THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

NewShadow, sensible people don't buy from the Royal Mint directly because they're over-priced rip-off merchants. When the Royal Mint (monopoly producer) is offering items for sale, it does what it likes, up to the point where the punters refuse to keep shopping.

Once the stuff is out there in the secondhand market, the price is dictated by international bullion prices.

The Royal Mint will sell you a half-sovereign for £222.00 today according to their website. That's very close to used price for a full sovereign (twice the weight).

If you're nearby, why not go on a visit? Could be interesting, just don't buy anything whilst there..............!

DigForVictory

GQ nails it - The Royal Mint can charge whatever it likes.
Chard being a market trader, charges what people are prepared to pay for the gold. It doesn't bother with glossy presentation, putting a year of birth spin or whatever on - it just sells you a portable chunk that can be recognised & accepted by another gold dealer.

I found that out the hard way - think of a family size second hand car - yep, I'd been thinking they were the only players & so lost out bigtime. Not Again & noone in my radius buys from them unless they *want* the glossy flummery.

Er, GQ, could I be cheeky and ask for a copy of that pm, as I'd like to know better?!

GreyQueen

DigForVictory wrote: »

GQ nails it - The Royal Mint can charge whatever it likes.
Chard being a market trader, charges what people are prepared to pay for the gold. It doesn't bother with glossy presentation, putting a year of birth spin or whatever on - it just sells you a portable chunk that can be recognised & accepted by another gold dealer.

I found that out the hard way - think of a family size second hand car - yep, I'd been thinking they were the only players & so lost out bigtime. Not Again & noone in my radius buys from them unless they *want* the glossy flummery.

Er, GQ, could I be cheeky and ask for a copy of that pm, as I'd like to know better?!

I haven't got a copy saved and it took quite a bit of time to type. If NewShadow would care send it to you, that'd be fine by me.

Money isn't just one thing. It's a means of doing business and a means of preserving wealth. If you're doing business with your utility provider, your landlord, whatever, DDs are perfectly fine. I use them all the time for my utilities, rent and council tax. I'm in the system, where I live, what taxes I pay. That data is available to state snoops by other methods, if they want to be bothered.

Money is also savings, current excess of earnings over expenditures stored for future need. Savings are stored energy. If you have money on deposit with a bank, you are an unsecured creditor (ain't your money, honey) plus inflation is devaluing your stored energy and making it less productive when you come to release it in the future. You can 'save' in any number of forms, I know people who 'save' in antiques. Some folks save in gold. It may go up, it may go down, it may stay approximately the same, no one knows.

Know of a bloke who gave up smoking. He realised that the amount of money he'd spent every month on smoking equated to the market rate for one full sovereign. So he buys one a month as savings for harder times. He was managing without that cash in his pocket before he quit smoking, so he reckoned he could manage without it afterwards.

I've seen people sell gold to get cash for a new central heating boiler or some other emergency, and I've seen people buy gold to hold for long-term savings, often socking away a windfall into something which can't be spent without an intermediary buying it, so they're not so tempted to fritter the cash away.

Of course, if you buy bullion and the price drops and you have to sell at that point, you lose some of your money. However, if you keep your money on deposit in a bank or building society, it's losing value anyway, but it's not so obvious what's going on.

As with anything, do your own research, consider worst-case scenarios, be comfortable with the risks or stay out of the game.

karcher

DigForVictory wrote: »

With my luck one Krug would get me Either camel riding lessons Or one camel. Still I'd be buying from Chard or one of their sites - not the Royal Mint.
Once bitten & all that!

Oh yes & wear it either in a location where airport scanners will accept a metal beep, or wear weighted skirts & know which is the important bit of hem...

Bless you GQ for tickling my curiosity - I have now read up on what a Carrington Event is & it's riveting!
<must review where skipping rope is & add sugar lumps>

*Non-prepper pops head in the door*

I spent the early hours of this morning googling Fiat Currency, Carrington Event, Krugerrands and reading the article about having a cashless society....my eyes and head hurt a lot after that little lot but i feel the wiser for it

Took me an age to work out your skipping rope and sugar lump reference though:o

*Exits quietly closing the door on the way out*


ETA I do have a wind up torch, battery powered radio, candles and food for about 3 weeks so very very slightly prepped

GreyQueen

Karcher, did you ever watch The Matrix?

Consider yourself to have taken the red pill. You can't ever go back.:p

ETA; Nice one, pineapple. The universe smiles today.

pineapple

Pineapple is pleased to announce she found a rain sodden £20 (now nicely dried out) this morning on a little country lane.
It must be the universe's way of helping me with the cost of the dog's acupuncture session tomorrow. :beer:

maryb

Speaking of unsecured creditors in banks, piece in the Sunday Times today that Carney is thinking of putting Co-Op Bank out of its misery by the end of the year.

Though I would hope that after all its well-publicised problems in the last year or so, no-one would have more than the FSCS limit on deposit with them.

karcher

GreyQueen wrote: »

Karcher, did you ever watch The Matrix?

Consider yourself to have taken the red pill. You can't ever go back.:p

ETA; Nice one, pineapple. The universe smiles today.

I haven't no..but I can hazard a guess as to what you are insinuating

Pineapple :T

NewShadow

DigForVictory wrote: »

Er, GQ, could I be cheeky and ask for a copy of that pm, as I'd like to know better?!

GreyQueen wrote: »

I haven't got a copy saved and it took quite a bit of time to type. If NewShadow would care send it to you, that'd be fine by me.

I'll send it over now Dig, but given GQ didn't post it here, I'm going to assume it's not for general publication and not put it in the thread.

GQ - My interest is, as you say - to make it a little harder to impulse by. Plus the novelty of owning a lump of gold:D

I've no intention of 'dabbling' in the trade - more a long term, buy one every now and then for the early retirement fund type of thing - Given I'm fairly set I want the choice of working full time after I'm 60 and state pension age (which effects both my work and state pension) is creeping up towards 70.

I'm even tempted to get one of each type of coin (as funds permit) - I've got an indian import box from one of the local hippy shops that looks just like a pirate treasure chest

Could you remind me - what were the big impressive but worthless coins you said you had knocking about?

I want to say challenge coins, but they were more like betting tokens IIRC. Are they the kind of thing you just see around antique fairs, or is there somewhere else that's good for curios like that?

ETA: Flicking through old PMs, something just made me think - anyone heard from Nuatha recently? Just checking if the old coots still kicking about.

maryb

Nuatha actually posted on this thread about two weeks ago but it was just a brief appearance, haven't heard anything since