Octoberfest for Gold
In Munich (Munchen), there is a world famous Oktoberfest every year. In fact, it starts in September, and does not necessarily end in October. This festival is held to celebrate the products of the Bavarian brewing industry. Barley from the new harvest is brewed into strong lager and served in litre steins or glasses called Maß (pronounced mass).
It is important not to get carried away by the festival atmosphere and sample too much of the hospitality. Similarly, when making investment decisions, it is important not to get too carried away by the atmosphere. We have heard numerous reports of people buying Krugerrands at 10% premium over gold, or more. This is unnecessary, and rather stupid. Clearly something has gone to their head.

Higher Premiums
In the last few weeks, we have had to increase our selling premiums slightly for some of our most popular, and lowest premium, gold investment items. Our increases have been modest as we are strongly against ripping people off. Our increases have been in the range of 0.5% to 0.9%, whereas we have heard of other dealers increasing their premiums by between 5% and 10%!. The trade-off is that we must ask buyers of some products to allow longer than normal for delivery. As we wrote this, we had about 1/10 tonne of gold bought and in process of shipping to us. If investors want quicker delivery, there are some sensible alternative choices we can suggest. Don't allow yourself to get overcharged at double digit premiums from our competitors, especially for common bullion products.

Silver Lining?
Adding this note on 8th October 2008, we note that the gold silver ratio is unusually high, currently over 77. This compares with a 2008 mean average of about 55, therefore at 77/55, silver looks 40% underpriced compared with gold.
We have also compiled a historic gold silver ratio table from 1970 to 2007, which shows its mean value ranging from a low of 20.35 in 1970, to a high of 89.31 in 1991. In 2006 and 2007, it averaged just over 52. Whenever ratios like this diverge significantly from the norm, there is a strong tendency for them to revert back towards the longer term average. On this basis, therefore, we would suggest investors buying silver, despite its VAT loading, rather than gold, at least until the ratio drops.
Even so, there is big demand for physical silver, and our supply situation is changing on a daily basis.

August Slowdown
How annual European holidays affect the physical gold bullion market.

September Silly Season
In recent years, it has taken longer for supplies to return to normal after the break.

November News
Nearing normality in November?

December Deliveries
We will be bringing updates as we approach the end of the year, and also our early news of 2009 developments.

Flexibility We would remind potential investors to read our "flexibility" page, part of the gold investment advice section of our website.

Investment Advice
You may wish to look at our gold investment advice page.

Identification
Please be aware that for callers to our showroom hoping to buy Investment Gold we must see two forms of identification. Please see our identification page for further details.

Gold Prices
There are now live spot gold prices available on this website, please see our gold prices page.