Posting or sending gold around Australia or overseas

Hi all, I have some questions about posting or sending gold around Australia or overseas. I recently had about 16oz of gold for sale
on ebay, but after studying the postage side of it. I could not find a safe way of sending this amount of gold without large risks to the buyer or seller. I decided to close the auction before anyone placed a bid. There must be a safe way moving gold around??
Can anyone help?

Cheers golddog

hi

i would have thought registered post with insurance.i`ve never posted gold , but i have posted plenty of things registered and they have all got to where i was sending them.

hi yes looked into that found this on the forum Hi all, I also sell on ebay and cannot get insurance cover on gold nuggets and specimens. I was talking to the Post Office clerk yesterday about this and he reckons that even listing as a "Mineral Specimen" it is no covered by insurance and you are wasting your money by doing so. However he also mentioned that gold jewelry is covered. Perhaps to get insurance cover we should attach a string to the nugget and call it a necklace. I think the best option would be to mention in your ebay listing that postage is not covered by insurance, that the seller is not responsible for any damages or loss once posted and just send small ammounts by regular post to save on costs. Why pay for insurance if Australia Post wont cover it anyway.
At the moment I am sending all my gold by registered post with tracking and delivery confirmation which seems to be working ok but they are sent without insurance. I probably wouldnt post large nuggets at all, smaller lots of gold nuggets are an affordable loss if they dont arrive at the other end.
cheers

Hi Golddog, From the checking that I did I came across the same info as you from the post office, however I note the has been some discussion to the contrary on this forum in the past. The nuggets I have sent within Australia I've always sent by registered post in order to track them & at least have something to say I've posted & I've always left insurance as an option for the buyer to organize. I have used Fedex for overseas deliverys as they will insure (to a maximum limit, can't remember what it is) they will also deliver within Australia door to door but at a cost - depends if buyer is willing to pay. I believe there is also at least one other courier that will deliver insured - I think mentioned on this forum in the past.

Cheers, Andy

aussie post is the only company that i know of that you have to pay extra (registed post) to garrentee that they do their job, i wont send any thing of value unless it registed, too much goes missing, i sent my daughter in nsw 2 phones (seperatly) and she recieved 1 ph charger in completly diferent packaging ????

Thanks for that Andy. just out of curiosity what sort of weight did you send around Australia? I don't have a problem with, say under one oz by registered mail, but when the weight gets up it's quite a gamble. I will keep looking and ringing around. I have lost a couriered item in the past that was signed for by someone with an unreadable signature.

ty golddog

I haven't posted anything for a year or so, but from memory the most I have sent in one parcel was about 3 oz (actually a specimen of about 5 oz with 2.5 to 3 oz gold). I sent that particular buyer another specimen with about 1 oz+ gold in a separate parcel at the same time so that the weight was not too suspicious. I probably sent quite a few between 1 & 2 oz.

I have probably sent around 200+ separate registered parcels around Aussie & overseas (mostly Aussie) & I have only ever had one go missing on me & that was to a buyer in the UK & wasn't registered - so I'd have to say that at least for me, sending by registered post has been very successful.
Cheers, Andy

Person to Person Registered. The consignee has to show ID and sign for it.

i sent a small sample of alluvial gold to a person in Ireland , about 1gm , and it dissipated into the ether !!

Hi Golddog I have a friend who wants to buy some gold but is not willing to go through ebay due to all the fraud and fakes so perhaps you can send me a pm with the cost and I can reply with a ph number to chat.
if anyone else has gold to sell I am happy to pass on friends details.
cheers

Hi Vasilis,
Sure hope your contact isn't involved with the major shopping centre kiosks throughout Australia offering $15.00/gram.
Desperate people take desperate measures however it is very sad that these sort of businesses can rip off those who are struggling.

Cheers
Peter

Gday


Over the years I have tried many ways of selling gold, and have sent gold all over the world, one of the main problems I have had with overseas buyers is they can get edgy really quickly when they dont see their goods arrive within a week or so, sometimes things have taken up to 6 weeks to arrive depending on where its going to, I have found places in Europe to be the worst.

Alhough all the items I ever sent have arrived some have taken a long time and I have been bombarded by one irate buyer in Germany who emailed me two or three times a day for about six weeks, with the emails half in German with the odd bit of English thrown in, as it turned out it was his fault as the address he had used was where he was holidaying not where he lived, he got it in the end and even though it was his fault he didnt appologise for being and arrogant pig or even leave any feedback.

That incident was what made me decide not to sell to any overseas buyers, anything else that I have sold is sent by registered mail, and they have to sign for it on pick up so there none of this business about "I didnt get it" and I want my money back going on, also you can send the tracking number to them so they can see where it is for themselves, one word of advice never write "gold" on anything usually I just put "mineral specimens" or "metal parts" as some sticky fingered postal worker could see that gold written there on the paperwork and pocket it .

Unless you have a nice piece that is collectable or you think might fetch over gold price I wouldnt bother to ebay it, its a lot of messing about to list it and them you have to consider all the fees, listing fees, final value fees, and if they pay by paypal then you are charged fees for that as well, you have to consider all of these fees because they directly effect the price per gram you get in the end, when I have accumulated a pile of small crappy, ugly, bits and pieces and crshings from species I just bundle it up and send it to a refiner, with the gold price up you get a good price, PW Becks will end a courier to your door, the goods are insured for the ounce value, you send the paperwork to them before the goods are picked up that way they are expecting it and know what you are sending, they recieve it and let you know they have it, then it is assayed, refined etc etc, and the money can be deposited to your account or you can get the refined gold back if you want to hold on to it.

I suppose that ther are other refiners in other areas that do the same thing, so other members could recommend someone else, I personally find that this is just an easier and stress free way of selling your gold and if you do your sums you can find it a cheaper option than selling it yourself.

The other thing to do is if you have a group of trusted friends and you can all contribute the same quantity of gold to the pot then you can put it all in together and then share the associated costs, that way you will get a higher return per gram each.


cheers

stayyerAU

Hi nightjar dont forget I am also a prospector and not interested in being ripped off either. I have some gold but am holding on to it. I may be in a position one day when I have to sell so am very careful with unfair trading.
Great to read peoples experiences though and all warnings out there are taken seriously.
thanks

I have been bombarded by one irate buyer in Germany who emailed me two
or three times a day for about six weeks, with the emails half in German
with the odd bit of English thrown in, as it turned out it was his
fault as the address he had used was where he was holidaying not where
he lived, he got it in the end and even though it was his fault he didn't apologize for being and arrogant pig or even leave any feedback.

well he was German !!

Gday


"Just for the record I didnt mean that he was an arrogant pig because he was German", He would have been that way no matter where he came from, just one of those types of people I guess, and one of those situations where you wished you never got involved with them in the first place.

Appolgies if I offended anyone


cheers

stayyerAU

hi Stayer, i know what uu mean about Germany, i got a detecter from there a few years ago, registered express post airmail, it took 2 months !!!!!! and i was told that 3 months was usual !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! never again, regards, gary

stayer no need to be PC in here from what i can see ,just call it as it is mate, besides that Irish bloke ,Murphy, gets it in the neck all the time in posts in this forum and elsewhere!!

Ahh... this is where I meant to reply...

The reason why Gold Bullion is "banned" from Australia Post is because it once put the postal workers in SERIOUS risk back in the 1800s. That's why the Gold Escort was created, to cart private satchels and parcels of gold to the banks from the diggings. But the Escort did COST a LOT of money to utilize. The diggers were usually frisked upon entering the diggings and robbed by groups of no less than three bush-rangers working together... and when they left the diggings, they were robbed of their gold. So many paid the high cost of the Escort. The escort itself was not beyond corruption but this was rare due to the harsh and brutal penalties of the day.



Australia Post allows "specimens and minerals" but not "Bullion, refined or unrefined". I spent a lot of time on the phone with Australia Post to resolve the issue and they had a team of more than a dozen staff working on defining a specimen at one stage. It seems they were all interested in the subject and wanted to help define it for future rulings.

I showed them records that clearly stated (*by Ruling) that the ATO does NOT consider gold nuggets to be "unrefined bullion" because NOTHING can be considered bullion until it is hallmarked with a recognized international purity assurance. Since the Post Office definition was in conflict with the Government Taxation Department definition of Bullion, we then moved to another method: "Was the specimen or nugget used in making Jewellery or could it be worn"? And the answer is of course, YES. Final question they asked me was: If the nugget is damaged or crushed etc, does it lose any value? Obviously Billion holds it's value regardless of damage. But a specimen or a nugget is worth MORE if it is not damaged in any way.

It sure had them running around all excited... and they assured me that they would contact me within a week to let me know their decision. But they never did - probably because they couldn't agree on some aspect or another.

Next time I have a day free to myself, I'll spend another day on the phone trying to get them to resolve the dilemma.

Any Post Master who accepts your "Mineral Specimen For Study" agrees to deliver it and insure it must abide by this decision. For AUSTRALIA POST to accept your item and yet refuse to pay out on the insurance should it disappear... is (by definition of the law) FRAUD. I'd be all over them if this happened.

However, as long as you obtain 'Tracking' or 'Registered Post', your obligations to Ebay and Paypal are usually met as long as you can prove you posted the item. I tend to go overboard and PHOTOGRAPH the postmaster holding my weighed, stamped and addressed parcel.


Typical shot of my postmaster with a package I've insured. Note all the paperwork for tracking etc.


At the moment, the only alternative we seem to have is to use Registered mail. If you write "Contents, Gold Nugget" on the parcel it will probably disappear but nobody bothers with a Registered parcel because it's too hard to interferre with it without the perps drawing attention to themselves. Another method which I use for sending LARGE nuggets is 'Platinum Express' which is also via Australia Post. There will always be someone who says you can't post nuggets but until Australia Post directly states that Bullion includes nuggers, then I say it's open ground. The same rule carefully mentions what is and what is NOT considered to be Bullion... so I say they overlooked the inclusion of nuggets. Copper nuggets are not considered to be Bullion either because they are a base metal that occurs in exactly the same way that gold occurs. Since gold is used in many of the same applications as copper, I'd love to make a test case out of the issue if Australia Post challenged me on it.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you ONLY ship to the Confirmed LISTED ADDRESS that the Buyer has listed. Many scammers will have you send it to a different address (some honest but clueless buyers do this as well). If the address is not visible on their Ebay and Paypal account, do NOT send the item. If the buyer is a fraud, he will claim that his account was hacked and that you sent the item to the wrong address and EBay and Paypal will make you refund the money.


Australian Government Gold Escort 1852

Since many people use delivery services to send and receive valuable items as well, it becomes important for them to find a reliable courier service that they can trust with their goods. I’ve had to send an expensive diamond ring to my wife last month, and I trusted the popular Courier services Ft Worth to make the delivery and ensure my package’s safety.

Other countries might accept them if they're insured, and some countries accept valuable items in certain services but not others. Though people use delivery services to send and receive valuable items, it is important to find a reliable and trusted freight services since customs broker will for sure check them. I use Bri international parcel delivery as my courier to help me send gold necklaces and good to my family in Australia