Yup. I have no problem buying from individuals as long as my money is protected.Its worth taking a shot as long as theres nothing to lose. As I mentioned before, my Ultrasound machine should be coming in midweek. Once I have that, Ill be a lot less hesitant to buy from individuals.

At the moment everything I have in stock has come from a large reputable company. Of course I spot test things on big orders.

I didn't test them in the same way, as they came from a reputable dealer. Their size and form is correct however so I don't need to take them out of the assay card and cut them in half  . I've got an ultrasound machine on the way so I can be 100% sure of everything I sell. When I order things from multi million dollar companies, I'm not worried. When I buy from individuals its nice to be able to test things in a nondestructive way.

Once I get everything straightened out with the seller, I'll post pictures of my testing

Just got some of my gold in! (6) 5 Gram gold bars from the Perth mint! I also got a 1 oz pamp bar, but it was fake.  

I have (2) 10 gram and a 2.5 gram Perth gold bar coming in shortly, and some more silver of course.

the 5 gram gold bars are priced under APMEX's Qty 25+ bulk price   if you can find a better price from a reputable dealer, I'll match it or beat it. If you are interested in multiple items let me know, I still have a little room to cut a deal!

Not a problem at all. I've shipped to the UK before and have never had anything go wrong. Its not even the hassle, its just a couple things that make me nervous about sending metals overseas. I won't lie on customs declarations, but I've no issue declaring the value at spot value. I've also found that declaring coins as "collector's coins" will sometimes get you off the hook for paying VAT, though I definitely can't guarentee that. Might have just been that particular custom's officer's mood. The thing that makes me the most nevous about shipping overseas, is unless you pay for the ultra premium $100+ priority 2-3 day shipping, the tracking numbers stop updating once the package leaves the US. I'm not sure if its still visable for my customers or not on their end, but thats typically the reason I'd prefer not to ship out of North America.

Now, if it the savings was enough to justify spending the shipping cost for the premium shipping option, I'd have no problem with it, but thats typically for people interested in buying larger quantities.

There are a couple of ways I do this. My first method is to buy overstocked material from larger vendors. If a vendor has an abundance of one item in their inventory, but they are sold out of others and need the capital for repurchase of other things, I can sometimes find a good deal by contacted them and asking to buy their overstocked items. There are also tax implications for vendors if they take longer than a year to sell a product. Their tax rate just about doubles on any profits they make for metals sold if they purchased them over 1 year ago. Short term investment vs Long term investmen taxes. They can sell their products that they have had for almost a year a bit cheaper as well.

Method 2 works mainly with numismatic coins. If you search auction sites like Ebay, you will not find any good deals. Typically, you will find things sold at least 10% higher than elsewhere due to Ebay's fees. However, when numismatic coins are sold at bad times or with description errors, you can actually find a decent deal from time to time. At 2-3am I like to search for sivler and other common misspellings to see if there is anything interesting. Because of their premiums, most auctions will start around spot price, but the coin might be worth 50% over spot if not more. If no one finds the auction, I can snag things near spot value or at least under priced.

Method 3 is to buy directly from individuals. As people in this thread have mentioned, I must be really lucky to have generous local metal dealers. Well... probably its just that theres a huge amount of demand in my area, so they can afford to pay spot or better when they buy metals. But, others seem to not be so lucky. If you go to a pawn shop, you are going to get ripped off tremendously. Some local dealers are incredibly shady as well. If you sell on Ebay, you are likely to only get 85-90% after Ebay fees. Depending on the item, I can buy it at spot from those people, or sometimes above spot, and still make a profit undercutting big online retailers.

Small retailers can also be the source of really good prices. When my shop opens, my first priority will be liquidation of my inventory so I can expand my range of items and cycle in whatever it is that people want, rather than holding onto inventory for months. Small retailers in particular need working capital. If people are buying something like crazy, but their inventory is heavy on another type of item, they are less reluctant to sell me whatever it is is that is keeping them from restocking more of their hot item. That goes back to #1, but for small dealers its more about the capital as large dealers have access to more.

And as I said before, on top of that, I make a couple of % on the BTC to Fiat conversion before I buy more metal. Metals are a very low margin marketplace with most dealers charging just a couple of % on every item they sell. I believe that I can get that couple of % just trading the BTC to fiat to repurchase more inventory. If I buy silver for example at spot value (aprox $20/oz) and sell it at spot value, I can get 5% or so converting from BTC to Fiat. The buyer pays spot, and I get spot +$1 in that case. My buyers get their metals incredibly cheap, and I still get that couple of % needed to keep going and expand my inventory.


I've never sent any coins off for grading myself, however I'd do it in a heartbeat if I found something worth grading. Most graded coins are ones that are coming directly from the mint, so before they have any time to get flawwed. By the time they hit the secondary market, even coins in great shape might not be flawless anymore. Of course, if I find a roll of flawless coins, I'd send them in for grading if it was worth it to do so.

Thanks! Right now my inventory is a little shabby, but it will pick up pretty quickly. I've mostly dealt in silver in both the bullion and numismatic markets, but I've traded gold a bit, though its often been too rich for my blood. I'm really interested in adding platinum to my shop, but I don't know how many people would be interested in it. Paladium and Rhodium are really neat too, but I have even less knowledge about them. I actually have already found a way to beat the competition, by the nature of Bitcoin. As a long time Bitcoiner and trader who is trusted, I dont have too much issue converting BTC to Fiat to repurchase more metal. I can even get a couple extra % on the BTC > Cash transactions, and I'm hoping that I can make the majority of my profit there, and offer metals at unheard of prices. Most dealers operate on a 2-5% mark up. If I can get an extra 5% selling the BTC for fiat to repurchase more metals, I don't have to charge a markup.

I've got a 1 Oz gold Pamp bar coming in, and a bunch of 5 and 10 gram gold Perth bars tomorrow. A bit more silver coming in as well, and some more of my personal collection to list. I've met a couple of people in the medium-large online retail scene, and I'm hoping that they will keep letting me know when they have overstocked metals that they are willing to sell at a good price.

I don't at the moment, but I will most certainly be stocking them very soon. Ill be running all sorts of promotions to get the word out about my new business. I'm doing research on all of the major company's pricing algorithms right now so that I can beat them, and I'll probably be running a lot of sales near spot price for things like Eagles to get the word out about my business. I'm also thinking of doing customer rewards and such which I don't think any other metal dealers do, where you get free coins/bars based on previous orders and orders size and such.

I've got a bit of gold coming in tomorrow, as well as a bit more generic silver. I'll be sure to grab eagles on my next purchase.

Thanks for the pm, responded.

I'm a huge gold/silver bug, and I just really enjoy purchasing it. I've been stacking metals for years now, but its honestly way more fun to deal in metals than just buying. If you have traded BTC,Alt Coins or fiat on exchanges where you sell your BTC for something else and then try to buy back in at a lower price and earn some bitcoins, its exactly like that. I've got some great ideas on how to purchase metals that I could sell for Bitcoin at lower than what the online retailers charge.

That announcement for my full time shop will be coming up in the next couple of days. I'm just running through all of the legal/tax stuff to make sure I'm not going to get pinched up accidentally trading BTC - Metals due to some wierd laws.

I may have the opportunity to resume relatively small scale bullion dealing. What type of products would you be likely to consider purchasing? Gold/Silver/Platinum or more obscure stuff like Rhodium and Paladium? Numismatic or non? Fractional or large quantities?

As mentioned above, this has been asked for a lot. Bitcointalk doesn't value BTC in terms of fiat, it values BTC in terms of BTC. Just like how the donation ranks haven't had their BTC amounts reduced despite the BTC:Fiat value increasing a couple hundred times, 1 BTC = 1 BTC.

Its currently thought that animals (including people) have a biological drive towards alcohol as a way to incentivise the consumption of fruit. Since alcohol naturally occurs to some extent in all ripe fruit, by having a biological system that craves alcohol, human evolution has created more motivation to eat nutrient rich foods (fruit). Pretty much the exact same thing can be said about sugar. Sugars are most naturally occuring in high nutrient/mineral/energy rich fruits, and as such, its thought that we crave sugar to insure don't eat the wrong types of foods for what our bodies need.

Based on those two things, the best explanation I can think of, is that human biology did not expect us to figure out how to concentrate things. Sugar is obscenely bad for people because we have figured out how to strip it from nutrient rich sources, and add it to whatever we want. I'd guess the same holds true about alcohol. If it was bad for us, it wouldn't be a biological prerogative to ingest it. Like with all things, I'd say people need to stop overthinking everything before we classify everything as a carcinogen, and rather get a better understanding of moderation rather than trying to cut everything "bad" out.

Really quite pretty. Do you know what the premium is going to end up at? I'm a traditional silver bullion guy so I cringe at the premiums that physical BTC hold, but I also deal in the collectors bullion market, so I'm at least a little understanding. I'd really like to order one, but I also know the costs associated with custom minting, so I'm a little bit afraid to hear your response.

Your coin sort of gives me a Libertad + Alice in Wonderland sort of vibe. I hope you are picking to do these in proof or reverse proof.


*edit* As a side note, even though I don't want a Platinum one, I'm incredibly impressed that you found a mint willing to do Platinum rounds. The machining costs are so high even big mints don't do much with Platinum. I fear what your response would be if I was to ask what the premium on those would be.

This looks incredibly nice. I'd be interested in an unfunded Silver one if you decide to go that route. Not super interested in any special number or anything like that, I'd just like to own a round with that design. Very nice job.

The community opinion and actions they take is the recourse required. The trick to getting people to stop doing it is to make it not profitable for them to do so. If everyone is on board they will stop.


My point being, why do people participate in something they don't know about? It is their responsibility to learn how a ponzi works, or do research on "cloud mining" before putting their money in. By the same logic, Nigerian scammers offering 500000x returns should have even more success taking advantage of people who don't know that its a scam because the payouts are higher. If you don't understand what it is being offered to you, don't accept. The same thing applies to doublers. If you decide to part with your money on a promise from a screen name with no sound logic behind it, that's on you. Hopefully it works for you, but I doubt it will. Press is what it is, Bitcoin already has a reputation for being internet drug/weapon money. Those who the press will negatively effect are those who don't understand that all money is sometimes used for shady things. Can't really change their opinions either way. If the people that contacted you didn't know what a ponzi was, yet they proceeded to give away their money without first learning what a ponzi was, then yes, I'll simply shrug my shoulders. Reasonable steps is a relative term. Bitcointalk could end all scamming done here by shutting down the forum completely, most people wouldn't agree that is reasonable relatively. How about closing all financial sections to end scamming? Probably still not reasonable, however far more reasonable than closing the forum completely, etc etc. At Bitcointalk we typically tend to take the stance that the most reasonable way to deal with it, is to give the user's 100% control over what they participate in or don't. The fact that these HYIPs and Ponzis are still being made means that people are putting money into them. That is their choice. Just because some people decide to put money in without doing their due diligence first doesn't mean that restrictions should be added that would hurt those who are willingly participating.



Again, you say criminal fraud, but fraud implies deception. If I say I'm selling a 50 inch television and someone buys it thinking its larger because they didn't know the Metric:US Standard conversion factor is it fraud? Misunderstanding does not equate to fraud. If someone wants to play an unfair game, that is their decision. If they don't understand it, they shouldn't play. If I explain that we are going to roll a die, if it lands on 1 I'll give you 1.5x your money, but if it lands on 2-6 I take your money, but I explain it in a language you don't know or understand well, are you going to hand me your money and begin the game?  If you cast a wide enough basis, I could very reasonably explain that all gambling is fraud. As I mentioned earlier, Bitcointalk could put in enough rules and changes to completely get rid of any possibility of fraud. But every time a rule is imposed, it cuts down a little bit of each member's ability to make their own choices/actions. There is always a negative repercussion when placing rules, its just a matter of whether or not what you are losing is worth what you gain. If people use common sense, we don't need to add any more rules, so we choose to assume people have common sense. If they don't thats on them.

Thats on them isn't it? If I start trying to sell my Enron stocks on Bitcointalk right now, and people spend 5 minutes looking into it and go, wow this is a really good deal! They didn't do their due diligence. Being blinded by potential profits is not an excuse for allowing yourself to be scammed. People that invest Bitcoins into anything are taking a risk. Its up to them to determine how great the risk is, and whether potential payouts are worth the risk. Otherwise, don't invest. Or do and lose your money, not really my business.

2.2BTC

*ducks to avoid brick that Blazed tosses*

Before Bitcoin, if you wanted to buy stocks, shares in a mutual fund, bank issued CDs/Bonds or whatever. Would you blindly throw money at something? People have to have a certain level of expected capability. Anyone who doesn't do any research before investing money even in the traditional financial markets is going to get burned. If someone can't spend 5 minutes google searching "Bitcoin HYIP" and finding the thousands of threads on Bitcointalk about how scammy they are, historical trends, etc, thats on them.

Bitcoin is about financial freedom, its like cash that you can send over the internet. In return for freedoms you lose the protection of the government and banks holding your hand. If people aren't responsible enough to do enough due diligence to avoid things like HYIPs, again thats on them.

Price dropped, and I'll throw in some secret bonus surprises if someone is interested in purchasing the sax.

I've noticed every example you posted had "HYIP" in the name. Is it really scammy if its being advertised as scammy? If a scammer makes a posting saying "Hey, I'm going to scam you, send me money" and you do it, is it actually a scam, or did you just make a donation?

For some reason I interpret the defintion of a scam as requiring a deceptive practice. If all of the terms are laid out for you, its not really a scam. The nature of all gambling is unfair to the player. What makes dice sites or card sites "provably fair" is that the odds are mathmatically proven. Theres no rule that says the odds have to be given, go to a Casino and ask the manage what your chances of winning on a slot machine are. They will probably laugh or kick you out.

Anyone who is foolish enough to invest in a HYIP that is publically announcing that it is one is either A) Aware of the risks or  B) Soon to be parted from their money 

I am sure. Thanks again for the offer though. As I said, I can get between spot and spot +1 at my local dealer, and walk out with cash in hand, not worrying about whether a package is going to get stolen/lost etc. I'm pretty firm on my pricing unless someone wanted to buy large quantities. The problem with pricing things fairly to begin with, is you have no wiggle room when people want to negotiate. Maybe next time I sell my silver I'll start it higher so people can negotiate me down. Let me know if you want to do that