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Buying Physical PMs & Protection Of Wealth


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Thanks for the info. I sold pretty much all my PM investments near the peak in 2011 and have been sitting on the sidelines (paying off mortgage) for the past 4.5 years. Looks like a reasonable time to start getting back in particularly in silver. I appear to have just bought the last 100 1oz Britannias from Silvertogo :)

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Another swing back in favour of Celtic Gold..

 

They offer a 3-month free Vaulting facility where you can order as much as you like, and then get them sent to you in a single delivery (@ 69E).

 

Really like the look of this service. It means that you can buy in smaller chucks and not have to worry about getting them delivered, so you could conceivably do £-cost averaging more frequently than the usual once-a-month without incurring any delivery, then pay a one-off 69E delivery for all of them combined.

 

The savings would be pretty substantial, and of course increase the more orders you place.

 

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Thanks for the info. I sold pretty much all my PM investments near the peak in 2011 and have been sitting on the sidelines (paying off mortgage) for the past 4.5 years. Looks like a reasonable time to start getting back in particularly in silver. I appear to have just bought the last 100 1oz Britannias from Silvertogo :)

 

Good move. I've also been directing all my spare cashflow at overpaying the mortgage in the last 4 years. Together with the stupifying rise in London prices we are currently sitting on about 70% equity in our place, bought just 5 years ago. The plan to be completely mortgage-free in another 5 years is right on track.

 

I just took out a £10k personal loan with Tescobank @3.5%. Hurling most of it at a lump-sum mortgage overpayment (@2.99%) and then using the rest to keep my bank balance above a certain minimum threshold so that the bank waives the monthly account fee - the loan APR pays for itself, so it's literally free money. How's that for beating the banks and their own game.

 

Now however I'm genuinely excited about accumulating physical PMs. I think when we all look back in 5 years time we will not be disappointed.

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OK, just pulled the trigger and bought some more silver from CelticGold.

Bought 20 Philharmonics & 25 Britannias from their site. Came to 773E. I had to pay using TransferWise, and it converted to £604.
At some point I'll have to take delivery of it, but hopefully by then I'll have put in several more orders and just pay for a single delivery.

By comparison the same order on Silver to go would have been £624 and I'd have had to incur an immediate £13 delivery fee this time (total £637), and each time I order.

 

So the Celticgold route seems a good deal to me, if you have no issues with not having immediate delivery.


I'm cherry picking the best deals that I can see on CelticGold. Their Britannias seem very well priced but other coins less so, so if you have a particular coin you want then the savings might not be quite as much.

 

Now, if only the GBP would pick itself off the floor...

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Philharmonics are very popular - they'll be fighting to buy them off you over in the EU

 

So you've bought from CelticGold before?

How did you arrange the delivery?

 

As explained, I've deferred delivery for 3 months and will then have all orders shipped in a single delivery.

I suppose there is a risk of something happening within that time, but other than that I don't see a drawback.

 

At the moment I'm just looking to acquire as many oz as I can afford at the lowest price. When I've built up my stack after a year or so then I'll look into more premium semi-numismatic stuff. Seems that if you select the right coins and build the sets then they have considerable collectable value even above their normal bullion coin premium. Lunars, Kookaburras etc from 5-7 years ago all go for 2-3 times above spot. The long term idea would be to acquire a number of these, sit on them, then sell them when they have appreciated, then repeat the trick. Who says that you don't earn interest on precious metals?

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Now however I'm genuinely excited about accumulating physical PMs. I think when we all look back in 5 years time we will not be disappointed.

Pretty much how I felt 7 years back, never sold any bar odd trade to test sale routes eBay etc, but stopped buying silver when it really spiked. Also made first purchases for along time, use Atkinsons because I can collect and speak to Paul the owner, important to me.

 

This thread reminds me of the Channel island ways I used to try saving a bit in tax, before they closed the loopholes!

 

Used to buy from Sarnia Silver and Guernsey mint. The later was the best because I'd go for a weekend break and got to speak to Bruce Rowan a few times, he was very educational on types of coins, never mind the market itself, best of all the restaurant on site was cosy and well worth a visit. Have to thank someone from GEI for tipping me off about them. Would still recommend their service and worth a visit for anyone U.K based.

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Did you have to smuggle your silver coins back to the mainland from Guernsey or was it VAT free in the old days if you picked them up yourself and brought them back?

 

If we popped over to Estonia to buy silver coins, do we have to declare them for VAT purposes on entry back to the UK?

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I see that Guernsey Mint (now called Bullion Rock) offers storage services.

One could always buy the silver coins and have them kept in Guernsey to save the 20% VAT

 

http://www.bullionrock.com/bullion-guide/storage-and-insurance

 

Silver storage costs are 0.50% p.a.

- charged monthly in arrears on the value of the assets held and subject to a minimum charge of $10 per month

I thought they used £ in Guernsey rather than $

Or are they referring to USD?

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Did you have to smuggle your silver coins back to the mainland from Guernsey or was it VAT free in the old days if you picked them up yourself and brought them back?

 

If we popped over to Estonia to buy silver coins, do we have to declare them for VAT purposes on entry back to the UK?

Not so long back you could easily buy VAT free anything under £18 from memory, no other import restriction.

 

So people like Silver Sarnia made a good legitimate living. Paul Atkinson also told me he supplied them, I have no idea whether it's true or not. However, Channel island traders would sell each coin individually and discretely packaged to the mainland, the postman could think they were computer disks,

 

Once the cost per ounce coin of such as Maples or Brits exceeded this, they were smart enough to offer 1/2 ounce Aussie coins my favourite, but there were others. Their service was exceptional, only wish I'd been smart enough to use it more, but mini drops of 10 or more packets started attracting said posties interest. Hence the cover story; did find it funny watching him ram them into the letterbox though. Should stress this was a perfectly legitimate transaction, all complying to U.K tax law at the time.

 

The loophole closed a couple of years ago, so now I believe the remaining C.I online sellers put VAT on at the checkout stage, but it's been awhile since I used them, when I bought a couple of collector series coins, just because of their service.

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I see that Guernsey Mint (now called Bullion Rock) offers storage services.

One could always buy the silver coins and have them kept in Guernsey to save the 20% VAT

 

http://www.bullionrock.com/bullion-guide/storage-and-insurance

 

Silver storage costs are 0.50% p.a.

- charged monthly in arrears on the value of the assets held and subject to a minimum charge of $10 per month

 

I thought they used £ in Guernsey rather than $

Or are they referring to USD?

Whilst buying and hoarding in Guernsey is a possibility, unless I had immediate access I wouldn't personally. We used to go over by boat odd times.

 

Just looked at their new rebrand, I suspect it's to appeal to a global audience now the U.K tax benefit has gone. You can still buy in £'s though, maybe the site detects your country of enquiry, I'm really not savvy on such tech matters.

 

They used to make a big thing about the "doubles", a real nice coin. Bought a few for my kids partly as Bruce educated them a little, ( he even let them hold a gold bar ha), but also because they carried a nice picture of Victor Hugo and we did the house tour/history thing over there.

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I might look at vault storage after I've had a reasonable amount of phys delivered, but I don't think that will be for a year or two.

 

It's interesting being a a phys buyer - more so that just watching the USD spot price, you have to be aware of the price in your local currency.. so although Gold got whacked this morning GBP also fell (probably because Boris saying he would campaign for Brexit), so the price in GBP is unmoved. You also have to be aware of what premiums are doing. When the phys market is hot, the premiums will rise and you pay much more over spot price.

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Rigger, if I buy silver britannias through Bullion Rock and have them stored there, should I wish to have them sent to me in the UK a few years down the line when hopefully, the price is much higher, am i right in thinking that Bullion Rock will make me pay the VAT before they will send me the coins?

And if so, will the VAT be 20% of the price I pay now rather than on the higher value of the coins when I want them in my hot little hands?

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CMJ my assumption would be yes to VAT. As I alluded personally I just wouldn't go that way being a complete cynic on most things. Which would also lead me to think what's to stop the limit from being increased if government coffers get tight?

 

Obviously it centres around the whole debate of safe storage. If it was me I would just have little bits of insurance spread around my kin in pretty safe places to mitigate such risk.

 

Your call and you could ask them yourself not meaning to be flippant, just I don't really know for sure and I suspect bit like I'm slightly swerving, you could be given the caveat, we are not qualified to give tax advice. However, you may get guidance as a generalisation depending on how you ask in my experience. Everything about the website tells you they will be non commital http://www.bullionrock.com/bullion-guide/tax-on-bullion

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Silver is SOARING in GBP.

 

https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/silver-price/silver-price-today/

 

This is precisely why I'm in a hurry to accumulating silver, as the pound in my pocket is worth less.

 

Look at how PMs have preserved purchasing power in Argentina as their currency has gone to the knackers yard:

 

http://www.goldrate24.com/gold-prices/south-america/argentina/

 

 

It WILL happen here... and everywhere.

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gold/silver at 82.8 as PMs get whacked down today. Now almost 2 standard deviations away from mean.

 

I've bought 3 tranches and am up to 145oz of silver already. Have funds in place to acquire up to 1,000oz this year, and to be honest I hope I get to back the truck up at under £10oz.

 

Buying a crisis insurance instrument when it is on sale on the eve of a financial meltdown seems like a smart move to me.

 

24h_gold_silver_ratio.gif

 

t24_ag_en_bpoz_2.gif

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  • 2 weeks later...

DrSolar, you greedy pig!

 

What price did you pay? Presumably you coughed up 20% VAT

Do you have to add 20% on top of the price shown at the silver-to-go website?

 

My coins finally arrived today after a bit of a delay as they had run out of stock despite their website saying they were in stock before, during and after purchase! Anyway they are here now.

Including delivery costs it worked out at £14.20 per coin delivered.

There was no VAT to pay on delivery so the price you see on the silver-to-go website is the price you pay.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Can we rename this the Stacker's Thread, then? ^_^

 

Bought quite heavily today, though I think we may go a bit lower in the short term.

 

Think that I am up to about 320oz.

 

I have also been buying bits of silver flatware on ebay.. quite fun, actually.

 

Have happily managed to persuade the wife to give put 5% of her income into buying, which is great as she is a pretty high earner.

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"Can we rename this the Stacker's Thread, then?"

 

Are you joking?

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Can we rename this the Stacker's Thread, then? ^_^

 

Bought quite heavily today, though I think we may go a bit lower in the short term.

 

Think that I am up to about 320oz.

 

I have also been buying bits of silver flatware on ebay.. quite fun, actually.

 

Have happily managed to persuade the wife to give put 5% of her income into buying, which is great as she is a pretty high earner.

 

Stacker eh. Let me find you somewhere warm and cosy to hang out, just lurk in the shadows if you wish, mostly do myself, it's full of information, all the debates you have been trying to cover, just Oz centric http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-49009-stacking-faq-s.html

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  • 3 months later...

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