Dear All, been on the site since last week when I was looking for something new to collect. I'm getting towards the end of having a Historic Chinese Panda set, a Historic Britania set. I've stacked a lot of the Canadian Wildlife Series, and as that comes to a close I've been looking for something new. I got the bug after picking up a couple of Indian Rupees in Burma 2 years ago. I've nearly got a complete set of British India Silver Rupees (still need the 1939 one though). I love to travel and have been to around 38-39% of the World's contries (90 odd different countries) and the Bullion coins are a nice way to remember these places. I also switched jobs and my current role doesn't give me a pension, and Silver Bullion seemed a nice way of saving long term for a pension without paying horrible management fees. I'm an ex City trader with tier 1 Investment Banks and am a current British Army Reservist. My aim in life is to avoid paying 20% VAT on Bullion coins.
Nice to meet you. It's always nice to know of a fellow UK stacker. And this 20% VAT is a killer. Luckily us Brits can still source silver coins at 7% VAT from Germany. But I heard that this might be going up to 19% in Jan 2014. I think collecting coins from each country you visit is an awesome idea, but I imagine it is hard to actually locate a bullion dealer in each of these countries, especially if you are not traveling near a main city?
"I think collecting coins from each country you visit is an awesome idea, but I imagine it is hard to actually locate a bullion dealer in each of these countries, especially if you are not traveling near a main city"? Think that's tricky, I used to collect the flags of each country I visited Re the VAT, I've just been buying them through trips to Guernsey or friends flying into the UK. Got a nice supply from Ampex that way. As it was below their allowances all perfectly legitimate. I find Germany a bit of a pain (not Germans obviously) to buy from. The Bullion dealers I approached wanted an extra 5% for shipping to the UK, some needed me to be VAT registered and of course they all wanted to post them by putting them on their own Business class seat from Frankfurt rather than through bog standard Post. If you can point me in the direction of a few Bullion dealers in Germany that are happy to deal by Credit/Debit card over the internet and not charge me random additional fees I would be delighted. As I said I'm looking past the bog standard Britannia's/Pandas/Maple Leafs that I can source through our friends in Guernsey (although I'll still use them for Bulk Purchases). The 5oz Taku for example is a lovely coin (I picked up the 2012 in Singapore) but I don't want to pay UK premiums and they seem plentiful in Germany, ditto unusual ones like Kazak Irbis.
