Abyss

Technical analysis has lot of negative associations. I could add hundreds of indicators to the charts and come into state of paralysis by analysis. You need devote time energy, effort, dedication into the study of Technical Analysis before dismissing it as voodoo science. I use Technical Analysis to avoid the following situation happening and keep my  emotional state in check.

But as with everything in life the more you study/practice the more proficient you become.

Waiting to see if my sons gets into Manchester Grammar school, if not as a family migrate to USA. Continue stack Gold but unsure which side of the pond it will be done and regardless of location I want to keep the original QB stack, blood sweet and tears to accumulate that….. 
After QB stack was completed I did pause gold purchases.

Cannot be too harsh on anyone sold their Gold in the past our education systems does not teach about finance/money/investing/protecting wealth/central banking/fiat currencies/inflation/stock markets. IMHO depending on where in the business cycle you are their is a time to be more heavily invested in property/stocks/bonds/precarious metals/cash. On reflection I made the right call last year wanted to diversify and allocate percentage net worth into Gold/Silver but my mistake was the allocation was to small of a percentage. Last year when purchasing Gold I knew I eventually wanted a larger percentage of net worth into the metals but only purchased smaller percentage. Original poster maybe kicking themselves in the teeth sold their gold on reflection of current prices but by the same token I am also regretting not buying more after all the research time/energy/effort put into holding physical metal.
April 2018 Gold moved from $1360 down to $1160 August 2018. I started purchasing September/October 2018 price $1200 but Gold is no exception like everything else when prices tank people get fearful and start to sell and when prices rise people don't want to miss out and start buying. It is very hard to fight our baser human instinct regardless where investing our money.
Financial Markets: When Fear & Greed Take Over: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/01/030701.asp

I held similar beliefs until recently. Gold international commodity not dependent upon who is in government or the politics of a single country but the UK does represent the 5th largest economy in the world and plays a significant role in Gold in international trade so impact of Brexit cannot be mitigated. GBP and the strength or weakness will be positive or negative (short term) for those hold gold in the UK.
My analysis of the charts show that in this 7+ year bear market retracement gold should hit $1,000 and retest the break out that resulted in the bull market starting 2009. But if this level does not hold then next major level support (looking at monthly charts) $700 range.

My strategy continue purchase 10 oz Gold in the QB series for every release regardless of where the spot price is at the time. Gold hit $1,000 oz level then I will purchase physical Gold in  quantity that will double existing Gold stack. Gold reaches $700 level than I will triple physical position in Gold at which point I will have converted all my fiat into Gold. My strategy buy on the way down at key levels.
Will price of Gold ever get to $1,000 or $700 who knows. I don't want to scare anyone but I am mentally preparing myself and having a strategy in place to cope with $200 or $500 lower spot prices in Gold and trying to avoid the roller coaster of emotions I am sure that @Glorfindel experienced when he/she liquidated their position. I can see two circumstances where significantly lower Gold spot prices can happen. Collective efforts from central banks to continue fiat system and suppress price of Gold. Dollar Index continues to strengthen.
I don't know where the saying comes from but I hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Looks nothing like @James32 hoover

Payment Terms/Method: Payment by bank transfer in GBP or Bitcoin BTC only .
Last Chance to grab these items as this sale topic will be closed on Friday 1st December. 
Item: 1/10 oz Gold Britannia’s
Quantity available: 8 coins in capsules 2020, 2 coins in capsules 2021.
Coin Price: £185 each. + postage Royal Mail Special Delivery.
Item: 1/4oz Gold Britannia’s
Quantity available: 3 coins in capsules 2021,
Coin Price: £440 each. + postage Royal Mail Special Delivery.
Item: 1/4 oz Gold Year of Rat
Quantity available: 3 coins in capsules 2020.
Coin Price: £450 each. + postage Royal Mail Special Delivery.
All available individually.
All sold as seen please review pictures as returns / refunds are not accepted.
To order:  Please direct message me to confirm your order.
Order confirmation and dispatch details will be provided upon receipt of payment in full.

Box/COA: In protective capsule. 

Condition notes: Very Good - These are uncirculated bullion coins and have been left in the capsules from new. As with all bullion coins there may be slight marks but I do not see any with my naked eye. Inspection of coins shows no signs of tarnish or milk spots. Please review pictures as they form part of the item description and condition.
Item Location: UK
Shipping: Buyer assumes risk of shipping. Items will be sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery fully insured £6.85 P&P each or combined postage for multi buy and postage will be confirmed to buyer prior to sale. All tracking and reference details will be provided to buyer. Coins will be shipped individually to remain within insurance value limits.

Shipping destinations: Will ship to Major UK Royal Mail postal locations only.

Payment Terms/Method: Payment by bank transfer in GBP or Bitcoin BTC only .

Dispatch Time: Aim to dispatch within 24hrs of receiving payment in full. Full tracking and insurance details will be provided.
Refunds / Returns: All Sales are final, and refunds / returns are not accepted.
Photos: 

I spent a moment to speak with someone on eBay's live chat support.
Makes for interesting reading!
 

I think this mostly applies to the EU and Northern Ireland, but since the rule hasn't been adjusted for inflation the threshold in number of gold coins we can carry with us, without triggering the rule, has been silently dropping.
This might seem obvious since monopoly money has lost value over time, but I found it more surprising once I got the data (please double check it):
Year Gold Price ($/oz) EUR/USD Gold Price (€/oz) Gold Price (€/g) Sovereigns (€10,000) Britannias (€10,000) 2007 656.50 1.36 481.48 15.48 88.22 20.77 2008 942.50 1.59 593.59 19.08 71.56 16.85 2009 941.00 1.41 665.45 21.39 63.83 15.03 2010 1206.30 1.25 964.46 31.01 44.04 10.37 2011 1482.30 1.45 1022.49 32.87 41.54 9.78 2012 1597.20 1.27 1262.09 40.58 33.66 7.92 2013 1255.90 1.30 965.03 31.03 44.02 10.36 2014 1326.40 1.37 968.63 31.14 43.85 10.32 2015 1169.00 1.11 1049.84 33.75 40.46 9.53 2016 1336.70 1.11 1203.58 38.70 35.29 8.31 2017 1217.90 1.14 1066.17 34.28 39.84 9.38 2018 1239.80 1.17 1061.60 34.13 40.01 9.42 2019 1385.60 1.14 1219.19 39.20 34.84 8.20 2020 1773.20 1.12 1578.15 50.74 26.92 6.34 2021 1775.90 1.19 1497.79 48.16 28.36 6.68 2022 1798.90 1.05 1716.89 55.20 24.74 5.82 2023 1921.70 1.09 1761.81 56.64 24.11 5.68  
Right, so in 2007 (ChatGPT tells me this is when the rule was created) you could bring with you 20 1oz gold Britannias without having to declare anything. Today that number is around 5.
If you plot the thresholds, that is the number of coins you can travel with without doing the customs declaration:


 
I'm afraid the conclusion from this is that, unless the rule is adjusted, there will be a time when we'll have to declare even a single Britannia. Perhaps something worth thinking about.

TL:DR - It's about maths not trust or popularity
The value someone generates on TSF depends how much money they save when buying items plus how much profit they make when selling on TSF and elsewhere. For those who have been here a long time and made a lot of trades that number is pretty big, perhaps 10+ ozs of gold
There's membership fees and TSF merch plus posting value but that by itself is irrelevant for trade. Commenting in threads might give someone a good impression but then again it might not 😂. I comment a lot but it generates 0 sales figures
To trust someone to ship first before payment you just need to know your items are worth less than their forum value. If their forum value is high it's extremely unlikely they will ever rip you off as it would badly hurt their own self-interest
Of course many people are honourable and have moral standards but you don't have to trust in that unknown quantity - just use numbers
When using an intermediary you borrow their value to make sales on your behalf in the case of BYB or with private traders you borrow their value to gain value on the forum. When you have borrowed enough of their value you can then trade without it
The guy that scammed measured his forum value as being worth less than the money he could steal. We can calculate this to be true. He stole something like 100 ounces of silver AFAIK or £2.3K give or take. He had sold a few tubes and other small quantities of Phillies, the profit on that being much less than £2K. He didn't buy anything and he didn't comment in threads. So yes, we can calculate this was a +EV move for the scammer, if we assume he valued his soul at £0
The money available to steal had greater value than the profit from trades and forum interaction (their forum value)
When dealing with a "high trust" member the money available to steal (from you) will never be of greater value than the profit they make from trades and forum interaction. No trust or popularity is required. Sales figures and a sigma would be better
The above scamming scenario is true for every business. Sometimes it's more profitable to extract every possible penny now even if it means destroying the brand and bankrupting the company. The profit they make from trashing the brand via unethical business practice is greater than the cost of rebuilding that same business from scratch. That number can be rationally calculated and this is a known theory in finance/economics (risk-shifting). That's different from popularity or trusting someone's character, those numbers can't be rationally calculated. 
My intentions were the same as yours btw and I never intended on buying anything on TSF. Didn't quite work out that way though, too many bargains in the buy/sell 💸💸

Well said.
Back 4 years ago at the height of the silver forum group orders from Estonia we were handling £50,000 packages every 6 weeks.
However, the value of everything I have built since then and will continue to build going forward (hopefully for a long time) far outstrips even the large sums of £50,000 that for some people could have been an exit scam.
I mean, let's also not forget the real world ramifications here. The scammer will be caught one way or another eventually. Either by means of having their bank accounts closed, none every being able to be opened again in the future.
No credit rating, no mortgage, no easy ability to rent, buy a car, get insurance and much more.
That's assuming he doesn't get caught by the fuzz and end up with a criminal record.

That member in question did not meet the recommendations in the following topic. Not to say that someone can't turn out to be a scammer even if meeting all of the recommendations below, but I would like to clearly state that they did not meet the recommendations (i.e. account age was lower than suggested, and they had little/no posts outside of trade topics interacting on the forum, low forum reputation points also etc) 

It was an unfortunate event, though fortunately I believe that most members affected were able to get money returned from their banks as this person was reported for fraud. They were also reported to the police and action fraud. 

If you would like to reduce risk as much as possible it is important to be aware of the following recommendations and understand that there is still some risk (as with anything in life)
 
 

Hit the nail on the head, scammers have tried multiple times on eBay to defraud me (changed the delivery address after payment, obtained a brand new coin from myself and returned a fully scratched coin and obtained a refund. Trading on the Silver Forum taught me all the safety precautions need to take and early on when trading on the forum I was blown away with the communication and the quality packaging and service above and beyond from likes of Chards / Atkinson also help me up my game. Even now whenever I receive a high ticket valuable item (regardless of if it is a precious metal) I video record the unboxing process with proof of the date and time in the video in case something has gone wrong.
Think about this poor couple received a power bank instead of £800 iPhone when ordering directly from Apple UK unable to obtain a replacement/refund I bet if they had video evidence of the unboxing process they would not have to rely on their word alone. If this goes to a small court case it will be on the basis on the judge determining who is telling the truth, make the judges job easier, video record the unboxing process.....
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-devastated-after-paying-800-28037497

Hit the nail on the head, scammers have tried multiple times on eBay to defraud me (changed the delivery address after payment, obtained a brand new coin from myself and returned a fully scratched coin and obtained a refund. Trading on the Silver Forum taught me all the safety precautions need to take and early on when trading on the forum I was blown away with the communication and the quality packaging and service above and beyond from likes of Chards / Atkinson also help me up my game. Even now whenever I receive a high ticket valuable item (regardless of if it is a precious metal) I video record the unboxing process with proof of the date and time in the video in case something has gone wrong.
Think about this poor couple received a power bank instead of £800 iPhone when ordering directly from Apple UK unable to obtain a replacement/refund I bet if they had video evidence of the unboxing process they would not have to rely on their word alone. If this goes to a small court case it will be on the basis on the judge determining who is telling the truth, make the judges job easier, video record the unboxing process.....
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-devastated-after-paying-800-28037497

Good discussion and interesting to see differing opinions. Have hopefully built a decent rep over the last 18 months and I myself started by sending a handful of items prior to payment to get things moving in the right direction. Now am able to enjoy receiving payment first and sending immediately the next day. Not had a single bad trade on the forum and the one buyer I had that was not 100% with what they received were made good as soon as I had an unblemished coin to replace the original one with. Love trading on TSF and feels safer to me than the likes of ebay

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

My intermediary service works like this, but arguably a little more time consuming.
But it would be more than a full time job to do the whole forum trades. Having personally done nearly £750,000 worth of intermediary sales this year alone I can tell you it's a lot of work!
The benefits of my system is that there isn't a ridiculous amount of money flooding into and out of my account, which would cause a lot of potential interest from banks and also HMRC. Quite probably triggering a VAT registration too.

Here's the thing, the haves started of as have nots, at least I did. Trust was built using a time tested system and hard work. Nobody just joins the trusted ranks, you get out what you put in and each member has to decide/ work that out for themselves. 

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……

As for the question of is it worthwhile building up your seller reputation on the Silver Forum despite a recent member abuse of the trust (one out of thousands transactions taken place) I would definitely say so. I have sold on Facebook groups and eBay and having a reputable sellers feedback on the forum has allowed other buyers to come to the forum to view my sellers feedback and view the evolution of my stack on full stack photos thread. In the future I might migrate to the USA and my reputation on the silver forum would be invaluable if I wanted to liquidate my stack and retain some of the premiums some of my coins have gained as opposed getting spot from a dealer. I remember some of my early trades on the forum buying 1 oz Gold coins and yes I was nervous and uneasy as a new member but I also visited few of the sellers and purchased coins with cash. Very early on as a new member wanted to purchase numerous 1 oz Gold coins from a relatively new member as well and we were in the chicken and egg situation (who going to send the money/coin(s) 1st. Luckily I contacted BYB and ask if he would act as an intermediary (before establishment of his intermediary service) and after he mull over the pro and cons he accepted. The rest is history……