Been in Berlin now for 4 days now - less than 12 hours until the World Money Fair opens. Been busy in the meantime - most of the wheeling and dealing takes place before the show, with meetings booked weeks and months in advance. Highlights to date: - getting lost in the Emirates lounge in Dubai - the lounge is bigger than most Australian airports - forgetting to take liquids out of my backpack at Heathrow while transiting - they make the TSA look like daycare teachers - leaving 41C in Melbourne and finding -6C in Berlin, with some snow still on the ground - one of our party getting to Berlin, and his suitcase NOT getting to Berlin - had to pass the hat around and donate spare thermals and scarves for the subzero temperatures until it turned up - trying to find somewhere that would accept a 100 note and make change so we could buy train tickets - discovering wurst-croissants (the best croissants!) - the ridiculously easy and incredibly extensive train network - I am *yet* to see a train cancelled or late in having caught about 30 trains in the last 4 days - usual touristy stuff like visiting the Brandenberg Gate, the Reichstag and Checkpoint Charlie. The museum at Checkpoint Charlie documenting the Cold War era and subsequent political events is very thought provoking. Very anti-communist/socialist. - joining in the semi-exclusive (well they let us in) annual Perth Mint beer and pizza night - thanks Ed for picking up the tab, including the 2 hours of beers while we waited after getting the time wrong and turning up early! - pitching new coin ideas to Ron Currie after influence of said beers - we may have stumbled onto a winner if we can secure product licencing - being asked to leave a bullion store when we introduced ourselves as Australian bullion dealers - language was a bigger barrier than anticipated, apparently CK knows just enough German to be offensive - buying half sovereigns at W Davis prices at another branch of the same company that thought it was cool to get a visit from some Australian bullion dealers! They offered to buy any AUD off us. - selling a half sovereign a few hours later to a bar owner who was after some gold, he was happy to be able to buy gold for cash, I'm just hoping 122 is under any KYC requirements here! - visiting Room 77 and being the fourth person in Germany to use the new Lamassu bitcoin ATM they just installed - eating out and paying in bitcoin for food and beer (twice so far) - awesome bike shop that was an acre or two in size, with a huge range of electric bikes - random wildlife like a red fox twice the size of the ones in Australia - Berlin Zoo - seeing the odd building here and there still sporting bullet holes and shrapnel damage from the battles waged here during WWII, and a bombed out cathedral that was not rebuilt. Saw a brick building in the middle of Berlin Zoo that clearly took some machine gun fire around one of the windows, with chunks chewed out of the brickwork. - organising new wholesale suppliers (got to do some work while we're here!) Will post some photos from the show floor when it opens tomorrow. We've set ourselves two challenges - who can find the cheapest round 50c, and who can find an Intrinsic Tender XAG round of any type.
If possible...could you ask Ron if the 2014 Australian Kangaroo - Silver Bullion Coin is going to be minted this year? http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013L01583/Explanatory Statement/Text Also Is there any news of the 2oz kooks being minted for 2015? And Is the 2014 Australian Stock Horse - Silver Bullion Coin a goer or not and will it come carded as well as bullion? Cheers H
Already asked about the silver kangaroos - all I got in response was "we can't say". Whatever the answer is, apparently it is commercial in confidence at this time.
Thanks for posting this...we were supposed to go and cancelled at last minute. I'll be interested to hear your 'lessons learned' after its over.
If your taste buds are in the market for german schnitzel I recommend Berliner Marcus Brau near St Hedwig hospital
Pics will need to wait a little while - can't upload through my ipad to the forum. Scale is immense - there's exhibition side rooms crammed with dealers that are bigger than any show I've seen put on in Australia. The 1 tonne gold coin is on display. There's also about 1 tonne of security guards around it.
That's just part of the main hall. It's *way* bigger with lots of dealer tables set up in side halls, landings, anywhere they can sell enough space to set up a table Skipped it today for the natural history museum (dinosaurs!), will be back there tomorrow.
GP, any chance you saw the Disney coin from New Zealand Mint? NZ was supposed to be doing some kind of reveal at Berlin.
Pics are on the Silver Stackers Facebook page - can't upload them to the forum via the iPad, but they are publicly accessible on Facebook. No signup necessary. https://www.facebook.com/SilverStackers/posts/10152148636363567
