Thinking of buying gold bars !!

Lokolo

hodd wrote: »

Anywhere else? To be fair, a lot of lower-income people could easily afford to buy a blister pack or two of gold for €4K each. They might not have a safe yet.

If you can afford to risk 4k euros on gold, you can afford a safe.

hodd

SergeyLEM wrote: »

BullionVault

If their website is to be believed, this looks a far more secure (in terms of it not being stolen from your desk drawer) method of purchasing gold. I could even forego Lokolo’s safe idea.

However, companies such as Proaurum still exist where you can buy physical gold. Granted, BullionVault will charge a small storage charge, but this will be less risky (theft-wise) and cheaper than buying and installing a safe. So…

1. What are the pros and cons of BullionVault (or a similar company)?

2. Buying gold through BullionVault seems easy enough, but what about selling?

shaun_from_Africa

IMO, you don't really need the expense of a safe for a few 100g bars.
A bar of this size is about 1/2 the size of a box of matches and could easily be secreted in many places that a burglar would never find. (under a floorboard, somewhere in an attic etc).
The only danger would be the loss due to a fire or forgetting where you have hidden it!

I have my gold bullion stored in the vault of my local bank, but this is only because I have a fair amount and also that I'm away from the UK for long periods, so I felt safer doing this.

jimjames

hodd wrote: »

Anywhere else? To be fair, a lot of lower-income people could easily afford to buy a blister pack or two of gold for €4K each. They might not have a safe yet.

If you are low income with limited savings why would you even think of investing £4k in gold?

Geoff23

jimjames wrote: »

If you are low income with limited savings why would you even think of investing £4k in gold?

Because pretty much everything points to it going upwards in value whilst everything else either collapses or runs to stand still?

Lokolo

Geoff23 wrote: »

Because pretty much everything points to it going upwards in value whilst everything else either collapses or runs to stand still?

But if your car breaks down, boiler breaks etc. its good to have those emergency cash savings.

I doubt the gas man will be able to give you change in gold paying for a new boiler

Geoff23

Lokolo wrote: »

But if your car breaks down, boiler breaks etc. its good to have those emergency cash savings.

Fair enough.

sabretoothtigger

Boilers are expensive and for that amount of money gold would be fine so long as you have somewhere in driving distance who will cash it in for you which is probably the case with most if they wanted

This is how we know its no where near a bubble as its still only extreme amounts people will consider holding gold and then its viewed as extremely risky to own gold despite negative gains on cash

If it gets anyway near one or two thousand pounds worth that people will say 'well I'll keep that in gold till I need to spend it', thats when I'll consider the peak of gold use



If it ever got to keeping safe a few hundred pounds I think people would use forex and hold Australian dollars or something. This is what currently supports USA dollars, lots of unstable countries use dollars as safe foreign cash.
When USA fails to hold its worth people will switch to elsewhere including more use of gold again raising its price

Lokolo

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Boilers are expensive and for that amount of money gold would be fine so long as you have somewhere in driving distance who will cash it in for you which is probably the case with most if they wanted

Exactly, and pay a nice big commission whilst you trade it in. I'm all up for investments, and although the OP hasn't said it, I suspect they are spending all their spare money on gold given they don't want/can't have a safe.

Emergency Savings before investments!

sabretoothtigger

You mean the spread like forex charges a few percent. Im not sure its that massive, say its 5% which is the rate of inflation for holding cash.

So if you hold gold for a year presumably its a fair comparison.
Obviously right now gold is seen as high risk, Im just saying I see the trend to smaller and smaller amounts. For 10k of gold or whatever Im not sure it is a big commission to buy and sell


Looked up the price of 250g bar and the spread is 5.6% Which I agree is not brilliant, I expected lower cost
buy £9383.00
sell 8860.04
http://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/sell-to-us/

We buy back at 98% of spot price.

:undecided 2% spread would be good. Maybe someone with practical experience could say