Premium minted silver bar

Steve19800, I think that was me serving you this week. Now that I'm not pinned to a trade desk, let me respond to some of the points you've raised.

Certicards - these come with a protective plastic sheet coating from The Perth Mint. It is not always applied perfectly. Think of it as the throw-away screen protector that comes on a new mobile phone. It's put there by the mint to stop the actual card from being scratched during handling - but it's designed to be ripped right off. Sometimes the 5g size comes direct from the mint without it - but every other size from 10g to 10oz has this removable plastic sheeting. We recommend clients leave it on to preserve the condition of the certicard and avoid the card being scratched. It is *not* a product defect. Recently we did receive some 1oz certicards from the mint with cracked casing - they, like we can do with any other defective Perth product - were returned for the mint at their own expense who happily replaced them to maintain quality.

Perth Mint bars - the example posted by someone earlier in this thread of what they considered a fake Perth Mint silver bar is not - that is *most definitely* the condition that *new* silver bars come from The Perth Mint. Most bullion buyers are aware of this. The quality control over Perth Mint cast bars is non-existent. Frankly the bars look crap, but they are what they are - a cast bar of guaranteed fineness and weight. They are made at the mint's refinery division, which is a totally separate facility from the mint's Hay St minting operations from both a physical and a business unit perspective, and as most people are aware, from a quality control perspective as well. The cast bars from the mint are really just that - cast bars, they come with dents, they are packaged touching each other so that they rub against each other during the 3,400km road trip to get to us, they have casting residue on them from god knows what during the casting process, they're just plain ugly. We even disclose this on the product page for the kilo bar that you won't receive a bar that looks like the stock image. They do *not* look like the photoshopped images on the mint's websites. Neither do Big Macs. This is why we offer alternative cast products such as PAMP 1kg bars.

PAMP Suisse minted bars - the bars you were offered were *brand new*, direct from the authorised Australian distributor, from the very first batch in the country. The serial number on the bar is in the double digits, as is the serial number on all of the bars we've received in this new packaging. The remaining open box I had available for sale was received into stock about a week prior. As I explained during your visit to our store, the only other bars I had in that size were in a sealed, consecutive numbered box of five, which after checking was already committed to filling another customer's existing online order, so I couldn't open it for you to take your pick of. As it turns out there are fine milk spots on some of those bars - but they were apparent on all four of the bars we had on hand. We're on the back end of a three week rout of the precious metals market, it's been incredibly busy and stock on hand is running low, when you pointed out the milk spots on the random bar I grabbed from the box, I went back out to the vaults and brought out all of the other bars and let you inspect them (through the glass - clients are never handed bullion prior to payment because as I will explain below you are not "locked" in our office) to pick the best one, and spent considerable time doing so despite the small queue that was growing behind you, and then did the same for another PAMP product, which was a 10oz bar you saw me remove from the brown paper twin-pack packaging. That bar is in the old style stapled plastic case, which is brittle and turned out to be cracked when I removed it from the outer wrapping. I pointed this out and said I could get another if you were interested in that size. I know you were after the "perfect" bar as you described it, however what we had on hand is how the bars come - they are brand new bars. I'm sorry that they didn't live up to your expectations of a perfect bar.

We *never* pass off second hand stock as new. We have low premium categories in our catalog where our buybacks are sold, and more often that not due to the mostly outward flow of metal, we're supplying new products in those categories anyway. Been about a month since we had a buyback 10oz bar to sell because everyone is buying, not selling their metal. But guess what - someone is going to score a brand new PAMP 10oz bar with a cracked case when they order low premium 10oz bars this week, because that bar doesn't meet our expectations of what a new bar should be, and it will be cheaper to discount it and sell it as low premium than to pay the return shipping for an exchange.

Our display case is there for exactly that - display. We have a limited number of items in it, for a number of reasons - primarily for security (we don't want it to be a smash'n'grab magnet while customers are present), and insurance (our insurer will only insure a minimum amount of display bullion because of the security issues it creates, plus we need to pack it all away each night). If an item is on display, it's far faster to direct a customer to look at the item already out on display than to leave our retail room, go through security door into a vault room, open a safe (after finding the right one), pull a product out, and return to reception, when there's one less than 2m away from them on a display stand.

We are a bullion dealer. We have millions of dollars of product on hand. We have huge cash flows. Of course we have security cameras. Like every other bullion dealer in the Melbourne CBD (as are many others in other capital cities) we're in a mixed-usage office building. Who wants to be seen stepping out of a bullion dealer directly onto the street in front of dozens of strangers with a backpack or bag in your hand? On a weekly basis we have a customer come through the doors that is obviously casing the joint. Break-ins at other bullion dealers, jewellers and diamond merchants on the same block as us happen far more frequently than you think. The security is for both our protection and yours - we've spent a small fortune on the bullion counter and security fitout for customer protection - the likelihood of an armed holdup is massively reduced if there's interlocking doors, bullet proof glass and, as you say, security cameras 1m from your face - we would be the most "hardened facility" bullion dealer in Melbourne for customer security - the chances of an incident occuring while another customer is present is almost non-existent. In the 70s a visiting client at a diamond dealer was killed during a triple murder diamond heist in the building across from us on Collins St, simply because he was present during the holdup as a witness. We take our customers security very seriously. We have a separate client lounge for private trading away from other clients for transactions over $5k as well so that you're not handling large sums of cash next to a stranger - the Perth Mint doesn't even have that.

Customers are not locked in our office - they are locked out. We have interlocking doors to prevent unwanted intruders from rushing the place. As a courtesy we will buzz open the outer glass door when you leave, but there is a "press to exit" button in the vestibule area - at any time, a client can leave our office without our intervention. This is why we can't hand bullion out through the pass through slot for you to inspect prior to payment.

I'm sorry that your last experience visiting our office didn't meet your expectations - however we are a bullion dealer, not a numismatic dealer, we do not pass off old product as new, and we have put a lot of thought into our customers security and safety. It that makes us difficult to deal with I can only apologise.

 

Done.