a great week everyone!