in my case, it's my female boss who started looking into PM no need convinced her at all. haha...
lady tend to worry more. my female boss wanted to buy PM, even took a seminar on how to invest properly but eventually didnt buy any (even until today). i offered to share half of the cost for her first purchase, kinda like a joint purchase, 50-50 but yet she didnt buy any

if you dont mind paying rm100 - rm300 a year, best is store in private safety box other than banks
if storing in banks, in the event of emergency, banks would be probably closed for business

real life story: i talked to a big time silver investor, he has 60kg - 80kg of silver, i asked him how he store it, he replied just use some newspaper wrap it nicely and put it some corner in his house

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 26 2011, 12:07 AM

That means precious metal is officially gaining more attention from both the gov and general public.
Traditionally everyone would talk about gold but the law is now govern gold AND SILVER

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 26 2011, 09:32 AM

hi guys, i have added few more items in sell list recently, do feel free to check them out:
Sell List - Silver in Malaysia

Looking at the facts and numbers, Silver is destined to shine. There are so many articles and youtube video floating around the internet to prove that Silver is the greatest investment of the century. During Silver price boom in 1980, there were only the west was buying and caused the price to went up to almost USD50. Thanks to the hidden tax: inflation, can you roughly estimate how much is it worth USD50 in 20 years ago? For example, can you recall how much of goods RM50 can buy you in 20 years ago? and how much of RM does it take today to buy the same amount of goods today? Silver price will be MINIMUM USD 50 of 20 years ago value.

Fast forward to today, not only the west, but also the east - and basically the whole are buying Silver, thanks the power of internet and TV news to spread knowledge very quickly and freely, the word is well informed about the facts, the numbers, the demand & supply for Silver. Logically speaking, the coming round of Silver price boom will definitely be higher than the last 1980 boom. How is it possible that a precious metal (and commodity) that has limited supply on earth being chased by an (almost) unlimited supply fiat currency will not spike up?

There is a lot lesser available Silver in proportion to demand - either above or below ground - than available gold.

Due to the industry consumption of Silver and low supply from mining, the situation will only get worse. The supply of Silver and gold gap will only get bigger. More gold, even lesser Silver. However the current gold to Silver price ratio suggests that we have almost 50 time more Silver than gold. It could be true in long time ago, but due to industry demand in the past decades, Silver consumption rate is far higher than the production. Economy basic, if supply is low, demand is high, price will go UP UP UP!

Unfortunately, the reality has slightly disappointed us Silver believer in recent May 2011 (30% drop) and Sept 2011 (35% drop). If Silver has been steadily increase like Gold did, I'm sure Silver price will be much higher. Today the general public has not yet gain confidence in Silver. You who are reading this is not considered general public. The public are the people whom have problem believing or even seeing Silver as a form of investment or at least a medium to keep the wealth. But whether like it or not, the big movement of anything will have to depend of the middle working class. The real spike of silver price will come when the public are rushing into the silver market.

Another factor (the main factor) that stop silver price from soaring is the artificial manipulation of silver price by the big boys. Not only the banks are interfering it, but the industry players are also coming in the suppress the silver price. Let's not discuss about banks as I'm sure you can find a lot more better explanation about why it is banks disadvantage to allow precious metal price soar. I will talk about industry player manipulating the price instead.

Not long ago, I attended a Forex trading course and learned that big industry players do manipulate their country currency for the benefit of their manufacturing / importing / exporting business advantage. Take Japan for example, for a giant manufacturer like Honda (and many other giant manufacturers), a slight change in Japanese currency would significant affect the cost of manufacturing and the profit gain from export. Similarly, for silver (as a form of commodity), industry player would also manipulate the price for their advantage. Take China as example, they make use of silver as raw material for solar panel, and they do use it in a very large scale. It would not cost little to suppress silver price - but imagine if it cost USD 1 million to suppress the silver price which will lead the manufacturer to buy the same amount of silver with USD 5 million; although it is unethical, it's a no brainer for the business to spend USD 1 million rather than USD 5 million for the same amount of silver. In fact, just like any business, these big boys are not working solo and manipulating the price individually, they are working as team to strengthen each other. It would take a very big force to bring them down.

However, like a Chinese proverb says, "paper can never wrap fire". I'm confident that silver price will one day revert to an honest price. You, will want to buy silver now rather than buying it when the price has reverted back to honest price.

Feel free check out my website post with a more graphical illustration:
Why Silver Price is Not Rising

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 27 2011, 10:18 PM

if everyone has something to offer, barter might work pretty well. but if i'm someone who has been sitting in office for the past 10 years and my skills mainly on paper work, i doubt how much i can offer during the failure of financial system. i suspect there is nothing much for me to barter with other people.

have a look at Zimbabwe during their hyperinflation, they were using gold to exchange for food:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJp6rmUYM

however, gold could be too high in value to be used as money in daily life. if i have a 10gram gold bar, it's quiet hard for me to exchange that for some bread and vegetable. scraping the 10gram to be 0.5gram for a decent meal might not be easy to do. in fact, if i bring a 10gram gold outside, i'm very likely to be robbed before i have made my purchase.

i believe this is when silver comes in handy. for example 1 oz silver bar or coin can exchange for a very good meal for 5-6 people. a 0.5 oz silver coin might buy me a fat chicken and some vegetable for dinner tonight.

i'm a big non-believer for the numismatic value. people will only pay for numismatic value during good economy time. during bad time, people will be talking about the weight of the precious metal rather than the brand. look at the above Zimbabwe video again, notice no one talk about numismatic value nor brand? they are talking about 0.1gram of gold for a loaf of bread. no one cares about the brand and the numismatic value. the "numismatic value" is basically a premium that goes to the pocket of minting company. it does not carry any real value.

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 28 2011, 01:36 AM

alternatively, you can check out my website, i have listed a list of seller in my website:
How to Buy Silver in Malaysia

my good old time parents' advice
"wealth cannot be shown to the eyes"

i suspect it's the mind set of people.
bar is definitely valued for money but coins seem more like "money" compare to bar.

Undeniably 1StopGold do provide the lowest premium silver in the market, and their bar is the most branded. I bought 3 kilo bars from them, 1 kilo at a time for few months, but I have decided not to purchase from them anymore. If you have make any transaction with them before, you would understand why would I stop purchasing from them. I was considering writing a descriptive post in my website to explain why am I so unsatisfied doing transaction with them, but as a business owner myself, I don't want to spoil people's business just to release my anger or satisfy my ego. Just be warned that 1StopGold might offer the best deal in term of the number (they even offer guarantee buy back, which I believe they would honor their words without much BS), but as in a complete transaction deal, you might want to research better and think twice

Another note I would like to share about PAMP SUISSE PM which offered by 1StopGold. I was talking to a friend who owns a gold and silver mintage business. He supplies gold and silver to local jewelry shops, state governments (Dirham), and also export his PM to overseas. Some of you might be even holding his mintage. I didn't know I was holding his mintage bar until he told me he minted that. He is a very low profile guy. Just to give an idea what kind of person made the following statement. He said apart from PAMP SUISSE, non of the other brands would mean a thing. For people in his business, 1 oz is still 1 oz, he won't give much thought to the brand except PAMP SUISSE. PAMP SUISSE is the only brand that worth paying the premium.

During crisis time, people most likely not be willing to pay for the numismatic value. Think about it, the current silver trend is we are expecting a global shortage for silver and the highest demand of silver comes from industry consumption, NOT investment. If there is a global shortage of silver, manufacturer who desperately need silver and make use of silver for production do not care about the numismatic value. They will probably melt it and convert it into whatever form that makes money for their manufacturing. So if you are considering paying a high premium for a brand, please think twice. If you are still want to go ahead with silver with numismatic value, please be warned, the niche is very small. And during bad economy time, it might not be as liquid as you have thought.

If you want to buy bar with premium, just stick to PAMP SUISSE, else buy the lowest premium silver (investment grade) that is as close as the spot price. I think I better stop now, I guess a lot of seller are going to hate me for this.

Just a little word of caution from me to you

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 29 2011, 06:14 PM

There are always 2 sides of a story, probably your empirical experience is the opposite of my side.

Initially I thought it was only me, but as I shared my experience with the people in the silver industry, they have even worse experience than mine. Not only my personal friend, even the industry players are cursing them.

Ok, enough of bad mouthing 1StopGold, I'm certainly so worried they will want to sue me... (*ahem...AGAIN)

This post has been edited by property101: Nov 29 2011, 06:22 PM

haha...good one chef, very true. after stacking some kilo bars, then some 500gram bars, now i'm buying some coins...

haha...try buy one bar from MySmartGold, it's heaven and hell.
i was so amazed by Marcus's (from MySmartGold) professionalism in handling the whole transaction. after getting back to office, i even sent a sms to compliment his service. well, i dont always do this kind of thing

so next time we can categorize silver buyers...
"hey....are u a bar guy or a coin guy?"

good stuff, definitely worth sharing! i will host this in my website...
( but this time i will link it to the original author instead, cool? )
btw, regarding the previous posts that i referencing you, i have again updated the referencing - closest to your requirement in today post. hope you are happy with that. if you can think of a better way of doing it, please let me know

property101 report in...

i suspect not too much of people willing to travel to singapore chef. i think the best will still be in kl

Allow me to shamelessly promote my website again, here is the link to tax related information
Tariff Code - Silver in Malaysia

thanks for digging this Nidz
I will update my website tonight

Yup, totally agree that silver market has become more matured and competitive in recent months. A lot more sellers are coming out. My observation is, not only individual seller but also more silver websites are coming up.

There are several ways of looking at this whether it's a good thing or bad thing.
old time individual seller - alamak! a lot more people coming out to fight with my rice bowl
new individual seller - hmm...i thought the profit was good, doesnt seem too good actually...
retail seller - my prospects and customers are buying a lot of smaller bars now
buyer - wah! a lot of cheap silver everywhere (SLS, LSGG & Silver in Malaysia)

in short term, i reckon buyers are able to buy silver very near to spot price (supply is high), but as this continues some of the new individual sellers might back off and only left with those who are more serious in the business (supply is low). premium would probably shoot back to the level in between 12 months ago and right now.