This is major, as Perth Mint was, pardon the expression, 'gold standard' for reliability.
However, I have some issues with all this as back in the Bill Clinton days, China was caught adulterating gold bars with tungsten cores. I hold that these days, ALL gold bars are suspect until shown clean by radiological instrument analysis (common these days).
It's why in general, government-backed coins are most reliable and trusted.
In the US there are 90% old silver coins, silver eagles (too high premium right now, so many I know are getting the 1/10th oz and 1/4oz gold eagles that aren't so bad and fairly close to the Maples and Krugerrands).
It's nice to have a few 1g/2.5g/5g gold Pamp bars from a reputable dealer, then those can be proven real by a dealer who can test them.
But in a SHTF scenario, I'm going to trust government-backed coins the most as they are less likely to be faked as it's a federal offense.
That being said, it was scary watching this video by Yankee Stacking showing an old fake US gold 1904 $20 Liberty coin, someone almost lost a lot of money and that thing looked real, but a pocket pinger would have caught it (for those who can't afford the $1000 or so machine tester like a Sigma Verifier).
It's rare to find fake ones like that, but it goes to show they exist, which is why the pinger I think is worth to have for $30.
Good advice. A pocket coin pinger is crucial for anyone who stacks. I actually just recently tested a coin from Perth Mint with my pinger and it checked out.
If you only have $5-10k to trade, consider silver instead.
Just find a reputable local coin shop and pay in cash. No record of the transaction and at no point are you separated from your money without having the gold in hand.
A good coin shop won't try to confuse you with prices or try to upsell you on collector's coins when all you want is bullion. They will charge a premium on top of the spot gold price, and that depends on which product you're buying. Coins typically have a higher premium than bars. Make sure you ask and understand what their premium is before you commit to a purchase. Premiums can get very high when the physical supply is low, so even if there is a dip in price you won't often be able to take advantage in the physical metal market because the supply dries up.
Eh, this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Not saying it was right for the mint to purposely lower the purity of the gold, but they still kept it to 99.99% pure, which is what they advertise it as. This scam only saved the mint a small amount of money and it hurts their credibility only slightly.
There's no scandal here other than China wanting free gold and wanting to tarnish the reputation of others in order to take the pressure off of their history of doping. They got what they paid for, there's no victim here other than the Perth mint who has been libeled.
Does anyone remember when HRCs brother mysteriously died with no public cause of death?
There’s still no good information about what happened.
But I remember seeing info about him owning a Haitian gold mine… and there was a lot of speculation about the possibility that this mine was used to launder Gaddafi's stolen gold reserves…
I don’t know enough about gold mines and gold generally to know if that’s even plausible though.
This is major, as Perth Mint was, pardon the expression, 'gold standard' for reliability.
However, I have some issues with all this as back in the Bill Clinton days, China was caught adulterating gold bars with tungsten cores. I hold that these days, ALL gold bars are suspect until shown clean by radiological instrument analysis (common these days).
It's why in general, government-backed coins are most reliable and trusted.
In the US there are 90% old silver coins, silver eagles (too high premium right now, so many I know are getting the 1/10th oz and 1/4oz gold eagles that aren't so bad and fairly close to the Maples and Krugerrands).
It's nice to have a few 1g/2.5g/5g gold Pamp bars from a reputable dealer, then those can be proven real by a dealer who can test them.
But in a SHTF scenario, I'm going to trust government-backed coins the most as they are less likely to be faked as it's a federal offense.
A coin pinger is a cheap option to test coins and some bars, you can get a phone app to listen to the proper tones with it. I also have a neodymium magnet to test silver.
That being said, it was scary watching this video by Yankee Stacking showing an old fake US gold 1904 $20 Liberty coin, someone almost lost a lot of money and that thing looked real, but a pocket pinger would have caught it (for those who can't afford the $1000 or so machine tester like a Sigma Verifier).
It's rare to find fake ones like that, but it goes to show they exist, which is why the pinger I think is worth to have for $30.
Good advice. A pocket coin pinger is crucial for anyone who stacks. I actually just recently tested a coin from Perth Mint with my pinger and it checked out.
I want to buy $5k-$10K worth of gold coins.
I was thinking about getting U.S. minted coins from JM Bullion https://www.jmbullion.com/gold/
Any advice? Caution I should take?
If you only have $5-10k to trade, consider silver instead.
Just find a reputable local coin shop and pay in cash. No record of the transaction and at no point are you separated from your money without having the gold in hand.
A good coin shop won't try to confuse you with prices or try to upsell you on collector's coins when all you want is bullion. They will charge a premium on top of the spot gold price, and that depends on which product you're buying. Coins typically have a higher premium than bars. Make sure you ask and understand what their premium is before you commit to a purchase. Premiums can get very high when the physical supply is low, so even if there is a dip in price you won't often be able to take advantage in the physical metal market because the supply dries up.
Eh, this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Not saying it was right for the mint to purposely lower the purity of the gold, but they still kept it to 99.99% pure, which is what they advertise it as. This scam only saved the mint a small amount of money and it hurts their credibility only slightly.
There's no scandal here other than China wanting free gold and wanting to tarnish the reputation of others in order to take the pressure off of their history of doping. They got what they paid for, there's no victim here other than the Perth mint who has been libeled.
This just reminded me of something.
Does anyone remember when HRCs brother mysteriously died with no public cause of death?
There’s still no good information about what happened.
But I remember seeing info about him owning a Haitian gold mine… and there was a lot of speculation about the possibility that this mine was used to launder Gaddafi's stolen gold reserves…
I don’t know enough about gold mines and gold generally to know if that’s even plausible though.
Really good article on what the fuck happened to Gaddafi's huge fortune of gold.
https://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573aeac75632a39742ed39a0/
gold is manufactured