Safe Selling Precious Metals

[Guest Lester Weevils]

There have been numerous threads regarding the safest/bestest ways to transact a private firearms sale, so what about a similar thread re private transacting silver, gold, platinum, palladium?

I've never done a person to person precious metals buy (always with companies), and never yet did any private precious metal sales at all to either a company or an individual, so am abysmally ignorant of the topic.

There ought to be some advantage to face-to-face private sale, because the companies I've dealt with, typically offer right-at or slightly above bullion spot price (depending on the item), but of course they will turn around and sell that item with significant markup. I never fool with collector items, just bulk bullion, so there's no "salesmanship" involved. For sake of example, if spot happened to be $30 and street price including commission markup happened to be $36, then it seems reasonable that a buyer would rather pay me $33 than pay a dealer $36, and I'd get paid a little more than selling to the dealer? On the other hand if I was to ask the same price + markup as a dealer, the buyer would most likely rather spend the $36 at a dealer because of his own "trust" issues? Figgering he might be less likely ripped off buying from a dealer if there is no money incentive to buy from a private party?

From the perspective of a seller, other than the possibility of meeting somewhere and getting robbed, the other obvious danger would be making an "apparently OK" sale but getting paid in counterfeit greenbacks or possibly other scams I'm not imaginative enough to think up?

One possibility, dunno if it is a good idea-- Arrange to meet inside my local bank branch. Meeting inside a bank wouldn't make a hold-up impossible but would seem more secure than a wally-world parking lot? After all there's that scary badass elderly security guard hanging out at the bank. That little podunk bank is rarely real busy except on payday, so I wouldn't exactly be getting in their way, but dunno if they would cop an attitude about it. I know many of the employees, but it is just foreign territory because I've never done it before.

The bank people might look at me funny if I was to sell a gun or a chainsaw in the bank lobby, but maybe they wouldn't think it too unusual to sell a hunk of silver or gold in the bank lobby? In addition, I probably wouldn't have much trouble talking a clerk into running the stack of greenbacks thru their money counter, which supposedly kicks out counterfeit bills, but dunno how good the machines are really.

Only drawback I can see is that it would be letting the bank know some of my biz, being a fairly private fella and I'd rather not advertise just on general principle. But it doesn't sound like a huge security risk because they inevitably know a lot more about my affairs than desirable, though the primary privacy is the anonymity of zillions of customers and zillions of transactions.

Never privately sold a gun for that matter, but have bought a couple. I don't recall the private gun sellers putting my cash under the magnifying glass looking for counterfeit, so maybe it is odd to expect that counterfeit might be a bigger hazard selling metals. Just for some reason it seems a more likely hazard transacting metals, but perhaps a rather remote risk.

As far as the buyer's potential paranoia, most of the stuff is "real standard" name-brand bars, but have heard that some name-brand bars have been counterfeited. I have a nice accurate scale could take along in a briefcase if necessary, and at home I can rig up water-immersion specific gravity testing, but specific gravity testing in the bank lobby might look a little weird.

Anybody have comments on that option, or possibly a much better plan?

[Guest HvyMtl]

I doubt the bank would let you do a business transaction in their lobby. Particularly one not related to the bank in any way. Something about liability.

As for checking the cash, there are pens specific to checking the validity. They even come with lights to check for the watermark. Easy bought at any office supply chain.

Careful with the scale, some PD look at it as drug paraphenalia. XD

My fear would be selling to an unknown. Is this guy legit, or is he/she/it here to rip me off? Assault me and take my stuff?

I dunno, I have never bought something like this in a face to face, private, transaction. Perhaps a place where you can do the transaction, and have a friend watching your back? Some place you can open carry without issue?

[BrasilNuts]

I used to do some business in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We would often use a bank for transactions.

It is a neutral secure location for both parties.

I would talk to the bank manager (if I had an account there) and tell him what I wanted to do, he may offer you the use of a meeting room or another private area.

As far as counterfeit items go, specific gravity would be your best bet.

Found this about a small SG rig. http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=39666

Another option is acid testing.

Some of the best advice I ever got was, if you want to be able to spot a counterfeit, know the real thing.

[Xtarheel]

A coin collecting friend of mine said that a coin show is the best place to sell silver. You can check with all the dealers to see what they will pay. Seems to be a pretty secure way of doing business. I suppose some would also buy gold or platinum. I plan on selling some that way when the price goes up a bit more.

[Sam1]

Just out of curiosity, are people really paying spot + $6 for silver? That just seems what you may be able to fish a couple of people for that don't know what they're doing, while spot + $3 is still on the high side.

Asking seriously, not trying to knock the pricing because I'm all for people making money - just never known anyone to pay that much before.

[mcurrier]

You need to get a rare earth magnet for checking the integrity of silver coins. A friend of mine got burned on some counterfit silver coins last week because he forgot to take his rare earth magnet with him. He had a regular magnet with him which spotted one coin right off, and he had his scale (weightwas correct), but he got greedy and didn't pay attention to the red flags. Google "rare earth magnet check silver coins" and check out the first three links (my tablet won't let me paste the links here for some reason). This is one of the best tests I know for checking silver coins.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thanks HvyMtl and BrasilNuts for the ideas re banks. Next time at the bank will try remember to ask the manager about that option. Banks are sometimes places to transact real estate and paper assets, which was why I was wondering if maybe PM's would be in the same niche.

Scales and so many household and shop chemicals are contraband, between my shop, reloading supplies, and prepper goods, if I ever get raided will look like a very dangerous criminal without having anything actually "illegal". Land of the free. Home of the brave.


[quote name='HvyMtl' timestamp='1353015749' post='846181']
My fear would be selling to an unknown. Is this guy legit, or is he/she/it here to rip me off? Assault me and take my stuff? ... I dunno, I have never bought something like this in a face to face, private, transaction.[/quote]

Yep, I'm in the same boat.

[mcurrier]

The rest of us are scum.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

[quote name='mcurrier' timestamp='1353094388' post='846735']
The rest of us are scum.
[/quote]

Hi mccurrier

Nope, just ain't got done replying to everybody. Trying to avoid writing individual messages so long that people don't havve enough patience to read them.


[quote name='Xtarheel' timestamp='1353017524' post='846201']
A coin collecting friend of mine said that a coin show is the best place to sell silver. You can check with all the dealers to see what they will pay. Seems to be a pretty secure way of doing business. I suppose some would also buy gold or platinum. I plan on selling some that way when the price goes up a bit more.
[/quote]

Thanks, wouldn't have ever thought of that. Never had interest in collectibles like rare pennies or ancient gold coins. Googled and discovered that they have 2 big coin shows per year at Camp Jordan in chatt, looks kinda like gun or knife shows except for coins. Whooda thunk? Found some chatt guy posted a report on one of the recent camp jordan shows. He said that there was quite a bit of bullion at fairly low markup.

Wonder if the gun show custom of "walking around with a gun" until a passer-by buys it-- Wonder if they have the same custom at coin shows? Some guy walks around with a hundred ounce silver ingot till somebody buys it off him? Or maybe coin shows are more "stuffy". Next show is march, might go take a look-see.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

[quote name='Sam1' timestamp='1353026959' post='846260']
Just out of curiosity, are people really paying spot + $6 for silver? That just seems what you may be able to fish a couple of people for that don't know what they're doing, while spot + $3 is still on the high side.

Asking seriously, not trying to knock the pricing because I'm all for people making money - just never known anyone to pay that much before.
[/quote]

Hi Sam1. Those example numbers were imaginary "just for example". Dunno what average markups happen to be. Sometimes in the past, markups looked kinda high at most places I was looking, but looking yesterday they didn't appear "hiway robbery" on some items. I read that the last couple of months PM sales volumes have dropped, so maybe that would drive down the markup?

Ferinstance one online dealer today that is usually "in the middle or below" average prices when you consider they don't rip you on shipping, and quality and delivery is reliable-- Silver spot at this moment is $32.28, and their price for 20 uncirculated silver eagles, no choice of year, is $724.69. Every time I've bought 20 silver eagles there, they always come in "like new" condition in the little plastic mint tubes and each tube is all the same year, but they charge a little less if you don't care what year you get. Just sayin, have never seen em send a tube full of mixed dates. Anyway, that is $36.23 per silver eagle, or a markup of $3.95 per ounce.

But that place's current markup on 10 oz "namebrand" silver bars is $1.29 per ounce, and today's markup on 100 oz silver bars is 44 cents per ounce. I haven't paid real close attention or been taking notes over the years, but those look like lower markups than I've seen at some other times. On the other hand, maybe the absolute dollar amount of markups has stayed about the same, but it looked like a worse ripoff back when metals were cheaper. Back when silver was $5 per ounce, a $3.95 markup on silver eagles would near double the price. In fact am pretty sure I've seen times when silver eagles were priced near double the spot price, but my memory is bad and maybe its fooling me.

I don't go to pawn shops much, but was at a pawn shop the other day that has "almost free" pricing on good-quality, good condition geetars and amplifiers, real good pricing on some of their tools, and gun prices that were overall pretty reasonable. Which is lots better than some pawn shops that have prices so high you could just about go buy the item new at retail cheaper. But anyway this pawn shop with the firesale prices on geetars and amps, had some coins under glass that were just crazy over-priced. So maybe their clientele is more willing or desirous of buying high-priced metals than low-priced amplifiers?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

[quote name='mcurrier' timestamp='1353035320' post='846342']
You need to get a rare earth magnet for checking the integrity of silver coins. A friend of mine got burned on some counterfit silver coins last week because he forgot to take his rare earth magnet with him. He had a regular magnet with him which spotted one coin right off, and he had his scale (weightwas correct), but he got greedy and didn't pay attention to the red flags. Google "rare earth magnet check silver coins" and check out the first three links (my tablet won't let me paste the links here for some reason). This is one of the best tests I know for checking silver coins.
[/quote]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFPmbuFdyy4[/media]

Thanks mcurrier

Yep, been reading that there is lots of fake stuff nowadays. Its a crying shame. I haven't bought any metals since the fakes got so common, and checked mine for weight, and spot-checked specific gravity, so am fairly confident my stuff is legit, but if I sell it the buyer would be suspicious if he has good sense, so it is a concern for seller as well as buyer.

If a magnet just out-and-out sticks to something that is sposed to be .999 silver, gold, palladium or platinum then it would be a bad sign, but wonder if folks might get all upset for nothing in some cases. There are youtube videos of people showing weak magnetic interaction between silver coins and tiny rare earth magnets, and claiming that means their coin isn't pure silver. But as the above video shows, a real strong magnet "in motion" will interact quite strongly with silver, gold, palladium and platinum. So with a real strong magnet if a metal "somewhat interacts" when you wave the magnet and the metal near each other, it could be inconclusive. It wouldn't either rule-in or rule-out pure metal as advertised.

In order of high-to-low conductivity, of COMMON pure metals that will survive in solid state without melting or spontaneously combusting under terrestrial conditions, there is silver, copper, gold, aluminum, magnesium, tungsten, zinc, nickel, camium, iron, platinum, palladium, tin, and chromium.

So any trick you can do with a strong magnet and a pure copper or aluminum bar, you can do even better with a strong magnet and a pure silver bar, and it would work pretty dang good with a pure gold bar as well. Platinum and palladium have significantly lower conductivity (though still dang good) so those might not interact as strongly, dunno.

One place to get free very-strong small magnets is to always dissect your old 3.5" hard drives before you throw them away. I always dissect old hard drives for the platters, screws, bearings, sometimes good pieces of metals you can work, and crazy-strong magnets. Maybe some hard drives don't have the super-magnets, but every one I've dissasembled had them. Edited November 16, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[mcurrier]

[quote name='Lester Weevils' timestamp='1353097465' post='846770']
Hi mccurrier

Nope, just ain't got done replying to everybody. Trying to avoid writing individual messages so long that people don't havve enough patience to read them.




Thanks, wouldn't have ever thought of that. Never had interest in collectibles like rare pennies or ancient gold coins. Googled and discovered that they have 2 big coin shows per year at Camp Jordan in chatt, looks kinda like gun or knife shows except for coins. Whooda thunk? Found some chatt guy posted a report on one of the recent camp jordan shows. He said that there was quite a bit of bullion at fairly low markup.

Wonder if the gun show custom of "walking around with a gun" until a passer-by buys it-- Wonder if they have the same custom at coin shows? Some guy walks around with a hundred ounce silver ingot till somebody buys it off him? Or maybe coin shows are more "stuffy". Next show is march, might go take a look-see.
[/quote]

Just kidding dude. Bad joke, sorry. Humor doesn't always come across well on the internet.

[mcurrier]

Interesting video, I had not seen that one.

I have postulated for nearly half a century that UFO's made use of the earth's magnetic field for propulsion. That video just brought back to my memory my thought of their use of currents somehow to navigate the atmosphere using high powered magnetic fields by inducing and braking the field with various metals. Sounds feasible, doesn't it?

Only problem is, I don't really believe in UFO's, but if I did, that is how they would work.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi mccurrier. I keep an open mind on non-terrestrial UFO's. If they are cute peace'n'love aliens like E.T. it would be nice. If aliens are more like Predator not so much. Perhaps even worse would be sanctimonious missionary aliens pushing some weird religion-- Convert or die!

The trick to a classic flying saucer, either home-grown or from far away, is some sort of reactionless drive. Flying saucers are not typically reported to have exhaust. And a reactionless drive is the only thing exceptionally practical. If you could convert energy into propulsion without reaction mass, then we could already figger out how to carry pretty long-term energy sources along.

The problem is propellant. Even high-velocity jets like Ion engines, they generate a lot of specific impulse out of the propellant because they eject the propellant awesome fast, but once the propellant tanks are empty you are dead in the ether! Even if you have a fission, fusion, or solar power plant with many years or even indefinite-duration power available, you are stranded once the propellant tanks go dry.

AFAIK nobody has built a reactionless drive, but there is at least one known concept that hasn't been positively proved impossible, unless proved impossible recently.

Of "probability zero" most-likely-impossible reactionless drives, dunno if he was the first to think it up but back in the 1950's a fella patented a "Dean Drive". Which was a wobbly machine designed to sling captive masses in a rotary fashion such that the rotary wobble or gyroscopic precession would exert more wobble in one direction than any other, and so the gadget would "wobble forward" requiring no propellant. In a practical drive you would "stack" several out-of-phase wobblers so that the drive wouldn't have so much vibration that it would shake apart the vehicle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_drive

Since Dean, there have been more "nut case" wobbly drive designers than you can shake a stick at, and remains a hobby of many basement tinkerers who post their designs and experiments on the internet. Unfortunately there is this physics principle "conservation of momentum". Especially conservation of angular momentum. Apparently there's no way to directly convert angular momentum into linear momentum, regardless how many unbalanced parts you put in a complicated clockwork. Maybe the law has loopholes and some basement experimenter will find the exception, but doesn't seem likely.

When the internet wasn't big enough that you can look up about anything, I remembered reading about the Dean drive in an old issue of Mechanics Illustrated as a kid in the 1950's, but didn't recall the feller's name and couldn't look up "whatever turned out" with his invention, and got to sketching schematics of what I recalled. The seductive thing about wobbly gadgets is that is isn't immediately obvious they can't work. At first glance it looks like maybe some configuration would really work, so its like an unsolvable equation that you could spend a long time trying to solve. Same deal with multiple precessing gyroscopes. Seems like there might be a workable config, though it is really probability zero.

Called a physics prof at UTC who is a smart man who doesn't mind discussing the "physics of the impossible." Memory is so bad, can't recall the fella's name anymore. Anyway he knew what I described and named it the "dean drive" so I could look it up, and kindly explained that more than likely "there ain't no way." So we discussed it for awhile and I asked him if he thought reactionless drive is completely impossible. He replied that he was fairly confident someone would eventually come up with a reactionless drive and once discovered it might be "slapping yer forehead" obvious in hindsight, though he hadn't a clue. His best guess hunch that it would have something to do with rotating magnetic fields, so his hunch was similar to yours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodward_effect

Woodward's mechanism is a pretty simple electronic gadget based on Mach's Principle. I don't think everybody has given up on it and maybe there's something there, but so far it doesn't look so good and there has been a fair amount of testing. Would be great if it worked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_theory

Heim theory is the only one I'm aware of that hasn't been fairly well nixed. For one thing Heim's math is different and difficult, making it difficult to get physicists competent enough, to spend enough time to wade thru the math and decide if it am or am not total hogwash. If valid, a Heim drive would be simple in theory but require awesome strong superconducting magnets.