Happy Birthday. next time just buy bullion in Australia. Saves the trauma & hassles. Nothing better than rocking in to a shop & swapping fiat for PM's.
For me the lesson was 'look at the fine print'. horses for courses... for some 'silver is silver is silver' and the brand/appearance doesn't matter. to an extent I agree, there is a place for bulk no frills bullion, and as my (baby) stack grows there will be a place for these bars as well. However, dealers do charge different prices for different 'brands' of bullion, even locally. moreover I like the visual appeal some bars have, note that is bars.. i am not into numimatics as such. if more local bullion producers made more appealing bars in aus or dealers sourced the international ones (granted BB), I would buy them for sure.. alas I still have no PM as yet. There is a market for these 'pretty' bars, the forums (fora?) show this. And so I will include in my stack some 'foreign exotics' as it were. there are still alot of n. american, mexican and euro bars I would like as well as some asian ones (I think jap at the moment as chinese seems a bit risky). the next stop for me though will be some PM bars and kooks etc and more PAMPs sourced locally. I agree, it does feel good to go to the shop and pick it up in person, even better when the shop is the pub and you can slip in a beer and have a chat with like minded and interesting ppl (a shameless aurora/sydney stackers lunch plug!) rml978
