id5

I still refine small quantities of gold and silver although now only to produce metal that can be used in jewellery, most of this is just melt, assay, remedy and use. I still use some chemicals such as nitric but UK Health & Safety being what it is gets in the way of getting large enough quantities of nitric unless you have a fume hood, etc. We buy one later next year as may have a need for both a hood and the nitric. Unless you know what you are doing with acids and the reactions from other materials then do yourself a favour and keep away. If you breathe in the fumes you can get your lungs burnt and they do not recover. There are some real killer chemical reactions as well, especially the cyanide ones. It can be fun but it will never be as cheap as the big boys with their cyanide leech and electro-winning equipment.

I would go with that but change it slightly to I am persuaded that good trading consists in forcing yourself to do absolutely nothing 99.9% of the time. It is so hard to be dispassionate..m investment failures have been because I panicked, just couldn't resist and added a bit more or coming out of a trade too early. Plan your trade and trade your plan.

It can be if you want it to, wordplay is one of the beauties of the English language. FYI on average gold does little between the end of Nov and the beginning of Jan but then it takes off again, hence the need for freshly polished rocket pictures

Polishing your rocket...pictures like GF and Steve Netwriter will be to get ready for the January gold rush

Thats why I kept on going on at Magpie when he was around about real money, something that the average man on the street can understand, something that would still hold some value after the currency that it was used to represent had collapsed.

GOM, these are older bars. Note the 999 which is reference to the purity of 99.9%, the unmarked bar will be even older at 99.5%. New bars from Heraeus are refined to 99.99%. I will be happy to take these and any other off your hands off your hands at spot minus a handling fee of course

But they are often with only a small amount of gold in them that barely covers the cost of the shipping which is now paid for by the gold reclaimer using Special Delivery licensed post. It is still more effective for them to collect from the local jewellers. I have just come back fom the IJL where I had a few interesting chats to a few of the jewellery manufacturers and to the precious metal producers like Johnson Mathey. They are worried as the increase in gold price is hurting them through lack of sales. There was also less gold jewellery on display except for the standard diamond encrusted white gold. The vast majority of jewellery this year was silver. Everyone was saying that compared to gold silver seems cheap.

No, just a few guys in the metals and jewellery markets. I was talking to someone that owns one of these companies and it is not getting the response that it hoped for as many people prefer to use a local jeweller or pawn shop.

The law is very particular on coin weight and size, and these laws are enforced through the Trial of the Pyx that is the longest running trial in the world. The weight of a silver Britannia is 32.45 grams and it is not permitted to be less when issued, there is no downside tolerance to either weight or composition on UK coinage. The little pocket digital scales that I use for coins can read to 0.01g but have a tolerance of 0.1g. So if I weigh a new silver Britannia it will be above 32.35grams on my scales when they are calibrated correctly. The only other fixed dimension is the diameter of 40mm and this has a tolerance of 2%, so a silver Britannia will be up to 40.8mm before the die is removed from use, although they are generally taken out before this. Do not forget that your ruler, micrometer, etc will also have a tolerance that is also affected by temperature. But honestly you do not need to be this anal about your coins. If you think that they are fake take them to a coin dealer and ask. The coin dealer will have seen so many that they will be able to tell the fake by sight, touch and by feeling its weight. The human senses are amazing and after seeing a 100 or so of the same coin from different vendors you would be able to spot a fake very quickly. Unless they are airtight then they are not suitable. If you are storing them singly then use capsules, in multiples then a tube but store them in the dark as this helps to reduce chemical reactions.

No, coins ring because they have been made in a press. Although some bar is now pressed rather than cast the ring test does always produce the same result. Fisch balances are based on older technology that used to be prevalent in banks to check coin before the microchip was invented but you need different balances for different coin weights and sizes. All you need today is a cheap set of digital scales and a ruler. The coin will never exceed the maximum diameter or weight for the coin, forget a coins height as it changes on the amount of pressure applied by the press. Just make sure that you know zero and adjust your scales, then measure and weigh one coin out of the packet to prove what it is and then weight it in the packet, weigh the remaining coins in the packets. You will soon spot if one of the packets is slightly over or under and that it will make little difference to the weight because it is so light. Do not store silver coins in plastic unless it is Mylar or similar. Most PVC's release Hydrochloric acid over time, faster in sunlight and it will turn your coins black over time. Silver Britannia's are not really bullion coins because they are produced in such low numbers. I am sure that it does, that is why there are coin collectors and why they pay stupid prices for well kept coins.

I do hope GF that the rest of the prediction in your siggy's graph becomes true, now would it be nice to wave that under the noses of the 'but no one could predict it' brigades

They are milled into the die that the coin blank is pressed into. After stamping into the die the bottom of the die lifts and rotates to force the coin out. There have been a number of coins that have had diagonal reeding on the edge, originally it was an attempt to make both counterfeiting and coin clipping harder.

History Dr. B. history. It's been a 1,000 years since the UK has been conquered, the Civil War was just a power struggle not a revolution and its result just a change of heads. There are just too many vested interests from the legal and banking fraternities to want or allow a change, you can also add in the estate agents, surveyors, financial advisors, etc that all make a cut of any attempted sale. Labour tried to make a change but ended up making the system even more of a rip off with their Home Information Pack. As to selling houses by the sq ft or sq metre, if that was to happen in the UK all and sundry would be able to see that the recent rise in house prices was not due to the market getting better but because of those that have brought a larger house at a discounted price, although one above the average. ‘It’s a bargain! And look, we got it right because now house prices are increasing!’. Sadly the fundamentals that caused the original drop in price are still there, just peeking out from behind the curtain, their effects just delayed by the government trying to make things look better, stringing out the game just a little bit further.

As Yoda would say 'Hard to see the dark side is' I am already getting out of Sterling and into anything that might hold water such as other currencies and PM's, if your base currency is GBP then I believe that you should get ready for a poor financial harvest this autumn. Sterling may have held up since the beginning of the financial year but all of the charts I look at suggest that the only direction is south. Personally, I think that we are in for a repeat of last year from here to spring. A few more big companies, banks, etc will go under because they are not big enough for the governments to let fail, the markets will have a tough time. I suspect though that some of the players will be different, governments, currencies, banks and businesses that were strong may become weak. I will keep all of my investments fluid and hop from one to another as they all sink again.

Japanese election results

However, he cautioned that when interest rates ultimately start to rise again as the wider economy recovers, the strong house price increases of recent months "would become difficult to sustain". "The eventual exit from exceptionally loose monetary policy could make the recovery in the housing market bumpier than some might expect after the last few months of price increases," said Mr Gahbauer. I wonder how many readers have missed these words of wisdom.

Gordon Brown would have sold it off by now, what is up with the US

If money flows out of stocks Dr. B. where do you expect it to go? The answer to that may be worth a long trade.

I remember that thread! He also started going on about a thin layer of gold being formed on the lead sheilding inside nuclear reactors, another money spinner i'm sure

Congrats... but was a little more information than was needed. Unless of course you are keeping it at home, in which case would you please tell me your address, PM me for secrecy

But there are some that you just can't feel sorry for. I have a friend who owns his own house outright, has a small portfolio of mortgaged rentals which he lets predominately to people he employs and is just about to exchange on a new house with a mortgage. He believes that the market will only go up from here and cannot see that if his company’s revenue takes a hit so will his portfolio, etc.

De-regulated banking? Because it sure is not going to be exports

That looks a horrifying future! Even if they sink the pound to oblivion there is still no guarantee that rates will stay low.

Better still, make the tube out of Mylar including the foam rather than PVC and then Silver can be safely stored in them as well.

The face value of a coin is the minimum that the coin is worth as legal tender, in the UK that means that a court would accept in payment for a fine or other debt payable to the court. HMRC take the market value of the coin not its face value, so about £620 at todays prices.