At what point will a bullion sovereign become too expensive to buy?

[ZRPMs]

@GoldDiggerDave Just been looking at your other topic on why Gillick bullion sovereigns are difficult to find in higher grades. 1957 "with gold now at over £12 a fine ounce" The intrinsic value of a sovereign at over £3. Hard to imagine they are in the region of £400 now.

 

[Foster88]

The thing with using a card all the time is that the money is constantly depreciating. If you buy something for £20 and pay cash, that £20 note is still £20. If you paid by card, the shop or ‘seller’ is likely paying something around 2% ish in fees. So if at 2% fees, that £20 you’ve just spent by card has just become £19.96. This is just an example of course.

The banks and card payment processing companies are the ones really benefiting.

[GoldDiggerDave]

24 minutes ago, ZRPMs said:

@GoldDiggerDave Just been looking at your other topic on why Gillick bullion sovereigns are difficult to find in higher grades. 1957 "with gold now at over £12 a fine ounce" The intrinsic value of a sovereign at over £3. Hard to imagine they are in the region of £400 now.

 

I like to look at the relative wage/sovereign ratio…..1957 a weeks wage was circa £7.50 so the average worker could have bought 2.5 sovereigns per week if they bought nothing else. 
 

2.5 sovereigns 2023 is £1000 the average wage is not 52k per year.   

[SidS]

2 hours ago, Foster88 said:

The banks and card payment processing companies are the ones really benefiting.

Isn't this always the case though?

[Foster88]

7 minutes ago, SidS said:

Isn't this always the case though?

Yeah it is but I mean with more and more of us using card payments over cash, especially since Covid.

[Bigmarc]

4 hours ago, ZRPMs said:

January not quite over yet and so far I've walked out of 2 shops and taken my trade else where and made one cashier take cash, Having refused to pay with a card.

The first shop was the local co-op. Not that busy a morning I grabbed a jug of milk, got to the till. only the new self-service tills operating. On my way back to the chiller to replace the milk The only member of staff asked if I was ok. Perfectly, I said. I'm just putting this milk back. With a puzzled look she asked why. I don't use the self-service tills. Oh she said, they are very easy to use. do you need me to show you. No thanks, I'll get it from the Spar across the road. Still with a puzzled look she asked me why. So I said. Two weeks ago when these were being fitted. Every one was told they were to help out at peak times. Today, your here on your own. Unable to man the tills. Its quite early and nowhere near a peak time. So there are reducing hours now for the staff here. Not only that but dear Mrs Jones that lives on her own can't have a chat now whilst being served. It may have been the only person she got to speak to today. Also I prefer to use cash. The Spar are quite happy to keep two members of staff on at all times and they don't continue to thrust the card machine in my face. I think I'll support them from now on.

Use cash at every opportunity you can and expect to be served. Use it or loose it.

I quite admire the spirit of your cause. I lost all hope years ago when the only clothes shop I could visit disappeared off the high street. I have been wearing the same t shirts and jeans for about ten years now and starting to look like a homeless. Since COVID I have now gone cashless apart from the odd bits I sell on Facebook. My kids grand parents insist on giving the kids £50 notes for Christmas and birthday's. I just stick em somewhere safe until I go to the bank which is a 30 mile round trip. They could just do it electronically in seconds. It would be interesting to know what percentage of transactions are in cash now.

[ZRPMs]

45 minutes ago, Bigmarc said:

I quite admire the spirit of your cause. I lost all hope years ago when the only clothes shop I could visit disappeared off the high street. I have been wearing the same t shirts and jeans for about ten years now and starting to look like a homeless. Since COVID I have now gone cashless apart from the odd bits I sell on Facebook. My kids grand parents insist on giving the kids £50 notes for Christmas and birthday's. I just stick em somewhere safe until I go to the bank which is a 30 mile round trip. They could just do it electronically in seconds. It would be interesting to know what percentage of transactions are in cash now.

I sympathise with you. This years resolution is to use cash in person where possible. If there is an alternative where I can use cash I support that and make it know that that's the reason. Reward those still trying. If we don't Our every move will be tracked in our 15 minuet cities. It's about 6 out of every 10 transaction that in now cashless and increasing rapidly. I resent the implication that I'm up to no good or that I've had the cash from ill gotten gains. I just don't like my every move tracked and followed for marketing or central government purposes. I the day and age where we are told things can not be done for data protection, and awful lot of it is being captured about us. I would like to think I am a free man, of mature age and I do not need to be advised, told or legislated to do any thing for my own good or protection. However, it is becoming harder to reconcile this with reality.  

Back to the topic though, I think as the spending power of our measure of exchange the pound reduces. Goods will continue to increase. I suppose as long as the average bullion coin represented by the amount being asked I'll continue to pay that for as long as I can or need to. Be that £200/ £400 or even £1000.  

[MergingCultures]

4 hours ago, Foster88 said:

The thing with using a card all the time is that the money is constantly depreciating. If you buy something for £20 and pay cash, that £20 note is still £20. If you paid by card, the shop or ‘seller’ is likely paying something around 2% ish in fees. So if at 2% fees, that £20 you’ve just spent by card has just become £19.96. This is just an example of course.

The banks and card payment processing companies are the ones really benefiting.

£20 cash

- losses from petty cash

- time for counting

- time for depositing the cash in the bank

 

£19.96

- ?? 

Automated accounting system means no need to even book the sales. So time saved there too.

Edited January 28, 2023 by MergingCultures

[pricha]

I was at a service station the other day. Every till could not accept cards because of a glitch.  It was cash only. There was a ATM that charged £1.99 to withdraw cash.  Luckily I had cash on me that day which was usual for me nowadays.  

[pricha]

Another ( pointless ? ) note . I paid a monthly payment into a investment trust savings plan for years. After I few years I switched it to an ISA with the same company to save hassle with tax... another few years later they sent me a nasty letter. Unless I provided proof who I was they would no longer accept any more payments...they wouldn't accept a utility bill from the internet even though they wanted to be paperless themselves.I.I closed the account immediately and bought some lovely Victoria Young heads. ☺️.  I kick myself every day for wasting money in this useless ISA and not buying sovereigns when they were cheaper. 

4 minutes ago, pricha said:

. 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by pricha

[sixgun]

Is this thread still about when will a bullion sovereign be too expensive to buy?

Too expensive to buy by whom?
If something is too expensive to buy, it will never sell and the price being asked is meaningless. 
How will you ever sell your sovereigns if they are too expensive to buy?
Logically you won't, so if you want to sell the sovereign you'll drop the price. You might accept something other than fiat, like the chap's youngest daughter or some such.
i can see the fiat price of soveriegns going very high but at the same time a loaf of bread will rise in price as well - it is simply a sign that the currency died and who would want to use a dead currency?

[pricha]

So you can no longer afford Sovereigns  because cost of living is so high ? But isn’t buying sovereigns now an edge against rising costs in future 🤔 can you afford NOT to be in gold ?  Sovereigns will always sell as there is always someone higher up the food chain. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by pricha

[pricha]

One more point. Money printing by central banks QE caused house price bubble , a crypto bubble and a stock market bubble.  Gold has done the opposite.  Its risen while the money printing has slowed down .  I'll keep buying sovereigns as long as I possibly can. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by pricha

[GoldDiggerDave]

47 minutes ago, sixgun said:

Is this thread still about when will a bullion sovereign be too expensive to buy?

Too expensive to buy by whom?
If something is too expensive to buy, it will never sell and the price being asked is meaningless. 
How will you ever sell your sovereigns if they are too expensive to buy?
Logically you won't, so if you want to sell the sovereign you'll drop the price. You might accept something other than fiat, like the chap's youngest daughter or some such.
i can see the fiat price of soveriegns going very high but at the same time a loaf of bread will rise in price as well - it is simply a sign that the currency died and who would want to use a dead currency?

To whom?  the average Joe, the normal working bloke who buys 1-2 every couple of months............I asked this question on the back of a conversation I had with one of my mates, I see him as the "typical"  middle class man with a family, nice house 2 cars 2 kids in a nice area.   He said he's not buying as many  because they are out of stock or now having longer lead times, but the main reason was the real world end of the month cost.   £400 is a reasonable amount of spare income at the end of the month for a family doing okay especially when they are the ones in the crosshairs getting stripped 7 way from Sunday with inflation, high food, energy costs, and sitting on a mortgage  time bomb of goring form 1.2% to 6-7%. etc. 

I showed a video of the RM in 1957 minting sovereigns and they were £3 when the average wage was £7.50-£10 per week so "average" earner could buy 2.5-3 sovereigns per week if they bought nothing else.   Today someone would need to be earning £1000-£1200 per week or 52-62k per year  to be the same average earner.

People here are more advance stackers/investors and collectors and there's different perceptions  for retaining their wealth, and most will still be buying selling and trading when they are £1200 per sovereign but if wages don't catch up guys like my mate will be shook out of the market for good.   Possibly opportunities for selling more fractional gold. 

 

[SidS]

2 hours ago, pricha said:

So you can no longer afford Sovereigns  because cost of living is so high ? But isn’t buying sovereigns now an edge against rising costs in future 🤔 can you afford NOT to be in gold ?  Sovereigns will always sell as there is always someone higher up the food chain. 

Hmm Greater Fool theory no? That's always a dangerous assumption to make. Even gold can become a bubble - as it did in the early 1980s. It went up and up, found it's correct level, but became popular and then went up and up some more... And then it crashed and went into a 20 year bear market.

[sixgun]

7 hours ago, GoldDiggerDave said:

To whom?  the average Joe, the normal working bloke who buys 1-2 every couple of months.

i just heard this morning that a third of children in the UK are in food poverty. i don't live in the UK so i have got out of touch with how fooked up it is and my family who are there are 'well off' so are probably oblivious to this sort of thing. But it sounds like the average Joe doesn't have the spare money to buy sovereigns and probably didn't in 1957.

I used this webpage to see what 'average' income was. https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in#tool-results-section
Of course average is misleading b/c high income family skew the average up.
Sovereigns have been out of the reach of the average Joe since the early 2000's. 
People will buy them - i would still buy them at £2k a pop b/c that would be the price of gold.

The issue isn't that gold is too expensive, it is that paper money, especially Sterling has gone to rat shlt. There is a website - https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Here is a US chart showing how pay has not kept up since the 1971. That isn't coincidence it was the year money went full fiat. Real growth in Western economies stopped around that time - everything after that has been an illusion. 

So in conclusion, the average Joe cannot afford sovereigns - they are either scrapping along or they are blowing it on some consumer crap they never needed.

Edited January 29, 2023 by sixgun

[theman73]

11 minutes ago, sixgun said:

The issue isn't that gold is too expensive, it is that paper money, especially Sterling has gone to rat shlt.

People are to blind to see this, they simply want to get rich buying gold coins.

Computer said no.

If you buy today 1000 gold coins keep them for 30 years, you will stil have exactly same amount of coins not a single one extra. The value will be different, but all products will have different value after 30 years.

Edited January 29, 2023 by theman73

[Petra]

Gold sovereigns were never for any ‘average working person’, not prior to Gillicks bringing them back, not since. For most people still, sovereigns are something you see on Dickinsons real deal or in a pawn shop/jewellers. Other than that most people wouldn’t know where to start buying them from, wouldn’t be interested or not have the money. When to expensive to buy? For most people probably now.

[James32]

1 minute ago, theman73 said:

People are to blind to see this, they simply want to get rich buying gold coins.

Computer said no.

I don't think anyone with half a brain is expecting to get rich from buying gold. 

Let's take an arbitrary number if I may. 

10k in gold coins in a mixture both low premium and high liquid coins..in 5 years they will hopefully have kept up with inflation and protected buying power.

10k in a bank for 5 years just sitting there, yes it will always be 10k,but dare I guess how the world looks in 5 years?

As you see, nothing earth shattering going on with gold, but hopefully a free hobby with a little built in protection 😉 

[theman73]

3 minutes ago, James32 said:

As you see, nothing earth shattering going on with gold, but hopefully a free hobby with a little built in protection

That's the spirit!

Unfortunately, on the last weeks people around here see gold coins like the final solution, which is quite wrong.

Edited January 29, 2023 by theman73

[James32]

4 minutes ago, theman73 said:

That's the spirit!

Unfortunately, on the last weeks people around here see gold coins like the final solution, which is quite wrong.

Yeah I agree, there's a fair few purchases made solely on "FOMO" or naively copying other's..but as long as every new member goes in with a genuine 5-10 year plan, they will do OK 👍 

My fear is someone may buy a sovereign today at £400 then panic sell on the next dip at £380 and think "Gold is a mugs game"

[theman73]

3 minutes ago, James32 said:

Yeah I agree, there's a fair few purchases made solely on "FOMO" or naively copying other's..but as long as every new member goes in with a genuine 5-10 year plan, they will do OK 👍 

My fear is someone may buy a sovereign today at £400 then panic sell on the next dip at £380 and think "Gold is a mugs game"

Well, most of the buyers are in for a quick profit, nothing wrong with that, but they also need to understand that a sovereign bought x eggs last year and this year the same sovereign didn't buy today x+100 eggs, quite the opposite, even if the graphic show them that they are on the real deal.

[flyingveepixie]

9 hours ago, sixgun said:

Is this thread still about when will a bullion sovereign be too expensive to buy?

Too expensive to buy by whom?
If something is too expensive to buy, it will never sell and the price being asked is meaningless. 
How will you ever sell your sovereigns if they are too expensive to buy?
Logically you won't, so if you want to sell the sovereign you'll drop the price. You might accept something other than fiat, like the chap's youngest daughter or some such.
i can see the fiat price of soveriegns going very high but at the same time a loaf of bread will rise in price as well - it is simply a sign that the currency died and who would want to use a dead currency?

Quite. I think the question was asked on a personal level though, ie when would a bullion sovereign be too expensive to buy (in your own opinion)?

Talking of dead currencies I just did a quick search of the gov.uk website and look what I found.  I think everyone will find this link rather interesting..

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImcGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hjb250ZXh0JmNvbnRleHRpZD0yMzY0OTgzOSZvd25lcj01MDcwMDAwJnBhZ2VjbGFzcz1TZWFyY2gmcmVxc2lnPTE2NzUwMDgyMjEtNWUwMDU2NjM3YzllMDQ0N2MwNGU3NThjNDA2OTlmNzdjMzU4YWMxNw==

Edited January 29, 2023 by flyingveepixie

[Darr3nG]

3 minutes ago, flyingveepixie said:

Quite. I think the question was asked on a personal level; though, ie when would a bullion sovereign be too expensive to buy (in your opinion)?

Talking of dead currencies I think everyone will find this link rather interesting..

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImcGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hjb250ZXh0JmNvbnRleHRpZD0yMzY0OTgzOSZvd25lcj01MDcwMDAwJnBhZ2VjbGFzcz1TZWFyY2gmcmVxc2lnPTE2NzUwMDgyMjEtNWUwMDU2NjM3YzllMDQ0N2MwNGU3NThjNDA2OTlmNzdjMzU4YWMxNw==

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[theman73]

12 minutes ago, Darr3nG said:

Seeing the Big Picture

That's the trick