Hi all,

What’s the best way to buy gold? I looked at the Royal Mint – thinking circa 5k. They have a storage option, so you don’t have to worry about it laying around the house. Would be selling it within in a year or two.

Cheers,
FM.

Krugerrands are a popular device for amassing “bullion” in coin form. 1oz.

How much gold would sir require?

Britannias are better than Krugerands as they’re legal tender and hence no Capital Gains Tax.

https://www.royalmint.com/invest/bullion/discover-bullion/capital-gains-tax-on-investments/?

https://www.chards.co.uk/

https://occaminvesting.co.uk/should-you-invest-in-gold-as-a-uk-investor/

Ifound this article an interesting read

Do you want physical gold?
With the associated storage costs?

Or a physically backed ETC?

We’ve seen this havent we ?

Why gold ?
It’s not particularly exciting performance wise just now.

You’re about 4-5 years too late with this question. Prices are around the highest for the last 30 years, at least

Gold Prices

Prices are around the highest for the last 30 years, at least

Don’t I know it, it’s a pain in the butt for those who make pieces of jewellery from gold, especially 18ct.
The only upside is that scrap is worth more.

I have a half sov ring you can buy?

I use Revolut for buying commodities – ok so far but probably wouldn’t want to keep too much with them. There are gold funds that you can stick in your ISA – Bestinvest and I believe EQ Investors do a few. These would be a safer option but with higher fees, roughly 1.3% per annum from memory.

Gold appeals as it’s had a positive run for the past five years, a broadly good run since “Brown’s bottom” in 2001 and has recently passed its 2011 high. But most appealing for me is that it cannot be printed by any central bank. I’d rather hold gold (or even bitcoin) than £ or $ at the moment.

Why does that matter?

@caspian, I have some invested in Crypto with Revolute and was looking at buying Gold with them. I’m not sure they’re backed by the government in case it folds? I assume you looked into the various options and decided to go with Revolute?

@fatmountain Revolut are not backed by the FSCS so I would go steady on the total amount you hold with them. As a contractor I get paid in USD, so it makes sense for me to be paid into my Revolut USD account rather than paying huge fees to a traditional bank. This makes it far too easy for me to buy commodities and crypto with them as the cash is otherwise just sitting there getting almost no interest. This past month I more than doubled my money on some US solar stocks.

Commodities – so far so good. Can buy/sell at rates very close to the spot price which is pegged to GBP. Again I’d rather hold gold than cash at the current time as gold cannot be diluted through aggressive QE programmes as we are currently seeing both sides of the pond.

Crypto – Also works fine but there is something like a 4% spread which is horrible. I’ve looked into other providers (digital wallets, exchanges) but I’ve not found anything I’m 100% comfortable with, or if I’m honest, 100% understand. Even Paypal’s latest offering will carry a >2% fee when you spend crypto. I thought the whole point in crypto was decentralisation and no fees? There is still a long way to go.

The latest announcements from Square and PayPal have boosted Bitcoin. But it will get a far bigger boost once it is actually of practical use. I’m happy to hold a small amount with Revolut until that happens.

Britannias are better than Krugerands as they’re legal tender

I would love to pop down the local shop with a coin worth £700 and see what they would do…

I worked in Birmingham jewellery quarter for 25 years. You need to buy it as cheap as possible that means ugly hallmarked gold jewellery off eBay it quite often goes for the scrap price.
The easy way quite often is the smartest way.
Semi retired at 45 fully retired at 55.

@twinw4ll All of the shonky 1970s signet rings…do you melt it down or just hold as-is? Bags of (valuable) shonk?

Similar to the OP looking at gold.
But much more inclined to obtain physical gold, tangible that I know where it is rather than in someone else’s virtual vault. Am I missing something?

Guy I used to work with had a few kg of silver in his loft as part of his pension. Did think it wasn’t the safest strategy I’d heard of…

Why would you melt it down if it’s hallmarked?
It’s ready to sell on as is.
You’re buying at the scrap price gold goes up you sell at the scrap price, simples.

But much more inclined to obtain physical gold, tangible that I know where it is rather than in someone else’s virtual vault. Am I missing something?

Yes, your jangling nerves.  Years ago I bought £3.5k of a gold bar which I hid in the loft inside the Christmas decs box.  Rarely a day went by without me being nervous and paranoid about being burgled.  Obviously this may just be me but I was glad when I sold it

Don’t buy gold, buy gold miners/explorers…

I have a shitload of old circuit boards and cable connectors and the like, I’ll do ’em cheap. You will need to invest in some hazardous chemicals and a furnace though

Be warned though, some of them are hifi connectors and so may be directional, you’ll have to be careful which way up you pour your ingots.

Thanks Twinw4ll. That makes sense.

Be warned though, some of them are hifi connectors and so may be directional, you’ll have to be careful which way up you pour your ingots.

🙂

If you mix them up they cancel out and the ingot comes in under weight…..

Fair point Kryton.

Safety deposit box? But I see based on a quick google high street banks such as Lloyds charge £200 a year so you’d need a chunk of bullion to make it worthwhile!

Safety deposit box? But I see based on a quick google high street banks such as Lloyds charge £200 a year so you’d need a chunk of bullion to make it worthwhile!

Just bury it in the garden, too large an area to search unless you knew where it was…

EDIT: Although metal detectors might ruin that idea.

EDIT 2: Although in our garden there’s no much Victoran junk buried everywhere the detector would go off all the time….

(Delayed) LOL @footflaps 😂

My dad got me a gold britannia when I was born, we lost it in a house move. Still makes me sad.

Just buy some of this, much easier:

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/i/ishares-physical-metals-physical-gold-etc

You’re about 4-5 years too late with this question. Prices are around the highest for the last 30 years, at least

Find me an asset that isn’t (or maybe i should be buying coal and oil futures 😀 )

My 2 REIT-index-tracker ETFs, particularly the UK one (more so than the global one) and the commodities etf (IUKP, CMOD). Otherwise yeah everything else, well….

My 2 REIT-index-tracker ETFs, particularly the UK one (more so than the global one) and the commodities etf (IUKP, CMOD). Otherwise yeah everything else, well….

Fair!

I thought the whole point in crypto was decentralisation and no fees? There is still a long way to go.

Does no fees mean folk working for free?

Find me an asset that isn’t (or maybe i should be buying coal and oil futures 😀 )

They do say the best time to buy is when sentiment is lowest.

China and India will be running on coal for a long time yet.