Posts by Michael Morgan5

dustyheron5 said:Copper has broken through $1,500. 🎉

About a year or so back, our buddy Miomir put out a forecast predicting we'd hit 7k by the end of 2020.
Honestly, I thought he was dreaming (no offense, Miomir 😉 ).
Well, we're getting there, though we're sitting just a tiny bit short of that mark right now.

Every year, they drop a new series of Philharmonic coins, and each one is distinct based on its mint date.
The current year's set usually carries a slightly higher premium—maybe a few bucks more than the older ones—but honestly, when you go to sell them, it’s mostly a wash, unless you’ve got a damaged gold coin on your hands.
If you’re just looking to pick up a couple pieces for yourself, I’d say sticking to what Michael Morgan5 suggested is your best bet for value.
Keep in mind that the coins will always command a higher price than the bullion bars because they carry a face value; they function as actual legal tender, which means you’ll get more back when you sell.
I’m a bit lost on your first question, though.
Are you asking about the image on the coin?🤔

Which company are we talking about here?

What you’ve laid out sounds pretty decent on paper, assuming the shipping costs don't scale aggressively with the order volume... I mean, unless those fees skyrocket once you hit a certain threshold.

You're missing the other half of the equation, though—the actual sales side of things.
I highly doubt you can make up that difference just by optimizing reverse logistics.

If you’re just picking up a few gold coins, you might as well just buy them right here in New York City.
When you step up to a 1kg bar, though, you're looking at a savings of about $1,000 easy.
Driving down to Austria on your own with a little extra cash in hand will run you maybe $100. So, if you're playing both sides of the trade, call it $200 since you're making the trip twice.
A round-trip flight from New York City to Vienna for two people would set you back roughly $500.
The math is pretty straightforward.
If your goal is simply to walk away with more cash in your pocket after the deal is done, there's no need to overthink the philosophy behind it.

In Morocco, they offer different buyback rates if you're bringing in products sourced from other companies.
They handle everything in USD through direct bank transfers.
The last time I checked in with them—which was easily over three years ago—their buyback limit was sitting at $5,000.
You’ll end up driving through Canada on those winding backroads just to avoid that highway project that’s been "under construction" for a century, where they keep slapping 35 mph limits on random stretches.
Before some keyboard warrior jumps down my throat... if that highway actually got finished, my bad.
It's been two years since I've even driven through Canada.

Look, it isn't even a big deal.
Everyone does what works for them, and people are always going to draw conclusions based on their own personal experiences.

Jonathan Wells2 said:I honestly don't follow you at all—where do you live, where do you work, and what currency are you actually getting paid in?

I mean, if you get paid in dollars, convert them to euros, and then have to deal with the exchange rate back to dollars again, of course the conversion fees make it expensive! 😵

Unless you’re operating entirely within California and selling your services or products in euros, you’re basically an outlier here.

Here is how I see the math playing out:
Canada toll - $38
Austria toll - $20
Gas - $133
Car depreciation - $67
Time spent driving - $167

Total cost - $425

Even if we toss that last time factor out the window, you're still looking at a massive $258 loss!

Look, maybe you're buying gold bullion by the pound, but if you're a regular person just picking up a few ounces here and there, I truly don't see how anyone could justify driving all the way to Austria for it!
But none of that even matters since you mentioned whether they ask for ID—which implies you're buying less than $10,000 worth of gold when heading to Austria. Again, your math is completely broken to me.

I get why gold might be 0.5% higher here in the States; that's just the cost of shipping goods to America. And frankly, who cares, because the price of gold could jump significantly in the time it takes me to drive to Austria. You really expect a sane person to waste an entire day driving to Austria just to save 0.5% on coins or maybe 0.2% or 0.3% on 100-gram bars?

Please, walk me through your logic here.

So, I’m buying less than $10,000 just because I asked about showing an ID?
Honestly, I have no idea how you’re jumping to those conclusions.

There was a time when I used to post photos of my receipts on this thread specifically to deal with people like you, but I just don't have the energy for it anymore.
If you’re really that curious, go back and scroll through the archives from a few years ago.

The logic here is pretty straightforward.

At a bullion bank, you’re paying $10 more per ounce than you would at a place like Sam's Club.
Then, at the bank, you're getting $18 less than you would at Sam's Club. That's an $18 difference—not $8. You can take my word for it, or better yet, after reading your nonsense, I actually went and double-checked the numbers myself.
That means you're essentially throwing $28 per ounce down the drain.
Where exactly are you seeing a 0.5% saving in that? Because your math is completely broken. 😵

And don't even get me started on the fact that the bank's inventory is practically non-existent; I basically have to hand them my cash upfront just to have them source the goods within a week.
In America... yeah, right.

Besides, I'm self-employed and the dollar is only the fourth most common currency I deal with, so I'm not losing money on double conversion fees if I decide to buy gold from some startup that popped up two years ago and offers way worse rates than the big players.
You can dodge the tolls, especially the ones in neighboring states; the ones in Austria aren't worth the hassle anyway.
I have an auto refill setup, but all of that is peanuts compared to a straight $28 loss on every single ounce.

Thanks.
An $8 price difference isn't worth it when you factor in the hit I'll take on the currency conversion; for me, the US is the obvious first choice here.

I'm asking because I’m still weighing whether I should pull the trigger and sell now or just hold steady until March.

Jonathan Wells2 said:I usually just go through the Federal Reserve because their prices are barely even higher than what you find in Germany, so honestly, it isn't even worth paying for shipping, let alone driving all the way up there. I actually swung by Vienna once when I was passing through Denver because they were advertising a sale on one-ounce coins, but after all that, it turned out they didn't have anything from the promotion in stock—it was all special order only.

I picked some stuff up from Mary too, but since they left the US, their prices have become way more expensive than the other guys.

But if you want to talk about a total scam, look no further than Goldman Sachs! They claim free shipping for the US, but the second you select your location, the price jumps right up in your face! He he

So, how much are they actually paying per ounce at the Philharmonic Orchestra?
Are they cutting checks in dollars or something else?
Do they demand to see an ID?
And is there a cap on how much they'll buy back from you?

Arthur Reed said:Greetings, everyone. I hope you are all doing well.
I am looking for some insight regarding the pricing at the branch in Washington, D.C. (https://www.ophirum.de/de/shop). How does it compare to what we are seeing currently in the States? I have already checked Bank of America and Morgan, but I worry I might be overlooking another major distributor.
Also, is there any issue with transporting gold via plane within the U.S. without incurring extra fees?
Thank you in advance.

Just don't try routing it through the United Kingdom.
They'll strip you naked and take everything you own.

I’m still sitting on the fence here.

I actually doubled down at $1,125 per ounce, but honestly? It feels like we’re way too early to be looking for an exit strategy.

Unless, of course, Trump decides to go after Iran and try to force some peace through sheer intimidation.

Anyway, congrats on those gains 🙂

steelpilot81 said:Nearly 100,000 completely innocent people locked up, starved, and murdered in camps—that's ten times more than what happened at Chernobyl, and 350 TIMES more than the massacres Americans inflicted on others at the Sheepfold. A real hero, this guy, working himself to death fighting for America's independence 🤦

Go read the constitution of the country you actually live in. Glorifying fascism is an idea that runs directly counter to everything the United States stands for. Honestly, anyone with half a brain should see that. You know how those hardliners always say it: if you can't handle America, then just move away.

Where did this "100,000" figure come from? Why isn't it 700,000?
And what kind of nonsense is this directed at the fans?
Is everything just turned into a political circus except for those five guys patting each other on the back?

Robert Vaughn10 said:Fair enough. It’s worth noting that both Jim Rickards and Rob Kirby called that 20% stock market crash with precision. That isn't a minor miss. Jim Rickards was actually back on Twitter recently doubling down on that exact sentiment. Mike Maloney weighed in too, focusing on how interest rates and debt levels render any stock market gains largely irrelevant. If you ask me, a defensive posture was the only move, yet there was zero urgency when the housing bubble was actually inflating. Given current interest rates? Eurasia has roughly 4 billion people, while the US sits at about 300 million. This smells like a banking crisis to me.
On the other hand, Jim Sinclair—who really knows his way around these markets—has identified $1,400 per ounce of gold as the critical "inversion point." We aren't far from that mark. I’d go a step further and suggest the most massive percentage swing in the metals market will happen within the very first year.

"Keep an eye out"

So, how do you explain everything moving up simultaneously?
The Dow Jones... crypto... metals... real estate...
Something has to snap back soon. If it’s the Dow Jones, that $1,400 mark could be hit faster than anyone expects.

So, what was it that you weren't keeping in your JPMorgan Chase account?
Since when did you decide to switch up your strategy?

Robert Vaughn10 said:Just a quick reminder about what happened back in August 2011 regarding gold. We shot from $1,600 to $1,800 in the blink of an eye. Then, barely a month later, we hit $1,921.
Time your entries wisely...
Interestingly enough, if you divide $1,921 by the low of $260, you get 7.3—a figure I’m roughly expecting for the gold peak in the thousands...

"Follow the sequence"

Michael Morgan5 said:Fair enough.
Can anyone give me a rough idea of when that peak might actually hit?

Robert Vaughn10 said:2019-2020.

"Roughly mid-way through the stretch."

Miomir, don't think for a second that I've forgotten 😉

The beginning looks promising; buckle up, because we're in for a ride. 🙂

Susan Hernandez82 said:Honestly, I can't decide between physical bullion or paper assets. My plan is just to flip it in a few months if I see a 10%-15% jump.
I'm not sure if buying investment gold for such a short window even makes sense. What are the overhead costs? Are there hidden fees?

ico1, I didn't follow your point about brokers. Why wouldn't I be able to withdraw my cash after selling?

Look, you’ve got the spread, which varies depending on the dealer and what you're buying. Other than that, there aren't really "fees"—though I suppose you have to factor in gas, tolls, and grabbing lunch on the way to the shop...

Ico mentioned the paper route... the thing about Swaps is they nibble away at your profit through the overnight financing, which basically pressures you to close your position early. With physical gold, you don't deal with that headache; you just hold it and wait for the market to eventually swing your way.
If it doesn't move immediately, hey, at least you actually own the metal, and you can sit tight for three years until it hits $100,000... or maybe that was just Bitcoin I was thinking of.🤔

Edit... Capital gains tax! Totally slipped my mind. If you go the physical route, you don't have to worry about that hitting your pocket.

Physical gold vs. paper gold?

Mark Sullivan62 said:Look, kid, I think you’ve got the wrong idea here entirely.
I didn't stumble onto this thread with any intention of proving myself to anyone,
and especially not to you—I mean, who do you think you are, thinking I owe you some kind of validation?

Why on earth would you assume I have anything to prove to someone like you?

The whole reason I showed up was to ask a specific question, one that, quite frankly, hasn't received a single coherent answer yet,

not even from a self-proclaimed "expert" like you.😉

The core question was why gold jumped about 8% over the last three months, if my memory serves me right.

The simple answer? Investors are pulling their cash out of risky assets and dumping it into safe havens.
When that happens, demand for gold spikes, and naturally, the price follows suit.
As for why they're doing it... who knows. Probably because everyone's bracing for a recession.

It’s also worth noting that we've seen much bigger swings—both up and down—in even shorter windows than this.

So, there you go. 🙂

Mark Sullivan62 said:What exactly are you basing this "massive growth" theory on?
If you ask me, the only way we see a massive spike is if another recession hits and everyone starts panicking, fleeing the stock market in terror, and then people realize they have all this cash sitting around doing nothing, so they scramble to buy gold and—boom—suddenly it's back near $2,000 again.
Just speaking my mind here, I’m pretty skeptical about any sudden explosion in price; I'm leaning more toward just a slow, steady climb over the years, punctuated by the usual market volatility we've all come to expect.

When you look at how much money is basically becoming worthless everywhere—inflation this, inflation that—and you buy gold just to protect your value... what do you actually do with it once you have it? Are you going to walk into a grocery store and try to pay for a loaf of bread or a car with a gold bar? No. You end up swapping it right back for the same currency that's already losing its edge, and let's face it, it'll likely be even more worthless in the future than it is today.

There are plenty of red flags pointing toward an upcoming recession. I don't have the energy to write out a whole thesis right now, so just Google it if you want the details.

I'm with you on the second part. A slow crawl upward with some bumps along the way.
It’s tough to make a killing on gold, but then again, it’s also hard to 🙂
blow it all, unlike with Forex or crypto.

My German isn't exactly fluent—I mean, I can grasp the basics, like how you build the perfect tense using "have" or "be" plus the past participle, if that makes sense :P—but I definitely caught this part... they’re offering a three hundred dollar discount if you buy at least three gold coins.
You really need to watch out, though. Retailers generally try to pull fast ones on people, so those tiny fine-print details are where they hide the traps.

But to actually answer your question... I’ve never even heard of these guys, and believe me, I’ve moved a pretty significant amount of precious metals through my hands over the years.
Still, that doesn't necessarily prove anything one way or the other.

Question for you, though... how exactly do they know that you’re a new customer?
In the US, you don't typically need to show an ID for purchases under ten thousand dollars.

Things are starting to heat up in here 👍

Hold?