Selling Silver and Gold Bullion at Low Prices! Updated 10/3/16

[MCHouston]

If you can do free shipping to 77055 I will buy both the NTR Horse bars.

[1715370052]

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[1715370052]

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[1715370052]

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[SaltySpitoon]

If you can do free shipping to 77055 I will buy both the NTR Horse bars.

Sure thing, PM sent.

[SaltySpitoon]

As a side note, all shipping within the US is now free unless otherwise stated! I've also changed my policy on shipping out of the country. I can't make any guarentees, however if you live outside of the US, contact me and I'll see about shipping.

New products fresh in! Note, the APMEX 1 Oz Silver bars I will sell as singles, but there are great discounts if you purchase 10+ or 20!

[Mushroomized]

I'll take 5 1oz bars, pm sent 

[SaltySpitoon]

I'll take 5 1oz bars, pm sent 

Replied. Thank you!

[SaltySpitoon]

New arrivals in today! (2) 10 gram gold Perth bars as well as (4) 10 Oz and (1) 5 Oz Sunshine Mint silver bars!

All listed at spot value, free shipping to the US. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

[SaltySpitoon]

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+

[SaltySpitoon]

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!

[owlcatz]

Interesting stuff, but this has me confused:

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 2.9mm instead of the 3.88mm it actually was.

I thought you showed that the ultrasonic thickness gauge did say 2.9mm? Thanks!

[SaltySpitoon]

Interesting stuff, but this has me confused:

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 2.9mm instead of the 3.88mm it actually was.

I thought you showed that the ultrasonic thickness gauge did say 2.9mm? Thanks!

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.

[Washika]

Got your pm. Will look over your new prices and goods tonight after work. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

[SaltySpitoon]

Got your pm. Will look over your new prices and goods tonight after work. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

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!

[MCHouston]

If you do not mind me asking how much did you spend on your tester?  I am looking at buying one I was looking at this one below its only $390 a good investment if you buy any amount of precious metals.

http://testyourgold.com/

Thanks.

[SaltySpitoon]

If you do not mind me asking how much did you spend on your tester?  I am looking at buying one I was looking at this one below its only $390 a good investment if you buy any amount of precious metals.

http://testyourgold.com/

Thanks.

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

[SaltySpitoon]

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.

[Hhampuz]

How much do you think it would cost to ship to Sweden?

Not going to buy kilograms, but looking to start somewhere

[SaltySpitoon]

How much do you think it would cost to ship to Sweden?

Not going to buy kilograms, but looking to start somewhere

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.

[Hhampuz]

How much do you think it would cost to ship to Sweden?

Not going to buy kilograms, but looking to start somewhere

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.

Allright, Awesome.

Want to get in on some Silver at this point. Not sure what to buy though. Bars or Coins? What would you have me start with if I wan't to keep it under .8 btc

[SaltySpitoon]

Allright, Awesome.

Want to get in on some Silver at this point. Not sure what to buy though. Bars or Coins? What would you have me start with if I wan't to keep it under .8 btc

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.

[Hhampuz]

Allright, makes sense!

For starters though. I think I'd like to start with 1 10oz bar and 2 5oz bars. Just because I like the thought of "stacking bars"

How much would that be in shipping to Sweden?