propped up by government stimulus projects and have yet to crash: buy silver instead

Gorgeous_George

I'd still prefer chocolate.

Mmmm... Chocolate tea pot or silver tea pot. Which one is better? There's only one way to fnd out...


GG

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

From memory it's like gold - it depends what you buy. Some silver is zero rated and some attracts VAT.

The problem with the zero rated silver is that you have to buy on trust that it actually exists and only hold a certificate. There is a lot of noise at the moment that sliver is under valued because its world quantity is over estinated (due to these certificate schemes). Of course that is speculation but it wouldn't suprise me if there was some truth in it. I certaintly think there is significant risk in buying into these vat free certificate only schemes, so I wouldn't touch them. Then again I wouldn't be inclined to pay (and write off) the 17.5% vat. Therefore silver is not for me, I did look into it, but decided investments like this are just not my thing.

Davesnave

Generali wrote: »

You don't want to use Brasso! It's an abrasive cleaner so literally reduces your investment.

Sorry, person from a poor background here.....we never had none, guv.:o

MrEnglish

This is what I said 1 year ago

"propped up by government stimulus projects and have yet to crash:


Real estate has become much more overvalued and silver has become extremely undervalued. Measured against silver, the median price, single-family home in the hit it's peak in 2002, at a price of 38,123 ounces of silver, some two and half times higher than at the beginning of the last precious market in 1971.

When silver hit its peak of $52.80 in 1980, it was not rare. Today as we've already discussed in detail, identifiable above-ground silver stockpiles have been drawn down to a tiny fraction of their size in 1980.

Remember, in 1980 it only took 814 ounces of silver to purchase one home, and silver wasn't rare then."


Look at all those who disagreed with me and how wrong they were.

Since then house prices have continued to fall, and silver has continued it`s journey to the moon

Element47

Recap....

The most popular thread on these forums was called silver bullion for investment. It had over 10,000 post and hundreds of thousands of views the last few years.

A few days ago it disappeared while a few of us were in the middle of a discussion.

Someone started a 2nd one and it got several pages of posts in a very short space of time. Then it got pulled.

A 3rd was started, and so on.

This went on until the 9th silver investment thread which did not get pulled for some reason. There were a couple of hundred posts on there last night.

This morning that has got censored as well.

We have asked so many times for an explanation from MSE team, but always falls on deaf ears.

Is silver really that dangerous to discuss openly?

If the desire is to discourage silver bullion for investment then it should be noted that this kind of censorship only results in further interest.

Bullfighter

chucknorris wrote: »

Don't you have to pay VAT on silver? I wouldn't be prepared to write off 17.5% at the start of any investment. I certainly would not wnat to buy into one of these 'certificate only' schemes where you avoid VAT but take a risk on the silver not actually existing.

To clarify, yes you pay VAT on physical bullion in the UK.

However, if you look at the market for used bullion (such as eBay), the you will see that the VAT has been priced in.

Eg back when I bought a silver maple for £7.75+VAT (£8.80), I saw numerous 'used' maples completing on ebay for £9+p&p.

Check out Bullionuk.com or any coin shop and ebay today for the spread between new (taxed) silver and it's resale value. If anything you can arbitrage a very tiny profit.

So where is this 17.5% write off?

Element47

Bullfighter wrote: »

To clarify, yes you pay VAT on physical bullion in the UK.

However, if you look at the market for used bullion (such as eBay), the you will see that the VAT has been priced in.

Eg back when I bought a silver maple for £7.75+VAT (£8.80), I saw numerous 'used' maples completing on ebay for £9+p&p.

Check out Bullionuk.com or any coin shop and ebay today for the spread between new (taxed) silver and it's resale value. If anything you can arbitrage a very tiny profit.

So where is this 17.5% write off?

Now it costs around 30 quid for a silver maple with VAT and everything.

Thats what you can sell it for privately, so yes you do get the vat back.

Soon it will be 40 quid and keep going up.

The_Fox_3

as someone who has £200 or £300 quid going spare each month i would like to invest in silver, but for the life of me i cannot find a good way of buying it, and selling it quickly should i need or want to

ideas?

Nikel

The_Fox wrote: »

as someone who has £200 or £300 quid going spare each month i would like to invest in silver, but for the life of me i cannot find a good way of buying it, and selling it quickly should i need or want to

ideas?

If you simply wanted exposure to a commodity that you wish to buy/sell quickly, you could consider an ETF (basically trade a commodity as if it were stocks & shares). There are a couple of ETFs on the LSE such as PHAG for example.
http://www.google.co.uk/finance?client=ob&q=LON:PHAG

Note that the price could go up and down as the spot price goes up and down.

Generali

Be careful with ETFs. Not all are created equal. DYOR before buying. Look especially at the company that is writing the ETF, where it is domiciled, where the ETF itself is domiciled (maybe not the same country as the exchange it's trading on) and finally who is auditing the fund.

If a non FSA regulated company sells a Luxembourg registered ETF on the London Stock Exchange then who is looking after your interests?