Gold is Money - The Premier Gold and Silver Forum -- Goldismoney - Purchasing Precious Metals

It finally happened

brosil — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:02:22 GMT

After years of my local dealer selling for $2 over spot, it's now $3. Does that mean silver bottomed?:banana:

HKMEX to Cease Trading, Will Close Out & Cash Settle(Default)

southfork — Sun, 19 May 2013 13:15:43 GMT

http://silverdoctors.com/hkmex-to-ce...ay/#more-26786

Cash Settle Open Contracts Monday!

May 18, 2013 By The Doc 37 Comments

When the Rothchild�s HKMEx was launched in 2011, much of the metals community assumed that the COMEX & LBMA, were they not to outright default, would fade into irrelevance with the advent of the new Asian metals exchange.
Two years to the day after the exchange�s launch however, in perhaps the most glaring evidence of physical gold & silver shortage to date, the HKMEx has announced it will voluntarily cease trading, and all open positions will be closed out and financially (cash) settled on Monday 5/20!

2013 Silver Eagles As Low As $3.79 Over Spot at SDBullion!

As Commodities Now reports, the HKMEx has voluntarily made the decision to cease trading and close out all open positions:

The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx) announces today it has decided to voluntarily surrender the authorisation to provide automated trading services (�ATS�) granted by the Securities and Futures Commission (�the SFC�). With immediate effect, no new orders may be placed and all open positions will be financially settled at the settlement price determined by HKMEx and its designated clearinghouse.

The HKMEx�s Chairman claims that their priority is to protect members� interests by closing their positions:

�The favourable conditions under which HKMEx was founded have not changed. Global commodity demand continues to shift towards Asia as the region undergoes sustained growth, presenting great opportunities that we will continue to exploit,� said Barry Cheung, Chairman of HKMEx. �Our priorities now are to protect members� interests by ensuring effective closing of open positions while strengthening our shareholding base and developing new products that play to our distinctive strengths.�

In closing out the open positions, the Exchange has developed a plan in consultation with the SFC to ensure the process is orderly and that investors are well informed of the matter. The Exchange will disseminate settlement prices to its members the morning of next Monday, 20 May 2013.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Cheung claimed that defaulting on metals contracts has no impact on investors:

HKMEx chairman Barry Cheung Chun-yuen told the Sunday Morning Postthat the decision to surrender the trading licence and not reopen for business tomorrow would have no impact on investors and that client contracts would be honoured.

�There is no question of not getting your money back or anything like that. People absolutely do not have to worry about that and I don�t think they are.

�The only thing they will want to know is what settlement price will be used,� Cheung said.

HKMEx was working with LCH.Clearnet � the world�s largest clearing house for financial transaction settlements � to arrange settlement pricing on the exchange�s roughly 200 outstanding contracts, Cheung said.

The tiny number of outstanding contracts reflects the difficulty HKMEx has had in attracting trades to the platform that officially opened almost two years ago to the day on May 18, 2011.

We suspect that come Monday morning, more than one Chinese investor who believed he owned a gold position (and learns that in fact he held paper) will immediately attempt to source and take delivery of physical metal. As the Shanghai Gold Exchange appears to have stopped delivering gold as well, we suspect that the LBMA may be in for a bit of a physical run.

The first domino appears to have fallen in the ponzi fractional gold system.

Got PHYZZ?

Cleaning coins

Talah — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:41:40 GMT

Quick question, gold an old 1/10 oz maple that is dirty on the edges, whats the best way to clean? Its a bullion coin that I just want clean.

Thanks

Gold vs Silver new reality

eyeball — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:32:31 GMT

I need a little help here, if you only have a small stack of metal 50% Gold and 50% silver, well if you were buying now which would you buy? Gold or Silver and Why?

I am ready to buy about 2K

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thx!

Are you guys worried about this drop?

dacunha213 — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:58:19 GMT

I know people say they are in it for the long haul but, it has been a blood bath the last two months. Anyone that is 100% invested in metals is nuts. Missing out on a 15-20% jump in the market over the next 8-12m.

Advice for a newb

tranzformer — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:44:08 GMT

Just curious what you guys would recommend for someone wanting to buy some silver. I'm considering using some of my funds in my savings account that isn't really pulling any interest and putting that towards silver. I know some are saying silver will keep going lower so maybe it is worth waiting? My reasoning for getting silver is based on my skepticism of how the world economy is doing, what happened in Cyprus and what is going on with QE around the world.

So basically:

- Should I wait for silver to drop more or is now a good time to buy some bullion?
- I would like to get some 1 oz coins, so was thinking some generics might be the best bet since the premiums aren't as high. Is that a good option or should I go with 10oz to 100oz bars?

Thanks in advance for the help.

eBay Seller: Bel Air Mint

squirk — Wed, 15 May 2013 02:59:44 GMT

I have been following several of their auctions and they consistently seem to come under spot. They are selling their silver in typically 20 gram baguettes or cubes. Does this conversion scare people off from bidding? Just curious if anyone has had experience with these folks in the past.

Premiums

savvydon — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:01:29 GMT

I can't remember where the last thread was where premiums were being discussed, but I see that Tulving has dropped his significantly - sealed boxes of Eagles down to $3.69 over which is close to within a dollar's range of the pre-April onslaught prices. I would like to take my hat off and throw out a thank you to the 'vatch and vait' crew (you know who you are) as the advice to do so has proven sound.

Any experience with Texas Silver Rounds by Texas Precious Metals?

Ahillock — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:40:14 GMT

They look nice from the picture, decent price and seem to be well made. Just curious if someone has real world experience with them?

Fake Pan Am bars being sold in Michigan

southfork — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:26:44 GMT

http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/stor...4#.UYaZi-AyTh9

Woman scams metal buyers out of thousands with fake silver bars

Meghan Morelli

You can catch Meghan every evening on 7 & 4 News today.

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Read more: Local, Crime, Business, Fake Silver Scam, Fake Silver Bars Sold, Us Secret Service Investigation into Fake Silver Bars, Woman Sel

GRAND TRAVERSE CO. -- Police are looking for a woman who they say sold several hundred fake silver bars to local metal buyers under the guise that it was real silver.

According to police, a 40-year-old white woman came to the Traverse City area in late April and sold these metal bars to at least three different precious metal buyers in the area.

On April 27th, the woman walked into Bay West Antiques and sold 100 silver bars to store owners, Holly Dalley and her husband Pete. Real silvers bars are currently worth just over $24.00 each.

"She came in, she sat down, she had a couple of boxes," said Dalley. "She said there were 50 1-ounce bars in each box. I looked at the first one, I didn't take it out of it's plastic. I just saw that and said everything looked good. There wasn't anything that would have indicated that it was fake at all."

Police say the suspect was paid over $6,500 from three different local businesses and has now left the area.

"It's been in a couple different areas across the state between the east and west side of southern Michigan," said Detective Kevin Gay.

An investigation is ongoing and it is believed that the same woman has been responsible for similar incidents around the state. Police say there are dozens of victims.

Bay West Antiques immediately removed the fake silver bars from the displays as soon as they were told about the fraud and store owners tell 7&4 News that they did not sell any of them to their customers.

Investigators say they know who this woman is, but they are not releasing that information at this time. To help prevent other businesses from being scammed, police are describing the suspect as a white, heavier set female in her 40's with very dark and thick rimmed glasses, who frequently wears her hair in a ponytail.

Ron Paul on Gold: No One Knows Value; I'm Buying

newmisty — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:10:39 GMT

Didn't know quite where to put this....mods feel free to move.

Ron Paul on Gold: No One Knows Value; I'm Buying

The Bullish Case for Silver

southfork — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:39:27 GMT

The Bullish Case for Silver

The Bullish Case for Silver and Even More Bullish Case for Silver Stocks

Friday, May 3, 2013 9:48

We summarized our previous commentary on gold and the US Presidential Elections by stating that based on Friday�s decline, it seems that the bottom in the precious metals sector might have just been reached.Based on today�s rally in gold and silver, it seems that it was really the case.

Before moving on to the silver market and its technical details, let�s discuss the idea of verifying if gold held in New York is as pure as it should be.

Recently, Germany�s federal auditor has told the Bundesbank to do spot checks to ensure the world�s second-largest gold reserves really are safe in vaults in New York, London and Paris. Germany holds much of its 3,400 tons of pure gold � worth an estimated 143 billion euros (US$187 billion) � with partner central banks abroad. There have been conspiracy theories and rumors claiming that Germany�s gold bars may have been stolen or replaced.

Initially, the Bundesbank rejected the demand, arguing, �The scope of the checks that [the federal court of auditors] wants does not correspond to the usual practices among central banks. �There are no doubts about the integrity and the reputation of these foreign depositories.�

The Bundesbank has now agreed to fly 50 tons of the deposited gold from New York back to Germany every year where it will be melted down to test the overall purity before being re-cast into standard gold bars.

That sounds like a very reasonable thing to do, until you realize that it could be the best way to access otherwise virtually inaccessible gold bars. During the transport, melting and re-casting processes the overall purity could drop due to �technical reasons�. Of course there is no proof that this would be used by the Powers That Be�

Some two-thirds of Germany�s gold reserves, worth $190 billion, are being kept in the vaults of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of France and the Bank of England since post-World War II, when Germany was concerned about a possible land war with the former Soviet Bloc.

One wonders if Germany�s move to repatriate its gold reserves might make the financial markets even more nervous about the fate of the Euro. Is the Bundesbank telling us what we already know � that gold and silver are real money?

You do have some physical gold and silver as suggested in our portfolio structure report, right?

Let�s now move on to today�s technical part, which is dedicated entirely to silver and silver mining stocks, as we believe that these markets (especially the latter) provide exceptional investment opportunities � we have already mentioned that in the last week�s essay. We�ll start with the SLV ETF short-term chart (charts courtesy by http://stockcharts.com.)

In the short-term SLV ETF chart, we have illustrated a declining trend channel. The declining resistance line has not been broken last week, and the target area remains unchanged. There is one significant difference, however.

We have fine-tuned the cyclical turning points to better correspond to recent tops and bottoms. It seems likely that this will improve the accuracy of future market calls and we should begin to see the fruits of our labor in a week or so, as this is where the next cyclical turning point is located.

So, have we just seen a bottom in silver? Most likely yes. Silver was about to move higher due to the cyclical turning point. It also reached our target area, so we believe it�s now ready to rally once again.

Now, let�s have a look at the white metal from the non-USD perspective to see whether the significant drop in silver�s price that took place on Friday is visible in other currencies than the U.S. dollar. It is a non-USD silver chart, meaning a weighted average of silver priced in different currencies, other than the USD � the weights are as in the USD Index, so this charts is similar to the one featuring silver priced in euro.

On the above chart, the final bottom also seems to have almost or already been reached. The implications are bullish.

While the decline in the white metal�s price was significant indeed, we would like to draw your attention to the silver mining stocks chart, where we�ll see that the corresponding decline was not at all that big.

Today we again include the long-term Global X Silver Miners chart. The rally seen last Wednesday was truly spectacular and so was the lack of decline on Thursday. Moreover, the drop in price on Friday was nowhere near the magnitude of the corresponding move in the underlying metal! This is an important achievement. The silver miners held their gains, being pretty much flat on Thursday when gold miners declined. There is exceptional strength in the silver stocks right now.

Perhaps we are close to the last call for purchasing silver stocks before the huge rally truly begins. While their price levels could move down a bit if gold and silver decline, it will probably be to a minimal degree. It seems that the rally will be significant and it appears too risky to wait for slightly lower prices.

Summing up, the white metal seems to have already bottomed and the rally seems to be just around the corner. Silver mining stocks continue to show exceptional strength and the outlook remains bullish.

In other news, we made the November 2nd, 2012 Market Alert available to you � you can see what our subscribers read 4 days ago. We sent out another Market Alert earlier today, but the above-mentioned one is still mostly up-to-date.

Fake U.S Silver Eagle coins soaring through Hamilton, police say

southfork — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:23:52 GMT

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/stor...lver-coin.html

Fake U.S Silver Eagle coins soaring through Hamilton, police say

Hamilton Police say they've gathered over 500 fake U.S Silver Eagle coins sold across the city over the past few months.

CBC News

Posted: Apr 25, 2013 3:18 PM ET

Hamilton coin collectors and pawn shops are getting duped.

Police are warning that fake U.S silver eagle dollar coins have been circulating in the city and have been sold to various establishments over the past few months.

"You wouldn't be able to tell the difference (with) the naked eye. The coins are actually very high quality fakes," Const. Mike La Combe said in a Hamilton Police YouTube video. "They are silver and nickel-plated, which gives them the look of an actual silver dollar. However, when you cut them open, you can clearly see on the inside, they are brass filled."

The video shows some of the roughly 500 fakes that have been confiscated so far.

"They are worth practically nothing, just a couple cents each," La Combe explained.

LaCombe is a pawn unit investigator and says the coins are being bought online, then sold at "golden" times for the seller when shops are busy or with little staff. During the rush, employees may not have the time to do all the proper authenticity checks, giving criminals the chance to sell fast without getting caught.

"Only buy them from reputable dealers, a place that is established, an expert who works there who knows the difference between real and fake. Don't buy them off the internet. and don't buy them from people from the public who aren't considered experts because more than likely you're going to get a fake," added Le Combe.

What would you buy

Piggybank — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:38:10 GMT

I figured I make it fun and ask the funny farm what would they buy with someone else's money. The CFO....ahhhemmmmm....wife, has authorized a 3K cap purchase. I really want to just go all out and purchase all AU or would you mix it up with silver as well? If one were to go all AU, what denominations would you go or just straight to the oz bars/coins? I'm leanign with 6X10gm Perths or 3 Perths, 20 ASEs...the decision is literally making me sick as I can't make up my mind.

Gold Goes 100% Initial Margin

southfork — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:35:39 GMT

The Next Escalation: Gold Goes 100% Initial Margin
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/02/2013 19:34 -0400

Capital MarketsCommodity Futures Trading CommissionPrecious MetalsVolatility

The day many have predicted would come, has finally arrived: 100% initial margin on gold.

For now it is just one Futures Commission Merchant, in this case ex-CBOT traders Crossland LLC (motto: "Where Speed And Service Matter"), but tomorrow it will be another, and another.

In a dramatic flashback to the torrid days of 2011, when the CME and other exchanges desperately tried to scare away the weak hands by raising initial and maintenance margins on paper gold futures ever higher, and when many predicted that eventually the brokers and exchanges would simply do away margin completely in order to make levered trading in paper gold impossible, we have now witnessed the next shot across the bow aimed at all those who dare to oppose the central planners' scheme of forcing everyone out of hard assets, savings, bank deposits and other inert saved capital and into investing in ponzi capital markets, preferably on leverage, or otherwise spend their hard earned cash to buy stuff they don't need and stimulate inflation.

Of course, all this will do is simply shake out even more weak hands, making the residual base of holders that much most stable and not only eliminate the bulk of paper price volatility, but also lead to an even more profound breakage in the link between paper and hard gold.

Below is Crossland's notification to clients that starting tomorrow (we assume), the initial margin on gold and silver, will be 100%. In other words, the utility of a margin account is now null and void when trading PMs.

From: CustomerService
Subject: Margin Notice - Precious Metals
To: []
Date: Thursday, May 2, 2013, 3:46 PM

Crossland LLC is requiring all customers trading the precious metals, more specifically Gold and Silver, to be margined at 100% of initial for intraday trading.

Current margin for Gold is $7040 and for Silver is $12375

If it is the customers intention to trade the above products, it is recommended that you keep a minimum of $10,000 in your account at all times to trade Gold and a minimum of $15,000 to trade Silver.

Please note: Crossland LLC always reserves the right to amend margins as we deem necessary.

Thank you

Krissy Metcalf
Customer Service Manager

How long until other brokers and exchanges follow suit? At the rate the onslaught to crush the last remaining "gold bug" is unfolding we expect that what Crossland just did will be a mandatory CFTC regulation in a few short months.

All hard asset resistance must be crushed!

And in other news, the delivery requests to JPM continue, as does the company's somewhat questionable strategy to make it appear it has no eligible deliverable problem by continuing to convert registered gold into commercial. Because while the bank's vault has not received one additional ounce of gold in over a week, just as it got another request for 24,028 oz of gold on Wednesday, the bank continues to "restock" by converting its stock of registered gold into eligible, this time "adding" another 57,860 oz (something HSBC decided to do as well), the fourth day in the past week it has done just this.