Where/How to buy Gold in Europe?

I have bought physical bullion using Bullionvault (http://www.bullionvault.com/).  The gold is held in secure vaults in Zurich, London and New York, and physical delivery can be taken if preferred but not recommended as the bars would have to be assayed again as pure before being sold on the open market.  They have a very comprehensive help page which discusses issues such as safety, privacy, access, commission prices etc.  Gold can be bought in increments so a large outlay of cash at once is not necessary - which is helpful for the average salary earner.

Best wishes

Wilderness

I am also from the netherlands.

If the government would ask me: "where did you leave your gold, because you are not allowed to keep it"

Then i would say: sorry i lost it!

Anyway it is better to change money for gold. Also because then the tax office thinks that i have less money, and i dont have to pay taxes until a certain amount. They dont know about any of my gold.

Anyway it is possible to get physical gold in bars. In coins it is more difficult because the popular coins like Krugerand, mapleaf seem to have vanished.

and i am trying bullionvault.com  because it spreads risks. I dont want to keep many gold in my home of course. And with bullionvault one could sell the gold quite quickly with some keystrokes.  In real life selling of physical gold is more difficult to achieve in situations.

Then with bullionvault i would quickly get the money on my account if i need it.

My theory is that if i hold 1000 euro gold on my account and the euro would tank heavily (paper money!) to one tenth of its value, i would get 10000 euro on my account and it would like my personal situation would not have changed! Figure the Iceland people would liked have done before they got bankrupt! Now they cant buy gold anymore. I dont even mention Zimbabwe of course.

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The first thing to do is to check your countries laws.

In Britain, making a huge profit when selling gold attracts Capital Gains Tax unless you are selling gold coins which are legal tender somewhere in the world.

I know that sovereigns are legal tender still in Britain and Krugerrands are legal tender in South Africa - or at least the one oz ones are.

Then google something like: Buy krugerrands in Britain - put your country here.

In the UK at the moment there is no CGT on Sovereigns or Britannias, but probably bacause of that they are very hard to get hold of and/or command large premiums over spot.

Does anyone have any suggestions on whether 10% premium on 2008 Sovereigns (the best I can get) is reasonable, or whether I'd be better off buying non-UK coins and risking CGT at some point in the scary future?

My other concern in the UK is that our Government has a history of retrospective changes to taxation, so I could pay the extra for Sovereigns then get hit on the CGT.

I've pondered this all for a couple of weeks and the price is going up all the time!

Hi hyspec

I have bought gold at bullionvault.com - one thing i like about them is that they bank with Lloyds Bank which is largely owned by the UK goverment now, so its a pretty safe bet that they wont be going down - either the bank or bullionvault.

The security question is another matter though (i.E confiscation etc) we should be ok unless the S really hits the F, but if it does, you have the ability to sell and re-buy in one of the other 2 countries, I have mine in Switzerland which is just about the safest place i can think of, but should that begin to look bad I can sell it and either hold the cash, in 2 other currencies which is also good, or re buy gold elsewhere.

What does everyone think? I really dont like the idea of having large (ish) amounts of gold in the house so im sticking with this for now while trying to buy coins in silver and gold for local matters

To research further, do a search for Paul Tustain, the ceo of bullionvault, you'll find lots of info, he looks and sounds like a good guy, but hey what do I know! at least he isnt a banker and seems to show a healthy level of disdain for them, heres one link i liked http://cryptogon.com/?p=525

Anyway, the best of luck to you and of anyone has any other opinions, i'd love to hear them

All the best

 barrt

Hi Fivemileshigh,

Are you belgian, like me?

AFAIK, the seller SHOULD have asked your ID card. OK you may claim you've been stolen, but Big brother is watching you...

I bought gold coins at Gold & 4EX (former Munters). It's located at rue du Midi / Zuidstraat in Brussels where you'll find several other smaller shops.

Do you know any place where to buy silver coins/bars in Belgium? I've been told silver, whichever the form, is subject to VAT / BTW.

Hi here is my 0.02 on the last subjects.

The most we bought (a pool) was around 6000 euro's in old (pre 1933) gold coins. No ID needed.

Here (Netherlands), gold is free of VAT (BTW). But silver has a 19% tax. Although if you can buy junk-silver, ie old guilder coins for me, they are considered collecters items, so no taxes.

But even with 19% tax, a 1 kg bar for 319 (8-jan-09) euro, comes under 400 euro's. I think it is still a good deal.

One reason we want metals is that they are real money. To be used in rough future times. But what can you buy for one whole kilo of silver? So smaller unit can be better. That is why we like the old guilders (about 4,5 grams of pure Ag), rijksdaalders (about 10 grams) and tientjes (18 grams). All these could be used for smaller exchanges. This is also the reason we like golden 10 guilders (6 grams of gold) better than the 1 oz coins.

Here is a link of a coin shop / metal dealer in Holland. The prices are inflated, but they have enough on stock to be interesting.

If someone here want to buy soon, we could combine the order and get a better deal. Just a though. 

Kevelam is quite expensive. I can buy quite locally for 2 to 5 percent less. No Krugerrands or Maple Leafs, but some other coins are there (Gouden Tientjes and Sovereigns). But still, I think of going to Brussels: even cheaper and less risk that the gold is traced to me. Munters seems to ask no ID, which is fine with me ;), and accept cash. So: no trails.

Any information would be great.

you could try:

bullionbypost.co.uk

I've used them (amongst others) without issue

Gold is different, as it is not a commodity, it is money itself.  Think of it is another currency.  The US Dollar doubled in money supply in the last two years and thus all fixed assets that are difficult to manipulate in quantity needs to rise in accordance.

This means that people are getting poorer, not that gold is in a bubble.

Re UK sovereigns at 10% above spot.

Buy them.  10% will be nothing in the future if the predictions about the fiat currencies happen.

  I just want to make a short post on the guys from gold4ex.be. I just bought some gold from them and they treated everything very professionally. I had to wire the $$ ( I set up the price with them by phone tho), then  hand picked the coins (5 days later). And I have to mention that they were OK with changing the scratched or hit  coins twice. So, I'd rate them a big A. 

I just want to share my two cents!

Buy a gold coin or silver bar that you can hold in the palm of your hand as it ignites a deep-seated gold lust that has lain dormant in most of humanity for almost 80 years. As you decide on how to buy gold, buy silver or buy platinum I hope these suggestions are valuable.

For you to learn how and where to buy gold or how to buy silver I recommend keeping it simple.  Engage in buying silver coins, buying silver bars, buying gold coins or buying gold bars and taking physical delivery. 

Avoid shady characters, like the GLD or SLV ETFs, NYMEX, TOCOM, etc. where the contracts are complex and difficult to understand and may result in your gold or silver actually being paper silver or paper gold and may be impregnated with counter-party risk.

does anyone know of any vaults in netherlands that one can store gold but that are not part of a bank.