The Royal Mint signature gold service

[jayboat]

Hello, 

Ive been stacking silver the last few years and own a very small amount of gold but after emptying my ratesetter amount, i need to move that money somewhere else. 

I had thought about just buying a load of sovereigns but then i came across this and seen you can invest from only £20 and they claim you get close to spot. You are charged 0.5% of your holding vaule once per year for storage fees and you can not take deliverly as you are buying into a 400 oz bar, hence the close to spot price.

I am not sure about it because i have always read if you dont hold it, you dont own it and i have told this the people as well. I am thinking the royal mint should be safe enough but its still breaking the rule. Was just thinking it could be a very liquid way to hold gold while adding little amounts here and there, while continuing to adding to my silver stack.

I tried to search the forum and google with little results are honest reveiws. Has anyone ever used this are something like it? 

[HelpingHands]

That 0.5% fee could add up.

You can probably buy sovs as close to spot as they will offer and you get to have them in your hand.

[Paul]

http://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/news/signature-gold

its only been going a year or so - guess it is safe as any other allocated account.

Just don't put all your eggs in one basket - a little in bullionvault, a little in goldmoney, a little in physical, a little in this RM signature doo-darr account 

If one wheel falls off the bus and society goes tats up, you are not totally Donald Ducked

UK royal mint has been around since 886AD so think you cash is safer with them than new pups like et al  bitgold

[BaldyBob]

5 hours ago, Paul said:

UK royal mint has been around since 886AD so think you cash is safer with them than new pups like et al  bitgold

Owned by the Government though Paul. Is that a good thing or not?

[Paul]

16 hours ago, BaldyBob said:

Owned by the Government though Paul. Is that a good thing or not?

Well ANYTHING is possible in this day and age, as long as all your eggs arent in one basket you still have enough eggs for just a slightly smaller omelette 

[Pete]

I was somewhat surprised to find the Royal Mint site was selling the one ounce gold Queens' Beast Lion cheaper than elsewhere so I opened an account and placed an order.
Very straightforward and very quick - WOW !!

Then I came across the subject above - the Signature Gold Service.
This seems pretty good for stackers that either don't wish to hold physical gold in their hand, avoid shipping charges and can trade instantly very close to spot prices.
A real plus is that you can buy as little as £20 at a time and of course no upper limit.
If you have £120 to buy a half sovereign you will pay at best 3% over spot and a delivery charge of say £7.
If you are only buying this coin to invest in gold then you could own the same quantity of gold for less cost AND if spot rises you could sell it immediately for 99% of spot rather than 98% ( or less ) plus another shipping charge for your coin.

There is an annual fee of 0.5% plus VAT on this fee which is quite small bearing in mind the fluctuations of spot.
After a cursory look at their website I cannot see any cause for concern so would be interested to hear if anyone on the forum has joined this and tried trading - is it instant and are there any Ahh..Butts ?

[ApisMellifera]

Yeah I've tried for it and think it's quick and handy format to trade gold. I haven't sold/traded yet and buying only at the moment.  I have put £20 here and there 3 times, mainly to try it out and to diversify.

The selling is very straight forward, you can choose to sell an £ amount or Oz amount. (See screenshot)
At a premium of course, at time of writing RMB price per Oz = 932.35 with a spot price 941.62

My plan with this is to build it up and when the spot price is right I will sell the sig gold and buy a 1/4 coin or continue to build it up to get a 1oz gold coin.

I also have a bullionvault account to spead me eggs, based on a poll I did awhile ago.

 

 

[KevjustKev]

6 hours ago, Pete said:

I was somewhat surprised to find the Royal Mint site was selling the one ounce gold Queens' Beast Lion cheaper than elsewhere so I opened an account and placed an order.
Very straightforward and very quick - WOW !!

Then I came across the subject above - the Signature Gold Service.
This seems pretty good for stackers that either don't wish to hold physical gold in their hand, avoid shipping charges and can trade instantly very close to spot prices.
A real plus is that you can buy as little as £20 at a time and of course no upper limit.
If you have £120 to buy a half sovereign you will pay at best 3% over spot and a delivery charge of say £7.
If you are only buying this coin to invest in gold then you could own the same quantity of gold for less cost AND if spot rises you could sell it immediately for 99% of spot rather than 98% ( or less ) plus another shipping charge for your coin.

There is an annual fee of 0.5% plus VAT on this fee which is quite small bearing in mind the fluctuations of spot.
After a cursory look at their website I cannot see any cause for concern so would be interested to hear if anyone on the forum has joined this and tried trading - is it instant and are there any Ahh..Butts ?

Is the VAT on the price you pay when you buy, no VAT on gold, or the total of that 0.5%?

[Pete]

On 09/05/2017 at 21:46, tallthinkev said:

Is the VAT on the price you pay when you buy, no VAT on gold, or the total of that 0.5%?

I reckon there is an annual service fee of 0.5% on the value of your gold.
If you held £10,000 of gold you would be billed £50 plus VAT on the charge i.e. £10 so your total fee would be £60

[Vacendak]

I have a couple of ounces on Signature Gold. They lowered their "vault" fees earlier this year, they used to be tiered, hence more expensive for small holdings. I find the 0.5% fee to be acceptable considering the ease of buying/selling. I use it mostly for hedging my portfolio and being able to sell quickly (for a profit in case of a market crash) if/when the need appears. They have also improved when in comes to moving some cash in, debit cards can now be used, before it had to be by bank transfer. With all the jokes about the quality of the Royal Mint coins, I think this is one of their most professional and reliable offerings.

As for the trust factor, I would choose Signature Gold over a paper-gold ETF any day.

I also have a stack of actual "family silver/gold", the kind I do not expect to sell unless I need to buy on the black-market when the Germans/EU invade.

The VAT is indeed on the vaulting fee.

[MancunianStacker]

I'm transferring my private pension to RM before it potentially collapses. Nothing is safe and the fact that RM pension will be backed 100% by gold, it's better (imho) than a promise from my old Life Company employer. I'm an ex-IFA and under the "rules" you wouldn't advise anyone to do this but then all advice now is based around the Rothschild model of having large funds under management which the adviser gets paid a % on.

Not "right" for most people though. 

Any thoughts of having the pension pot like this guys? It will be there for 20 years for me. Transfer pot of £50k out of the stock market!

[Vacendak]

Personally, I go for shares/funds in the pension pot and gold hedging on the side. However, putting the gold hedge in the pension and investing on the side (I assume ISA) also has its upside as nobody can predict when the market crashes, then recovers. The markets always does both over time. The problem with the pension option is that the SIPP wrapper disappears in one go (only 25% tax free), so where will the market be by then? If it is just after a crash and nastily bearish, you win with your gold as it would likely be up. If it is booming and gold is not doing so well (gold does have nasty dips too) the option of going into annuity is off the table (the asset would not be worth as much as it could have been) and annuities might not be as bad as they are right now by then.

By holding a lot of gold for twenty years, one does kiss goodbye to a lot of potential upside though as I believe the market beats it long term.

Of course, if within a few years there is a nasty crash and we enter a protracted bear market like in the '70s... your option is a winner.

You are an IFA, so you should talk to yourself about it. Sorry... I had to say it.

 

 

 

[MancunianStacker]

1 hour ago, Vacendak said:

You are an IFA, so you should talk to yourself about it. Sorry... I had to say it.

 

 

 

Well I was an IFA lol!

I'm now very anti paper assets and with another financial calamity around the corner I'm taking my pot and trying to keep the wealth but I can also buy and sel on the dips and increase value that way :-) 

[sovereignsteve]

I've read there are fund managers recommending their clients take their money out of the stock markets; too much risk, valuations are stretched to breaking point.

[Vacendak]

@sovereignsteve The stockmarket is indeed overvalued, especially in the US; but as always Lady Greed whispers "Could go even higher...". Sitting in cash at near 0% is costly. Gold is not cash and is not suited for short-term wealth rotation due to premiums/spread/cost of delivery (and VAT for silver) needing to be recouped with time. Even though costly and risky, the best yield/income is now from dividends. In normal times income is more likely to come from bonds/cash, with capital growth from shares. So it is hard to decide to sell, even now with all the flashing lights, because of the juicier dividends.

Got caught last time with all the eggs in one basket, so I have diversified, hence the "gold component" in the portfolio now. Then again, I believe, like others that the stockmarket goes up one third of the time, crashes one third of the time and recovers one third of the time. So overall it goes up when considering long term investments. The key attraction for me and gold is the negative correlation with shares. So while I am glad I got into gold last year (even though at a relative peak, so technically losing money) as a way of diversifying/hedging my portfolio, I would not put "everything" in gold either.

[MancunianStacker]

About 50 years ago gold was £15 an oz. About 20 years ago £212 an oz. Now it's £980 an oz.

So I have my properties as my real pension plan, this idea is my riskier part of the plan but will still be part of my pension pot. I'm not retiring for another 20 years so I have it sat long enough to take any hits in capital value but based on the past gold price and "money printing" I think it's a safer plan than paper assets that could be taken by a Govt at any time. Also, there is a finite American but of gold in the earths crust. Once it's uneconomical to mine the price will start to get crazy.

Remember Cyprus, Greece and the lesser know Hungary (where everyone's private pensions were bailed into the National Pension scheme in order to pay the pensions of the State). People think this can't happen to modern Western countries but it can. 

The Govts won't be able to bail out the banks the next time and already legislation is in place for banks to take your money if it happens again. Depositorsnare at the back of the queue and the cash is no longer your own when you deposit it. Sure the Govts compensation scheme will kick in but at that point £1 will have been devalued to help the Govt bail out everyone's bank accounts or they will borrow the money into existence and cause major inflation.

For most people 10% in precious metals should be sufficient if all other assets classes go to pot but I'm certain that they will soon an don't want to have it in paper assets. I don't my pension scheme will even be around in 20 years. When it happens it will happen quickly and probably whilst the west is asleep. 

 

[kiskelo]

Does/has anybody used this service?

https://www.royalmintbullion.com/Signature-Gold

Regards,

 

[CarlosSilver]

I've not tried it yet but there was a thread about it a while ago.

 

[morezone]

@kiskelo  Merged your post so we don't have duplicate threads on the same subject.

[darrol]

On ‎30‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 22:14, MancunianStacker said:

About 50 years ago gold was £15 an oz. About 20 years ago £212 an oz. Now it's £980 an oz.

So I have my properties as my real pension plan, this idea is my riskier part of the plan but will still be part of my pension pot. I'm not retiring for another 20 years so I have it sat long enough to take any hits in capital value but based on the past gold price and "money printing" I think it's a safer plan than paper assets that could be taken by a Govt at any time. Also, there is a finite American but of gold in the earths crust. Once it's uneconomical to mine the price will start to get crazy.

Remember Cyprus, Greece and the lesser know Hungary (where everyone's private pensions were bailed into the National Pension scheme in order to pay the pensions of the State). People think this can't happen to modern Western countries but it can. 

The Govts won't be able to bail out the banks the next time and already legislation is in place for banks to take your money if it happens again. Depositorsnare at the back of the queue and the cash is no longer your own when you deposit it. Sure the Govts compensation scheme will kick in but at that point £1 will have been devalued to help the Govt bail out everyone's bank accounts or they will borrow the money into existence and cause major inflation.

For most people 10% in precious metals should be sufficient if all other assets classes go to pot but I'm certain that they will soon an don't want to have it in paper assets. I don't my pension scheme will even be around in 20 years. When it happens it will happen quickly and probably whilst the west is asleep. 

 

I believe gold is over priced and if you look why gold has  gone up over the past 10 years  its because of the banking crisis, brexit, trump, north Korea,   Its hard for someone like me to invest in gold seriously  when I think the price is going to drop, what happens when brexit becomes a success and the economy starts  picking up, maybe north Korea will get  resolved,   I just think if people get scared that there money is not safe they can make quick and bad investments ,  I am not saying gold is a bad investment but surly just like the stock market there is a good and bad time to enter that market

[ChrisF]

@darrol Even if that is true, there is always another war, financial crisis or terrorist attack around the corner unfortunately.  Until we all earn to love each other gold will fluctuate up and down.  Thats why you keep gold for years not months.

[Markh]

@darrol With all due respect pal, gold is not overpriced and the reasons you mentioned are only a small percentage of golds recent price fluctuations. Other forum members on here have explained in great detail about golds true value and how the pricing mechanism works. This sort of of investment should in my opinion be a certain percentage of your gold strategy along with physical holdings.

[PansPurse]

I was actually prompted to get into PM because of Brexit (although I really don't want to get into a conversation about that). I figured that having a portion of what little savings I have in something other than currency might be sensible.

As for the signature gold option, I've tried it, the platform is easy to use and the fees are much kinder to smaller investors than Bullionvault (sorry, I just don't have 40k to spare)