Atkinsons Buy Back "Sell to Us" Tool

[Scuzzle]

What a rip off, take 10oz bars for example, they are currently selling a 10oz Britannia bar for this

And are offering to buy it back for this.

That's £100 of a difference, £180 for a 10 oz bar was the price I was paying about a decade ago.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Scuzzle

[James32]

That's unfortunately the spread on silver if selling to a dealer. That's why TSF has excelled 

[Agaumac]

@connr25 another TSF endorsement 

[blackadder]

well you do have the vat,and on the buy back their profit to etc.

[BackyardBullion]

I can sell a 10 oz bar for £230 on my buyers club.

Undercut the dealer selling price and get a better price for a seller.

Split the difference and say no to the rip off!

[KleinerVogel]

I received that email too. Not very appealing is it.

 

Instead of  "ready to sell"? It should say "ready to get ripped off and give us free money"?   You'd think they might be a tad more generous, then perhaps more people might be willing to invest in metals more, but when they see loses like that I think it would probably put the vast majority of newbies off.

I can see the value in TSF for buying and selling, despite my moaning and groaning in a previous thread.

[Petra]

🤔😮no one complains at their quite often very good prices for buying gold? We all know that you’re not going to do very well when selling to dealers of any kind. Only worst people to sell to are the pawn shops. Recent example of H and T paying £10 for 1oz of silver…. those coins in their shops for £40 plus!🤔😮

[KleinerVogel]

1 hour ago, Petra said:

🤔😮no one complains at their quite often very good prices for buying gold? We all know that you’re not going to do very well when selling to dealers of any kind. Only worst people to sell to are the pawn shops. Recent example of H and T paying £10 for 1oz of silver…. those coins in their shops for £40 plus!🤔😮

I get that dealers are out to make money and it's obvious they need to make a profit. But they could still buy from people for 10-20 quid more and make a profit of around £30. (That's basically a free ounce of silver for every bar, for their troubles) I suppose it's really the VAT that kills silver as an investment.

[Silverlocks]

I think the secondary market such as here on TSF is the only medium in the UK where stacking silver makes sense.  You can buy a 10 oz bar for £230 or so (currently) and sell back into the market at somewhere about that price.  I think 1oz bullion coins (best by the tube), and bars in the 10 oz to 1kg range combine liquidity and a relatively modest spread.  To some extent you can also buy and sell collectible silver such as Perth Mint, but the premiums are higher so there is more value at risk.  Sometimes you see smaller bars at viable premiums as well.

This is about the only way to do it, although it does assume the continued function of this type of secondary market.  If the secondary market failed and you had to sell back to a bricks-and-mortar dealer you would take a bath on the VAT and residual margin, though.

In other countries such as the U.S. where there is no VAT and margins on silver are slimmer, silver works a lot better.  Here in the UK, you really have to be aware of the secondary market and know where to look.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Silverlocks

[arphethean]

People keep bringing VAT out as an excuse for the very poor rates offered by dealers.

This is NO EXCUSE!

I am a dealer myself and I would be happily paying £220 per 10oz Britannia bar and selling for something like £235 (the current competitive P2P price) - NOT £244 + profit margin. How do I do it? I use the Special Margin scheme for second-hand silver. I only pay VAT on my margin - 20% of £15 is only £3 VAT. Every dealer has this option and uses it. Chards have a special margin section on their website. VAT is not itemised on the invoice as they would then have to disclose their margins, but they are doing it the same way.

I suspect the reason they offer such low buy-back prices is because people still do it as it looks easy and convenient and it is not easy for the public to find a convenient route to sell for more. If you phoned them up and haggled a bit I bet they would go to £200.

A large dealer of course will have staff to pay, premises to keep, storage, insurance etc to worry about and the costs involved in small one-off transactions (including customer interraction, administration, stocking, inventory management) are probably significant and would amount to an hour or more paid staff time per transaction. 

[Silverlocks]

5 minutes ago, arphethean said:

People keep bringing VAT out as an excuse for the very poor rates offered by dealers.

This is NO EXCUSE!

I am a dealer myself and I would be happily paying £220 per 10oz Britannia bar and selling for something like £235 (the current competitive P2P price) - NOT £244 + profit margin. How do I do it? I use the Special Margin scheme for second-hand silver. I only pay VAT on my margin - 20% of £15 is only £3 VAT. Every dealer has this option and uses it. Chards have a special margin section on their website. VAT is not itemised on the invoice as they would then have to disclose their margins, but they are doing it the same way.

I suspect the reason they offer such low buy-back prices is because people still do it as it looks easy and convenient and it is not easy for the public to find a convenient route to sell for more. If you phoned them up and haggled a bit I bet they would go to £200.

A large dealer of course will have staff to pay, premises to keep, storage, insurance etc to worry about and the costs involved in small one-off transactions (including customer interraction, administration, stocking, inventory management) are probably significant and would amount to an hour or more paid staff time per transaction. 

It's nice to see dealers willing to engage with the secondary market like this.  Sadly many don't.

I think the point about most of the public not knowing about the options has done a lot to enable the poor buy-back market amongst dealers here.

[BillShutter]

You don’t have to sell to them. Somebody must though otherwise they would raise their buying rate. 

[Silverlocks]

55 minutes ago, BillShutter said:

You don’t have to sell to them. Somebody must though otherwise they would raise their buying rate. 

The underlying cause is that most folks don't know about the secondary market and how to buy and sell on it, so they will just buy and sell to dealers and take a bath of 30% or thereabouts on the spreads.  Also, generally folks don't think about selling until they desperately need money right now, so it's any port in a storm.  Even knowing about TSF puts you in the privileged few when it comes to having access to a channel in which you can sell PMs peer to peer.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Silverlocks

[MBTPSilver]

Selling on the secondary market privately is a higher risk and hassle than a lot of people want to handle, especially with larger volumes. If you have 1000 silver Brits you want to shift quickly, people will sometimes be willing to take quite the reduced price a dealer offers to just post/drop off all 1000 in one go to an established business.

The time and worry over sending out even say 10 parcels of 100 to various people you don't know, hoping the coins arrive and that the person on the other end isn't going to scam you etc. For some that's not worth the extra money you'd get. It comes down to each individuals preference.

[JohnA1]

Had a quick look and the jist of it is they pay (very roughly) around 0.5%-1% below spot for gold UK coins and 10% over spot for silver brits (and Maples right now). Spot for other silver coins/bars. Postage/insurance will probably eat into this further.

Good to know eh.

Edited November 18, 2023 by JohnA1

[Subspecies]

That's a wide spread and wouldn't sell to them at those rates. Having said that just sold a 1oz gold brit to them at 1% below spot so no complaints on that side. Interesting to read that they are paying £20.95 for silver maples, this also applies to philharmonic which is a good offer imo. I have some and was thinking of selling them here but as someone with no selling feedback would likely have to pitch them at  £22ish. So Atkinsons are good value here for newby selling. Two sides to every coin as they say 😄

[JohnA1]

I recently had a relative selling 5 gold brits (paying partially for a kitchen extension). I had talked him into buying them a few years back, so it felt inappropriate to buy them from him. Gave him a list of London-based dealers, he called around and found the best price, went there and sold them for close to spot.

Didn't mention the forum, I felt it was safer (and less troublesome) for him to just walk into a competitively-priced dealer and get a bank transfer there and then. No fuss, no bull, no dicking around with RMSD, tracking codes, nervous buyers etc. If it were a bigger number, the services of our friend BYB might have been handy perhaps.

If he were flogging silver however, this forum would have been the go-to option.

So I can see a role for dealers buying PMs, as long as they don't take the pish. Especially if you can physically walk there and don't mind a bank transfer (and the transaction record left behind).

 

[arphethean]

3 minutes ago, JohnA1 said:

I recently had a relative selling 5 gold brits (paying partially for a kitchen extension). I had talked him into buying them a few years back, so it felt inappropriate to buy them from him. Gave him a list of London-based dealers, he called around and found the best price, went there and sold them for close to spot.

Didn't mention the forum, I felt it was safer (and less troublesome) for him to just walk into a competitively-priced dealer and get a bank transfer there and then. No fuss, no bull, no dicking around with RMSD, tracking codes, nervous buyers etc. If it were a bigger number, the services of our friend BYB might have been handy perhaps.

If he were flogging silver however, this forum would have been the go-to option.

So I can see a role for dealers buying PMs, as long as they don't take the pish. Especially if you can physically walk there and don't mind a bank transfer (and the transaction record left behind).

 

This is true - but they do take the piss. 

I recently bought a royal Mint gold proof set from a local guy for 1% over spot. This was £7k worth of gold. I sold it for 4% over. He'd asked around dealers and my offer was highest so he sold to me. One dealer offered him £4.5k

It was originally sold to his dad for £18k  

[JohnA1]

18K, oh deer, he was ripped off with the "proof/numismatic" scam. Then they rip them off again buying it back well below spot, fully knowing they'll sell it on with a hefty premium. Indecent.

[arphethean]

Just now, JohnA1 said:

18K, oh deer, he was ripped off with the "proof/numismatic" scam. Then they rip them off again buying it back well below spot, fully knowing they'll sell it on with a hefty premium. Indecent.

Guess who sold it? Yep, Harrington and Byrne.

He didn't tell me who made that shocking offer.

[Spyder]

42 minutes ago, arphethean said:

Guess who sold it? Yep, Harrington and Byrne.

He didn't tell me who made that shocking offer.

Them and London Mint must be the worse. All fur no knickers like the saying goes.

It always comes out after the relative dies what a bad investment it was.  They probably thought they were protecting the the family later on in life when they were gone.  Crikey £18k, even with inflation, would have been better sitting in a bank account

Edited November 18, 2023 by Spyder