40 1 oz silver eagles arrived today marked for sale at spot +$2 per coin. Discounts available for purchasing multiples! Orders less than 20 will ship in coin flips, orders in multiples of 20 will ship in the mint tube.

I actually looked into each country's legal stuff to make sure all was on the up and up. There are actually a couple differences from country to country.

Italy and Hungary requires that gold/platinum be sent via Priority Mail and insured. Not a big deal since that was pretty much the only option available anyway. Cyprus doesn't seem to care.

Italy Prohibited list:
Albums of any kind (of photographs, postcards, postage stamps, etc.).
Arms and weapons.
Articles of platinum or gold; jewelry; and other valuable articles unless sent as insured Priority Mail International parcels.
Artificial flowers and fruits and accessories for them.
Bells and other musical instruments and parts thereof.
Cartridge caps; cartridges.
Clocks and supplies for clocks.
Compound medicaments and medicines.
Coral mounted in any way.
Ether and chloroform.
Exposed photographic and cinematographic films.
Footwear of any kind.
Haberdashery and sewn articles of any kind, including trimmings and lace; handkerchiefs; scarves; shawls, needlework including stockings and gloves; bonnets, caps, and hats of any kind.
Hair and articles made of hair.
Human remains.
Leather goods.
Lighters and their parts, including lighter flints.
Lithium cells and batteries - including items containing lithium cells and batteries under 135.6.
Live bees, leeches, and silkworms.
Live plants and animals.
Nutmeg, vanilla; sea salt, rock salt; saffron.
Parasites and predators of harmful insects.
Perfumery goods of all kinds (except soap).
Playing cards of any kind.
Postage stamps in sealed or unsealed First-Class Mail International shipments.
Radioactive materials.
Ribbons for typewriters.
Roasted or ground coffee and its substitutes; roasted chicory.
Saccharine and all products containing saccharine.
Salted, smoked or otherwise prepared meats; fats; and lard.
Tobacco.
Toys not made wholly of wood.
Treated skins and furs.
Weapons of any kind and spare parts for them

Hungary Prohibited List:
Coins; banknotes; currency notes (paper money); securities payable to bearer; traveler's checks; platinum, gold, and silver, manufactured or not; precious stones; jewelry; and other valuable articles, unless sent in insured Priority Mail International parcels.
Radioactive materials.

Cyprus Prohibited List:
Books or other publications giving instructions regarding the construction, operation, maintenance, or care of any prohibited firearm, other than a harpoon gun used for fishing purposes, and excluding books and publications imported by the Cyprus Police Force or any Cyprus Department of Government.
Daggers.
Explosives and flammable substances.
Leeches and silkworms.
Postcards of private manufacture having illustrated designs not previously approved by the Cyprus Post Office.
Radioactive materials.
Rifles and repeating firearms.
Seditious publications.

For packages valued under $400, I can ship for about $30 to any of those countries via International Priority Mail Flat rate. If the package is valued at over $400 I need to ship via Priority Express International. I can purchase insurance for the package as well. For more accurate shipping figures, I'd need slightly more information such as order size, whether you would like insurance on the package, etc. 

Right now I have a total of 52.5 grams of gold. Shipping charges for the gold should be reasonable since it is pretty light compared rolls of silver coins. I can provide as much gold as I currently have funds to purchase, though I couldn't do 500 grams in a single order right now as my business is just starting up, I don't have the capital to buy 500 grams outright.

I don't have any 18 kt gold right now, but I'd be happy to look into getting some in the future.

I thought I'd demonstrate another neat trick for testing silver for those of you who don't have ultrasonic thickness gauges. Another trick that will do in a pinch works, because Silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. This was a bit harder to show in a picture of, but

1) Set your piece of silver down on a room temperature surface.
2) Set an ice cube on top of it
3) Observe



You should notice the icecube melting immediately if not sooner. When I set it on the bar as shown in the picture, the icecube started sliding around within a second or two, and there was a significant puddle of water within 5 seconds.

All PMs responded to, I'm happy to answer any questions and provide any help I can. Package has been shipped. (Not just shipping label printed, but actually shipped)

Beat that APMEX!

By comparison, the 40 Silver Eagles I've been expecting for about 3 days now shipped out on the 29th, and made three seperate stops on three different days less than 100 miles from where I'm at. Its taken 7 days for them to go what takes me a total of 4 hours to drive. Way to spring for a premium mailing option online bullion dealers!

The Bitcoin address in my profile works:1JXwGd1N8eP4WWMP6mLe6UNAycDhzqvhJo

If you would like a unique Bitcoin address, I can do that as well. I'll pm you for your shipping info.

You aren't being annoying, my ability to give customer support like this is one of the advantages I have over big bullion dealers, so please ask anything you would like.

SBSS (Silver Bullet Silver Shield) is a reputable mint that does a lot of art/political rounds and bars. They typically do small batches with beautiful designs so their coins are slightly more collectable hence the higher premium. The price per coin is spot value + $3.8.

0.9278BTC would be the cost including priority shipping.

I only have (1) 5oz bar in stock right now, but I'd be happy to look for another. If you would like 2 10 oz bars instead or if you want to wait until I can source another 5 oz bar, the totals would be
 
0.763 BTC for the 20 oz + 1st class shipping or
0.790 BTC for the 20 oz + priority international shipping.

So heres a basic explanation. In general there are a couple of main categories of "bullion". There are coins, rounds, and bars. Of course there are subclassess of those like Collectors coins, art bars, granny bait, etc but I'll go over what the general benefits of the main three are. I'd be happy to explain the other things as well as the pros and cons of 1 oz vs 5/10/20/25/1kilo etc bars if you would like, but if I do so in a single post, people's eyes might cross reading paragraphs of text.

Coins: Things like Silver Eagles, Canadian Maples, Austrian Philharmonics, and there are quite a few others.

These are issued by government mints, and are legal tender in the countries that produce them. They tend to have a higher premium than bars or rounds. Its pretty rare to find coins at under $2.50-$3 /oz over the metal spot value. That said, having a higher premium isn't always a bad thing. Coins tend to be more desireable, and easier to sell when you decide to do so. The Premium tends to carry over when you decide to sell as well, so if silver goes up to $30/oz you will likely be able to sell the coins for that $30/oz + the added value of the premium.

Rounds/Bars: They are similar to the point where I can lump them into the same category. Rounds and Bars are bullion not produced by government mints, rather they are made independent mints. They tend to have a lower premium than coins, and typically are the best way to get more metal weight for your buck. As long as you purchase reputable rounds/bars, you shouldn't have an issue selling them either. When I say reputable, I mean bars produced by Sunshine Mint, Scottsdale, APMEX, Englehard, and a plethora of others. I typically advise people stay away from no name bars cast in someone's back yard, as selling them will be a hassle. Rounds/Bars typically go for $1-2 over spot price, so as I mentioned before, if you just want more metals, rounds or bars are the way to go.

For example, if someone had $1000 to spend, they could get 41 1 Oz coins at spot+$3 or 44 1 oz rounds/bars at spot +$2 the total value is still the same, but with the lower premium metal, you get more of it for the same dollar value.

In my personal opinion, both are good options. I stack both rounds/bars, and coins as well as some of the other subcategories. Its kind of like brand name things, some people want to pay a little bit more for something with a name they like, even if both things are identical minus the design.

For a relatively small order (under 16 oz or so) around $8-15. A small flat rate box is about $30 and would fit more than a few kilograms. I'd be happy to look into more shipping options if you are interested. I have shipped to Sweden before, and there were no issues.

Alrighty, those 40 Silver Eagles that were set to arrive on Monday will be arriving today. Seems the seller shipped them with the cheapest possible method, so while I was expecting priority or 1st class mail (2-4 days) it seems they actually shipped via the 7+ day option. Thats what you will get out of metal dealers, but as any of my customers will tell you, my shipping speeds are phenomenal. I'm pretty much in your shoes, as a metal stacker myself, I hate ordering from a big company and then waiting a week or longer for my orders to arrive. Everything I sell is on hand and ready to ship same or next day (depending on what time you order).

With BTC's price so unstable, its a great time to hedge your bets!  

And as always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc please feel free to ask.

Mine was around $400 though there are plenty on the market that will work just fine for $200 or under. The one thing to make sure of, is to check that it has an adjustable velocity setting. Some come with common presets for construction and thats it.

I'm not sure that I'd buy that one you linked. It looks an awful lot like one of the other models that I was looking at a while ago that costs around $200. Maybe just rebranded? I'll post a link if I find it.

*edit* This is the TM8812 its pretty highly recommended I believe and sub $200.

https://www.amazon.com/TM8812-Ultrasonic-Thickness-1-2-200mm-0-05-8inch/dp/B00DKW4IYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470074718&sr=8-1&keywords=TM+8812+Ultrasonic+Thickness+Gauge

Not a problem  

I've got 40 Eagles arriving today, I'll list them once I get them and check them over.

*edit* or not, I guess they got to my local post office after they loaded the trucks. Oh well, they will arrive tomorrow then!

Donation to Minerjones' fire relief fund made:

Status: 0/unconfirmed, broadcast through 5 nodes
Date: 8/1/2016 09:57
To: MinerJones Fire Fund 1HEGfPYW6MEvv6T2YXrN9vPqJiq4kiZoF
Debit: -0.15000000 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.00007923 BTC
Net amount: -0.15007923 BTC
Transaction ID: 5a0e36bc3b6d40ef140c7daea4d3302407c21e4e0f15d62bf9ae6503d79ff1fe-000

Thanks to Lutpin and all who participated in the auction.

Sorry, my bad with the wording. That is correct. If the Ultrasound had shown 3.9mm then the bar would have been real. Because the thicknesses didn't match up, that means there is metal other than gold inside of the bar with a different speed of sound.

Fixed that, thanks.

And for the record, the actual thickness of a 1 oz perth bar is 1.7mm. After removing it from the packaging and measuring it I could tell it was fake at that point, but the ultrasound is a neat 100% accurate testing method that I employ. I felt like sharing the pics/process because it is pretty interesting.

So I thought I'd share this with you guys since its a pretty neat application of science on confirming that your metals are real. As I posted a couple of days ago, I ordered a 1 Oz gold bar from a non reputable source. It was a good price, so I figured I'd give it a shot, why not? Why I was able to take that risk, is because I could perform a foolproof test on the bar. Attached are pictures and explanations of whats going on.

So here is the bar I ordered:


It came in standard packaging, inside of the Assay card with no obvious defects or signs of being a forgery. A real pamp bar is 42mm x 24mm x 1.7mm. The bar when measured with the calipers was 42mm x 24mm but I couldn't determine the height because it was inside of the packaging. It looked a little bit thick, and the weight was about 1 gram lighter inside the packaging than it should have been. When you get a real gold bar that says 1 troy ounce, it will be exactly 31.1 grams not 30.9 or anything remotely off of 31.1. However, since it was in plastic packaging, it was measuring 36.9 grams and online sources said it should have been about 37 and change. I was suspicious enough to remove the gold bar from its packaging (completely ruining the premium, but oh well).

My handy dandy testing tools!


A digital calipers and an Ultrasonic thickness gauge. The calipers are used for very precise measurements down to the fraction of a millimeter. The ultrasonic thickness gauge uses ultrasound waves to read the thickness of an object.

How it works:


The probe is zeroed and then the sound velocity is set to 3240m/s. That is the speed at which sound travels through gold.



The probe is then coupled to the metal using Glycerin, and it uses the speed of sound specified to calculate how thick the thing you are measuring is. The reading there shows 2.9mm.



A quick check with the ole calipers shows that the bar is actually 3.88mm thick. If it was real gold all the way through, the ultrasonic thickness gauge would have displayed 3.9mm instead of the 2.9mm. Therefor, the bar is completely and utterly fake. As you have noticed its all scratched up. I wanted to see how thick the gold plating was, and it was actually quite thick. It was an incredibly good forgery, not a $5 chinese made bar, but it probably cost $100 or better to make the fake bar.


And here is a real 1 oz silver Canadian Maple being tested. Its a little bit trickier on coins so I got a little bit of error, but with a tiny bit of common sense it confirms that the coin is real.


The Ultrasonic Thickness gauge is adjusted to 3600m/s the speed of sound through silver. A reading of 2.9mm, lets see what the calipers say.



About 3mm. So I was off by a 3% margin. Why is that? Oh, because there is a .5ish mm lip around the edge of the coin. The thickness gauge needed a flat surface to get a reading, but the coin's rim is raised by about half a millimeter on either side of the coin. Righto all checks out!

All orders placed today will ship out first thing tomorrow! Get your cheap gold/silver today and have it shipped at Platinum club member speed without spending $25k+

And it looks like you won it at 2.5 BTC

PMed

And remember, at this point 50% of every bid increase is going to charity, so if you feel like it, you are welcome to bid up to what the coin is worth, or even higher if you would like 

Still quite cheap for what it is. If you check out the recent sales, a MS69 1BTC Gold/Silver Cas Coin should be priced between 2.75-3BTC. However tis the nature of auctions, and I dont care all that much. Anyone who gets this is going to get a deal and I'm ok with that.