Hello Stackers:
May I respectfully submit the following:
Royal Silver Company has successfully delivered coins around the world for 2 years, since we first started minting. EVERY order on our books has been delivered or will be delivered. Anybody who has ever canceled an order has received a refund. Anybody who wanted a coin replaced has received a replacement. (We replaced hundreds of early coins, at our cost, with higher-quality strikes). We do this from the most challenging business environment in the Western Hemisphere, from a land-locked, impoverished country high in the Andes Mountains--a country with little industrial development, expensive transportation to world markets, no access to capital markets, governed by people who do not share our free-enterprise values, where the rule of law is a foreign concept, and where people speak Spanish, not English. Holidays are many, strikes are common, blockades are the order of the day. Bolivia is the Wild West in every sense of the word.
However, Bolivia is the only place in the world, and Royal Silver Company the only company in the world, where you can buy silver coins that are .99999 pure. More important, but intangible, Royal Silver Company is the only smelter, refiner and minter in the world that does not pollute the environment while extracting silver from raw ores. Every other silver coin you own was probably smelted in a lead smelter or copper smelter, most of which do terrible damage to the environment and to children living near-by. All three of the previous sentences are facts, not opinion.
People write to us expressing satisfaction with their purchases. People post videos on YouTube that can be described as ecstatic, showing off our coins. People take a pride of ownership in our coins that I doubt they feel for other products. For about $37 we offer a rare (on a world-wide basis), unique (world's purest, world's cleanest), hand-crafted silver round. We partially subsidize shipping costs on small orders. And for our Club Members, we offer the chance to order coins and pay for them later at only $3 above spot silver. Members can lock in their price 24 hours a day.
If you want cheaper coins, the world is full of generic silver. If you want faster delivery, there are many re-sellers in your own country who do not face any of the transportation challenges we face getting coins from Bolivia to your door. If you want impurities in your silver, such as lead, arsenic, antimony, thallium, then you don't have to wait for us to refine and test each batch, sometimes having to refine silver 3 times, you can buy any silver made by a lead-smelter.
The Perth Mint is a century old, with an unlimited budget--the US Mint and other mints as well--they have machinery, a tradition of experience, and a corp of trained workers that stagger my imagination. Royal Silver Company has about 2 years of experience making coins. We had to learn how to make a quality coin, we made most of our equipment, we had to create transportation methods from Bolivia to the world, we had to learn how to satisfy demanding customers from every corner of the planet. Yet, customers favorably compare the quality of our product to the quality of the large mints. And everybody knows that our coins are purer.
We take more time refining a batch of silver than the time we take making coins from that batch. When we fail to remove impurities to less than 1 in 100,000, then we do it all over again, no matter the cost, no matter the pressures to get coins out the door, no matter anything. For the last three weeks, the same batch of silver--which twice was made into blanks--I have ordered thrown back into the refinery. Even though we worked several 24-hour shifts, even though we have spent money, chemicals, and effort, even though we casted, rolled, punched, and annealed blanks, when the lab said they found an impurity that lowers the assay to less than .99999, we threw all those shiny blanks into the refinery reactor and dissolved them, and started over again. Customers will complain that their coins have not arrived, our service will be vilified on forums, but I (and only I) will take some grim satisfaction in knowing that my compulsion for perfection in whatever I make is probably the only thing I will take to the grave.
In this particular thread, Royal Silver Company and our products have been described negatively. Some statements posted here are simply not true. Other statements are racist---such as us being high on coke, because we live in Bolivia. But one dissatisfied Club Member out of hundreds of satisfied Members, or one customer anxiously awaiting his order, out of thousands of satisfied customers who have received their orders--many orders for thousands of coins--should not diminish our product or our company. In the end, the angry Club Member will receive his refund, and the anxious customer will receive his gold coins--his package can be tracked using the information he posted for all to see with delivery scheduled on July 2. Their negative comments about our company will provide them some internal satisfaction, no doubt, but no rant will make their coins arrive earlier or their refund quicker. Let me tell you, pleasing the general public is not an easy undertaking--when a customer is upset all civility is tossed out--even though we reply politely, we always deliver, and our quality (in the sense of purity and zero-emissions) is unmatched by any other company in the world. What I write now will be attacked, no doubt, but this will be my only post, because a cantankerous person on a public forum with time on his hands will beat me every time. To fair-minded Stackers, the reputation we have built in the last 2 years for a unique product delivered at a fair price should stand, even in the face of the criticism posted here.
If you buy a few coins from Kitco and think you can get Bart Kitner on the phone anytime day or night, or the CEO of the Canadian, US or Perth mints, to ask them questions, then you are mistaken. But you can always reach me. It may take me a couple of days to answer emails, but every customer, no matter how many or few coins he or she orders, can usually reach me by phone, skype or email. I am the public face of Royal Silver Company, so please feel free to write.
Some advice: If you want to post your USPS tracking number for a valuable shipment of gold coins on a public forum, be my guest. But please realize you are not acting wisely, and you are responsible for any loss.
Thank you to fair-minded Stackers for taking the time to read my comments. We appreciate your business and your support.
Best regards
Brian
PS. If you managed to read this far, I'd like to reward you with some facts about our coins that you may not know. Once in a generation, the US Mint names a Master Engraver. That person is chosen above all other sculptor/engravers to become The United States Master Engraver. We are honored that US Master Engraver Thomas D. Rogers sculpts the artwork for our coins. His initials are on all our coins except the Andean Cats. My initials are engraved (hidden) in the neck-feathers of the two-headed condor on our logo. I design the art, Master Engraver Thomas D. Rogers perfects and sculpts the art, BEX Engraving (Chris Beck) makes the dies, and Mr. John Sol makes the collars (Mr. Sol is famous in coin-making circles for his machines--he makes the high-speed coin presses for the US Mint, among other remarkable designs). Bob Grau makes the capsules (as he does for the Royal Canadian Mint, the US Mint and most other mints in North America). While these names mean nothing to you, these gentlemen represent the pinnacle of their professions, and I am honored to work with them.
keep up the good job Brian
