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You can happily buy and give them what you want, CGT rules still apply though except for any legal tender but both will come under inheritence tax when you die. If I was to leave any of my offspring anything it would be a letter with a map in it, one marked with an 'X' and the words dig here. Very hard to tax physical coin is

I like the layout Steve, simple and informative. Here are a few more fact on the History of Coins that you may want to add in, it will also push you begining date to a bit earlier. Sadly I find coins very interesting subject, still better than trains though and I don't have to wear a mac and stand in the rain 3100BC Sumerian writing describing exchange, deposits and loans, first recorded banking transactions between city states and countries using commodities including gold and silver 1800BC Eshnunna Law Code – Used to be in the Bagdad Museum describes 1 shekel of silver as being worth a bushel of grain 750BC Code of Hammurabi – A set of Babylonian banking laws 620 - 600BC Lydia - Oldest gold coin in existence - alloy of gold and silver – Can be seen in the British Museum – A very well researched argument as to why this is the first real coin can be found here http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html 221BC – Qin Dynasty Chinese coin standardisation 70BC – First Gold Staters produced in the UK 43AD – libra pondo - Latin – “a unit of measurement by weight “ now know as the pound, the original was measured as 240 silver denari 600AD – Production of gold and silver coin restarts under the Anglo-Saxons in the UK after the withdrawal of Rome in 410BC 830AD – Penny used as a name for a coin produced under Eanred there are still arguments over where the name penny originated as it appears in a number of old North Western languages I would be a bit wary of the 1091BC reference for the gold coins as this claim is subject to a bit of controversy and even the Chinese government does not really recognise them, this does not mean that they did not have gold coins then but they are thought to come from the end of the dynasty rather than the beginning when shell, spade and knife money was being used. They are attributed to the Zhou dynasty which ran from 1122BC to 221BC see http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Elementals/eBei...ood/t962507.htm

I keep on seeing this pattern of the EUR/GBP/USD/Gold/Silver in lockstep since the beginning of April. The majors are keeping it all hanging together by working together. I think that they are trying to use Gold and Silver as a kind of life raft to slow the sinking of the currencies. In the same way that tying boats together provides a more stable platform and creates areas of calm between the boats. Other currencies are starting to be drawn to this more stable area and as they drift in to these calmer areas their rate against the majors is stabilising but the pull on the life raft gets stronger as the weight of more currencies gets added to it. If they succeed then at some point equilibrium will be established. If they let go of that life raft it is going to go shooting up and they are going to go to the locker of Davy Jones.

Ouch! Sounds like you have a very fair skin there Goldfinger

The £5K single and £10K yearly limit is for gold only. There are no reporting requirements for silver unless it is a fund, ETF, etc, then the €15K limit is for single or yearly under the Money Laundering Regulations 1993.

I know that I should have checked to see if there has been any change to the HMRC advice since I last bothered to look and there has. I have added the legal bits and bobs to the Buying Investment Coins thread http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....ost&p=49276 Basically the £5K limit for a single transaction and a £10K limit for yearly transactions still exist before the dealer needs to take your details if you want physical and there is a €15,000 limit on both single and yearly for funds or other investment vehicles where delivery may not be necessary. The Gold Team has been replaced with the Financial Services (VAT & IPT) Team, so I rung them up and asked what the requirements were and they didn’t have a clue which way was up but it wouldn’t surprise me if gold continues to increase in price then they will start to look at the records.

More on the HMRC reporting requirements for anyone who buys investment gold. The Gold Team has been replaced with the Financial Services (VAT & IPT) Team and the notices have all been updated, all were updated in February 2007 and 2008. If you want to have a look then Notice 701/21A lists all of the coins that the HMRC has declared as investment coins. The reporting is the same for both coin and bar Notice 701/21 6.1 states that records of sales must be kept for investment gold which is delivered or available to be taken away by your customer, so any company that offers delivery at some point are required to keep a record. Except that in the next section 7.1 they have stated that the requirement is for gold that is delivered or taken away. The £5K limit still applies to a single transaction or a £10K limit for yearly transactions before they need to know who the buyer is.

Yep! Thats effectively what I said.

In the UK if you purchase more than £5,000 in one financial calendar year from a dealer then that dealer must inform the HMRC Gold Team of the purchase but the problem is that they no longer exist and haven’t for quite a few years. Dealers are required to record any transaction that could possibly deemed as ‘money laundering’, there are various guidelines produced by various government department but effectively if you pay for something in cash above £500 then they like some form of ID. If the transaction is paid for by a card then there is automatically some form of identification, ditto bank transfer etc but this does not stop them from asking. If the SHTF then first you will be limited to the amounts that you can transfer between banks and get out of the ATM’s. Buyers will be limited to the amount of cash that they can give you as well. If it gets worse than that then you may lose part or all of the debt that the bank owes you and that includes ETF’s as well. If you are able to get your hands on any of the debt then it will be in very small amounts and a long time after the SHTF.

I know a little bit about coins so I have given it a go http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....ost&p=49117

Steve ask for a guide in thread http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....ost&p=49050 like this so here is my attempt to guide people in buying coins Should I Buy Coins or Bar The choice is yours but you should ask the question, “What is easier to sell, a bar, commemorative medallion or a coin that is legal tender in the country that it is produced in?”. If you buy certain coins then in the UK they remain free of Capital Gains Tax as all sterling coin ("Legal Tender") is not a chargeable asset under the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 What is Sterling coin or "Legal Tender" is a bit more confusing as all coins before the Coinage Act 1870 are within the prerogative of the Crown and every else is covered by Parliamentary Acts. Basically everything before 1969 is no longer legal tender and can be melted down anything after cannot. Gold coins are treated separately in the different Coinage and Currency Acts and these make all gold coins from 1837 legal tender and they cannot be melted down, this is also why gold coins are CGT free. Silver coins are different again you have to go back to 1947 when there were 50% silver, pre 1920 they were 92.5% silver, none of these are legal tender and are not free of CGT in the UK but modern silver Britannia’s are. Other countries have different rules so you do need to understand the ones in your country What Coins Should I Buy, Numismatic or Bullion, Krugers, Ducats, Sovereigns, Maple, etc If you want a coin may go up in the future because of its rarity value then buy a numismatic coin. You can buy them from most numismatic dealers, in the UK have a look at http://www.bnta.net/ for a list of dealers, there are loads and the coinage does not have to be gold, in fact some of the rarer and more expensive ones are not gold. Like anything rare the price increases but only when there are buyers who have the cash to buy them. Keep away from them unless you want to be a collector as there are better things around to waste your money on. If you think that the financial markets are rigged then you just would not believe the antique market. If you just want a bullion coin then are many but I suggest that you stick to ones that are easily available in your country as then they are easier to resell as your local dealer will know what they are just by touch and sight. If you take in something like a Poltina then the dealer will not know what it is and you will not get a decent price for it. Precious metal dealers like Bairds in the UK are not numismatic dealers they are bullion dealers, even though they sell coin it is in the main bullion and not collector quality. Physical bullion is a different business, if it is rare they can't melt it so they do not really want anything to do with numismatic quality coin and they just want to pass it on for as much as they can get. How Do I Tell That It Is Not A Fake Whatever you do don’t buy a Fisch, you don’t need one just buy a small metal ruler and a small digital scale that reads to 0.1g, that’s all you need and unlike a specific tester you can use them elsewhere, also a high quality print of the coin helps. You don't need coin testers, specific gravity tests, resonant frequency tests, hardness tests, etc... Check the coin against the print. Measure the diameter, measure the depth and measure the weight. A clean coin, not drilled, chipped or bent will always be within a few percent of the official size and weight of the coin. If it was gold covered lead it would be 1/3 thicker, it does not sound much but place it next to a real coin and you will see just how much it is. If it is 9ct gold and not 22ct or pure then it would be close to a 1/4 thicker. Your fingers can tell the difference of over 1/1,000 of an inch, it is very, very noticeable! Last test for coins that are not proofs, balance it on your finger over a carpet and tap the coin lightly with a pencil, this tests to see if the coin has been pressed or stamped and not cast or made of a sandwich of metal. If it goes ‘ping...’ and has passed the other tests it is so real I would be happy to buy it off you, regardless of what you think it is. If it goes ‘dofh’ then it is a fake. That’s all you need. What Fakes Are There They are likely to be fake coins made from 9ct gold or plated lead or other metal. Lets take Krugerrands as an example, if you did get a fake 9ct Krugerrand you would spot it quite easily but not just through the colour as that can be matched by adjusting the metals used to make the coin. Size and weight would be the biggest indicator, if the size was right the coin would only weigh about 25g, the difference of 9g is about the same weight as a £1.00 coin. If the weight was right then it would be a 1/4 larger than its true size be it either wider, deeper or both. A 1/4 of anything is a huge amount and easy to spot. Trust your senses, I received a 9ct Austrian Ducat fake and as I took it out of the packaging I could tell that it was wrong without resorting to scales or ruler. If you handle a 100 or so 22ct or pure gold coins and then pick up a 9ct or 14ct coin, it will tell you. Handle a 1,000 and you will not even need to pick it up to see that it is wrong. Not everyone has the opportunity to handle lots of coin so reply on the ruler and scale method. There are meant to be fake coins out there that do weigh the same as the real coin they are supposedly made out of platinum. So even if you find one then don’t worry if anybody found out as currently it would be worth more than gold. Nobody has found tungsten fakes yet because the metal is just too hard to work with and gold is still too cheap. Try stamping tungsten in the same way that a coin is made and it will destroy the stamp mill after a few rounds have been through it. The only way to do it would be to use a tungsten core with a gold bonded outer shell that could be stamped. A setup that can do this would be costly, it would have to produce a lot of fake coins to make it worthwhile or the price of gold would have to be far higher. Apart from Tungsten and Platinum just about everything heavier than gold glows in the dark and makes your hair fall out if you near it for too long. Selling Private buyers if you can find them but be careful of selling anything but numismatic coins in an auction as the margin may just wipe out your profit. Dealers are good as they basically charge spread/commission on the price of gold, gold price futures, the size of their stock and the amount of demand they are seeing. They are interested in turnover not investment, sell 1 coin make £10, sell 1,000 coins and make a £10,000. A good dealer will fill up when they think the price of gold is low, future price looks upward and the demand that they see is high. At present most dealers have little stock left and demand is high even though gold price has stabilised. In a selling market they will increase the spread/commission as much as they can to cover any short fall. Some will even hedge the market to reduce any potential loss. Remember that just because you are aware of the market conditions the next person in line may not be or will believe that the price of gold will go up or they must buy gold to fulfil a previous order or buy for manufacturing. Also you would be amazed at how many people want to buy or sell PM’s without having to notify someone. Relatively compact, easy to sell, price may spike up and down intermittently but over a longer term is quite stable. Buy a coin a month, save them and give them to your children, grandchildren or lover before you pop your clogs or even leave them a letter in your will with a pirates map. Take a few abroad and flog them to pay for you holiday spending money. Physical is so hard to tax, that’s one reason why governments hate PM's

If you see art that you would want to hang on your wall on stand in a corner then buy it, love it for what it is If you want to be a patron to an artist then be one, it is your money, but do it for altruistic reasons. Spend the money in advertising the artist in a gallery and getting a payment in the artist’s art. The artist gets recognition and the value of the artists work will increase If you want to invest in art, even that by the great artists, then wait until there is a recession and buy art when the recession is at its lowest point and then trade that art in the auctions for better art. The auction house will always do a deal on the commissions which will make everything a lot cheaper

Caused a laugh and brightend today

Just wandered across this on in the online FT Vietnam has suspended gold imports http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5541c9a6-4151-11...00779fd2ac.html

I do not see this as the same thing as the members of the circle have created a debt to each other. With fiat, fractional reserve, etc one of the members of the circle has created a fictional token of one babysitting session and the token then has been passed on to another member. They have effectively said ‘Thanks for babysitting for me. Here is a token for a babysitting session for your effort, a promise in the future that I will expend effort for you’. One problem is that the person that has been given the token and the majority of the members or the babysitting circle do not fully realise or understand that the token has not been created from some form of effort that equates to the value of the token and the original creator of the token will most probably never expend the effort promised. There is not a problem that the total supply of tokens in the circle has increased. There is a problem that someone has received something for nothing. This would never be noticed if the value of the tokens was never questioned and the number of tokens never diminished to less than the number of ‘tokens created from no effort’. When the number of tokens were less then someone would have to do something for effectively nothing or more likely, people would not accept the token and the token holder would have a worthless token all because it was not created from some form of effort. The state has created money out of thin air to expand the economy which is a good thing only if the economy always grows. If the economy shrinks then people begin to question the value of the currency. If the currency collapses then the token holder is holding nothing but scrap paper. All smoke and mirrors and if involved an entity other than the state as a backer, entirely illegal, fraud I think. There is also the growing first problem, that of understanding of what is going on, taking to various people I think that they are now beginning to understand how money gets created, the smoke is beginning to clear and the mirrors are getting dusty. Sooner or later they are going to look behind the mirrors and see that nothing is there.

Question, are you talking about a gold backed fiat currency or a gold/silver/copper with no fiat currency?

Why must everything grow, decline is a natural part of the same cycle. Economies sometimes fail, ideology changes, demographics change, bubbles burst and people die! Economic migrants will leave countries when they experience a downturn and so will welfare migrants when the rate paid to those that do not work falls as governments reduce spending. As welfare drops in value so more of the indigenous population that was on welfare will have to work in the lower paid jobs that were held by the economic migrants, inflation will only make this happen sooner. The poorest countries are in a demographic crisis already. Richer, successful countries limit the number of welfare immigrants and limit the amount paid out to welfare for immigrants. Economic migrants are also limited and indigenous people are hired before those migrants. They build up sovereign wealth funds when times are good to support the indigenous population during downturns, the more economically intelligent of the population save. There is only a demographic crisis in a downturn when there is not enough money saved, the economically weakest will experience hardship. Poorly lead governments like immigrants because they can obscure financial failings in the increasing numbers of incoming migrants, more tax take, more schools, services, roads, waste, etc, and greater assumed growth. The increased tax take is used to prop up the state economically, trying their hardest to project those ‘good time’ numbers forward showing that the cost of free health services, social commitments, etc, can be met in the future. It is a fallacy because they never save for the lean times. When the economy moves into a downturn the indigenous population can only see the welfare migrants taking the services and handouts from the taxes that they have to pay. Nationalist political parties grow and social unrest begins, the deeper and harder the economic downfall the greater the unrest. Rather than reducing services governments borrow causing inflation that accelerates the downturn. If the downturn continues then those that do pay taxes and are not a drain on the economy but whose parents or grandparents, great-grandparents were immigrants also become the target for nationalists. This is where the UK is heading as it has very little economic reserves even though it seems to be successful. People can either stay and protect themselves financially or become welfare or economic migrants to other countries.

These were specials done for boxes of coins with running dates, they were stamped and not cast. They are not that old either, 80's I think but I cannot remember which private company minted them but I do not think that they were European. I remember the sales blurb about them being made from gold of a comparative value, no intent to defraud, obviously marked, nearly the same scrap price, etc Fake coins are pretty easy to spot even if you have not held one before, to save on typing http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=75558