When you are buying gold and silver on eBay, you must be careful.

Good-looking images and glowing descriptions seem to work better in these categories than any others and it is easy to get carried away.

Some sellers are just plain tricksy, others just don’t know what they are selling so make genuine mistakes in their descriptions, but in between these, you can find reputable sellers offering good deals.

You need to ensure that they are reliable before you part with cash so be sure to check their feedback and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Here are a few of the most misleading terms you can find. Quite often, these apply to new gold and silver jewellery items.

“Sterling silver plate” or “sterling silver filled”- misleading descriptions that sound so much better than “silver plate” or silver filled.”

Sterling silver has to be hallmarked and contain 92.5% (925) silver content, however sellers sometimes use the word “sterling” as a general description for silver.

Sterling silver items cost more than items described as silver-plated or silver filled so, sellers attract more customers by creating this confusion.

The proper term for these items is "silver plated" or "silver filled."

Silver filled means it is a base metal with a layer of plate silver. There should be 10% silver content of the weight but this may not be the case.

Silver Plated refers to any base metal that is plated with a layer of pure silver.

“Gold filled sterling silver” is a meaningless and misleading phrase.

Is it gold plated sterling silver? Or is it gold coloured silver plate? Or what?

Nine times out ten if you ask the seller, he or she won’t know either. So probably best to avoid anything using this description.



"Gold filled" and "Rolled gold" are other nice sounding descriptions that make the object on offer seem valuable.

This is basically gold plate but technically speaking, the weight of rolled gold should make up 1/20 of the total metal weight and it may come with a hallmark.

If it does have a hallmark, you can check it out with the hallmark guide but be aware that the item is not solid gold so the gold content is not as high as it looks.



Gold plate should have a hallmark that signifies it as such.

Nickel silver is another misleading term.

Nickel silver is not really silver at all but an alloy usually made of nickel copper and zinc and sometimes containing a tiny silver content of around 2%.

This low value material is often described as Alpaca Silver and is commonly used in jewellery.

It looks good but it is not really silver at all and in addition, Alpaca silver is not hypo allergenic as is sometimes advertised.

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A Guide to buying Silver and Gold on eBay

How to be a Hedge Fund Manager

A financial journalist Alfred W. Jones first referred to "hedged funds" in 1949.

To counteract the effect of the markets rise and fall, Jones balanced his portfolio by buying assets whose price he thought would rise, and selling assets whose price he thought would decrease.

Now, a hedge fund is a sum of money that can used to buy or sell anything by investment or trading that is agreed to and funded by a wider range of investors.

Generally Hedge funds are used by institutions such as foundations, pension funds or private individuals who are used to investing large scale resources and have the financial worth to back it up.

These investments are taken care of by a Hedge Fund Manager.

The Hedge Fund Managers sole job responsibility is to make the invested money into profitable returns, through a wide range of investments and trading options for the members of the hedge fund.

So How do you become a hedge fund manager.

As an example suppose you set up an official company called  MAKin MONEY corp.

You would get an operating agreement written that states the management of the investments and your fee for doing it.

lets say you decide you want 25% of any profit made over 5% of the original investment.

Next you need investors


How to Date English Hallmarks on Silver and Gold (A wealth guide) 
 
Buy A Jewellers magnifying Loupe for £6.99

 Gold and silver hallmarks main site



  
 An investor puts 100 million into the hedge fund brokeridge account and you invest the money into anything that makes the company profit.

Risk adjustment comes into the equation but you invest the money and within a year the money doubles.

When the pay out time comes you get the first 5% of the profit removed and given to the investor.
This leaves 95 million of profit of which you are entitled to 25% or 23 million seven hundred and fifty thousand.

Not bad for a year. . . .

There is also often an agreement made in the agreement called the 2 - 20 rule.

This means that the hedge fund manager is owed 2% of assets and 20% of profits. This could mean that if the company lost money the manager is still owed 2% of assets.

Should you start your own hedge fund?

In theory anyone could become a hedge fund manager or hedge fund investor but you would have to have the capital to do it.

But hedge funds are notorious for bad publicity and hedge fund managers can often be seen in the media taking huge bonuses for investments that loose money.



Hedge funds are not sold to the public or retail investors, so you would have to be registered as a company and only certain types of investors that specified by regulators are allowed to join the hedge fund.

Regulations passed in the United States and Europe after the 2008 credit crunch were intended to improve governments overview of hedge funds and to stop regulatory gaps.

Hedge funds are complicated there are so many strategies that it can be hard for investors to fully understand the agreement without sound financial knowlledge or just blind faith.

Hedge fund reporting is minimal and can be done to mislead investors or misrepresent performance entirely.

Great care and outside advice on verification needs to be taken before investing.




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How to be a Hedge Fund Manager

How to find Valuable Hallmarked Silver

If you are interested in gold and silver, the hallmark can be as interesting as the object itself. 

It can tell you a lot about the history of your item and the fact that some hall marks are rare, will add value beyond the base value of the metal and the beauty of the craftsmanship.


Some collectors form whole collections around certain assay offices or hallmarks and look out for certain hall marks because of their rarity value.

There are four assay offices in Great Britain operating today. These are Birmingham - the largest assay office in the world, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield.

There is also an assay office in Dublin, which continues to hallmark in the approved British way despite Irish independence in 1923.

However, there are many other assay offices, which are no longer in operation and these hallmarks can be rare.

Assay offices no longer in operation are Chester, Exeter Newcastle, York, Glasgow and Cork in Ireland.

In addition, some hallmarks refer to special events or years and these also have a rarity value which is reflected by the price.


So which are the hall marks to look out for?

Anything bearing the city arms mark of Chester especially if it is early.

Although Chester silver had been made and marked as such for centuries, Chester was granted with its own assay office in 1700.

Silver hallmarked in Chester is rare because no silversmiths were operating in the town after 1820.

The abundance of Chester hallmarks on silverware dating from 1880 to 1930 is because silversmiths working in Manchester and Liverpool sent it to the Chester Assay Office for hallmarking

Duty marks can also be rare. In 1784, legislation was bought in to record that duty of 6d an ounce had to be paid on valuable metals.

A mark depicting the sovereign’s head was an extra mark added to the hallmarks between 1784 and 1890, an excise on gold and silver articles was collected by the Assay Offices and a mark depicting the Sovereign’s head was struck to show that it had been paid.

In 1890, the tax was removed but the sovereign’s head has continued to be added to hallmarks on a voluntary basis.



The Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 was marked with a special hallmark, the Millennium followed in 2000 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will be marked with a commemorative hallmark.

All these commemorative hall marks are collectable and seem likely to increase in value in the future.
The rarest duty mark is a figure of Britannia, which was used on export gold and silver.

This was struck for only 9 months between Dec 1st 1784 and July 1785 and because it was struck on finished wares, risked damage to the object so was soon discontinued.

This is the rarest of gold and silver hallmarks and will increase the value of the object considerably.

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How to find Valuable Hallmarked Silver?

Brinks Mat Robbery the biggest heist

The Brinks Mat Robbery – The biggest Gold bullion robbery - ever!

The Heist

On the 26th November 1983, a South London gang of six broke into the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow believing that there was £3 million on the premises.

In fact, it was their lucky day because there was three tons of gold bullion (6,800 bars in all) in 76 cardboard boxes and 2 boxes of diamonds. The estimated value at the time was in excess of £26 million.

It was an inside job. Security guard Antony Black, the brother in law of gang member Mickey McAvoy had passed on security details and let the gang into the warehouse. Once inside, staff members were doused in petrol and threatened with a match so soon gave the gang the combination numbers of the vault. The gang then vanished without trace.

The Grass
Antony Black passed McAvoy’s name to the police and was arrested for six years for aiding and abetting the robbery. Mickey McAvoy was subsequently arrested along with fellow gang member Brian Robinson and both sentenced to 25 years.

The businessman gold expert
However, in the interim short period between robbery and arrest, the gang had called in gold expert and businessman Kenneth Noye to dispose of the bullion. He melted the gold down, mixing it with copper coins to disguise its purity and started laundering the money.

Around this time, sudden movements of large amounts going through a Bristol bank came to the notice of the treasury (and the police). Kenneth Noye fell under suspicion and was placed under police surveillance. When he killed a police officer, he found in his garden in 1985 the jury found him not guilty on the grounds of self - defence.

However In 1986, Kenneth Noye was found guilty of conspiracy of handling the stolen Brinks Mat gold – he had always pleaded ignorance and was fined £700,000. He was sentenced to 14 years served only seven, and was released in 1994.

Deal or no deal?
In 1995, the High court held McAvoy responsible and ordered him to pay back £27, 488, 299. McAvoy tried to strike a deal with the authorities and offered to give the money back in return for a shorter sentence but by then the money had vanished. He was released from prison in 2000

The Money
So, what happened to it ? Once converted into money a lot of it went abroad to tax havens including the Cayman islands and Jersey and it seems that even the people who were caught were living off the proceeds, enjoying affluent lifestyles and buying property both home and on the Costa Del Sol in Spain.

The money was laundered via a web of solicitors and financial experts, investing in offshore accounts in Jersey the Cayman Islands and similar. Some of the cash ended up in Swiss bank accounts.  Some was invested in property in London's Docklands boom of the mid-1980s.

A portion was even used to buy a former section of Cheltenham Ladies' College, later converted into flats and sold. Essentially the proceeds from the Brinks Mat haul vanished quickly. 

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Nobody knows more about that extraordinary morning's events than Wensley Clarkson. Nobody is better placed to track the vicious, violent and unexpected waves that followed in its wake or bring to life its cast of larger-than-life characters. From small-time crime in south-east London, to ‘the heist of the century' and its bloody consequences, Wensley Clarkson's The Curse of Brink's-Mat is an epic tale of villainy, gold and revenge.  

The Gold bullion
Police say half the gold was smelted and sold back to legitimate dealers, including Johnson Matthey, the original owner and a lot of it is believed to have ended up as expensive jewellery. According to the treasury, it is highly possible that any gold bought in the UK after 1983 probably contains some of the Brinks Mat bullion.

The Hoard – crime doesn’t pay?
More than 10 million pounds worth of gold was buried and remains undiscovered.  However it is estimated that at least 30 people were involved in the Brinks Mat robbery so it is likely that someone knows where it is or where it got to. The amazing thing about the Brinks Mat robbery is that despite the scale of the crime only two of the gang, along with Noye were ever convicted.

The curse of the Bunker Bubble

How to identify Arts and Crafts Antiques

The Arts and Crafts movement was an international movement that started in England around 1860 and continued having an influence on style, decoration and ideals until the 1930s.

Led by artist and writer William Morris in turn inspired by writer John Ruskin, the movement began as a reaction against industrialisation and the inequalities of the Victorian Age. This philosophy as well as design movement embraced ideals of equality alongside the celebration of good quality craftsmanship.

The Arts and crafts movement was inspired by images from the medieval age and folklore and nature. It became fashionable and influenced architecture, art, household objects, decoration and jewellery.

Because the Arts and Crafts movement was all about individual craftsmanship, no two pieces are exactly the same although you may find similar designs. This makes it very interesting to collectors and can cause prices to vary.














In jewellery, natural themes such as animals, plants, insects and birds were very popular. Arts and Crafts jewellery tends to favour metals such as a copper, brass and silver over more expensive materials such as the gold and diamonds that were popular in the Victorian age.

Arts and crafts jewellery often contains semi precious gemstones chosen for their appearance rather than their value, and pearls, turquoise, jet and moonstones were popular.

You will often find that gemstones have been cut en cabouchon - which means that the stone is finished with a polished rounded surface rather than the multiple cuts and facets that you see in valuable gems such as diamonds and sapphires.

Enamelling is also very popular in arts and crafts jewellery. This process was pioneered by Edith and Nelson Dawson who used a small kiln and employed production techniques that dated back to the renaissance.

Otherwise CR Ashbee is one example of a jewellery maker to look out for. In 1888, he set up the Guild and School of Handicraft in London’s East End, which he modelled on the medieval guilds and ran as a craft co-operative before relocating the whole operation to Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire.

This guild produced some very fine pieces that can be characterised by intricate wire work, hammered silver and colourful gemstones.

Although well known designer pieces of jewellery fetch high prices, you can often pick up Arts and Crafts jewellery at very reasonable prices. Look out for good quality craftsmanship, the design and the condition of the piece and don’t forget to check for the hall mark.

The truth about the lost Nazi Gold Conspiricy

During the years running up to WW2 and throughout the years of the war, the Nazis amassed vast wealth and art treasure looted throughout Europe.

It has been estimated that they stole approximately $550m in gold from Belgium banks and $193 from the financial institutions of the Netherlands alone.

This is in addition to the gold and artworks stolen from private citizens and companies. To this day, the whereabouts of a lot of the Nazi loot and the total value of assets stolen by Nazi Germany remains unknown.

There are numerous conspiracy theories about the missing bank vault gold. The Swiss National Bank allegedly was used to store most of it and some people have claimed that it was subsequently transferred to the Vatican - unsurprisingly they have always denied this.

The Nazi War machine spent some of it in Portugal because the German armaments industry was dependant on tungsten - a vital metal produced in Portugal.

Because the Portuguese were, neutral they could trade with both sides but when the Germans started passing counterfeit cash, in 1941 Portuguese leader Antonio de Oliveiera demanded all further payments in gold. This probably accounted for some of it.

Although this is interesting, large financial establishments are impossible to penetrate and it seems likely that the truth will never be known. However, some smaller hoards remain un found and intrigue treasure hunters some 70 years on.



Stolpsee Lake is situated about an hour’s drive north of Berlin in the former East Germany and is the site of a well known treasure hoard. In 1945, Herman Goering emptied his home of loot and art works before ordering it to be dynamited because the Red army were advancing.

Goering is alleged to have personally taken charge of numerous amounts of bullion from the national bank of Poland following the Nazi invasion in 1939 and apparently ordered 18 boxes of gold to be thrown in nearby Stolpsee lake - only a few miles from his home.

Although The Polish prisoners who followed the order were subsequently shot some local people did witness the dumping of the boxes.

In 1986, before German reunification the Stasi ordered a trawl of the lake but found nothing. Last year a group of German businessmen started searching the lake. So far, if they have found anything, they are keeping quiet about it.

Treasure hunters also believe that Lake Toplitz, 60 miles from Salzburg in Austria may contain millions of pounds in bullion and treasure. Nazi scientists used it as a test site for explosives so may have been a good hiding place for Nazi loot.

The Austrian Alps are also believed to house lost Nazi treasure following the discovery of a network of tunnels built to store supplies and materials and provide a safe place for a last ditch stand.

One of the oddest Nazi gold stories is the tale of a U-boat crew who supposedly buried a fortune in gold bullion on Auckland Island, which lies approximately 200 miles south of the coast of New Zealand.

The tiny Auckland Island has been so carefully picked over by treasure hunters, if there was anything there; it is certainly not there now.

Why are some hallmarks more valuable than others?

If you are interested in gold and silver, the hallmark can be as interesting as the object itself. 

It can tell you a lot about the history of your item and the fact that some hall marks are rare, will add value beyond the base value of the metal and the beauty of the craftsmanship.


Some collectors form whole collections around certain assay offices or hallmarks and look out for certain hall marks because of their rarity value.

There are four assay offices in Great Britain operating today. These are Birmingham - the largest assay office in the world, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield.

There is also an assay office in Dublin, which continues to hallmark in the approved British way despite Irish independence in 1923.

However, there are many other assay offices, which are no longer in operation and these hallmarks can be rare.

Assay offices no longer in operation are Chester, Exeter Newcastle, York, Glasgow and Cork in Ireland.

In addition, some hallmarks refer to special events or years and these also have a rarity value which is reflected by the price.


So which are the hall marks to look out for?

Anything bearing the city arms mark of Chester especially if it is early.

Although Chester silver had been made and marked as such for centuries, Chester was granted with its own assay office in 1700.

Silver hallmarked in Chester is rare because no silversmiths were operating in the town after 1820.

The abundance of Chester hallmarks on silverware dating from 1880 to 1930 is because silversmiths working in Manchester and Liverpool sent it to the Chester Assay Office for hallmarking

Duty marks can also be rare. In 1784, legislation was bought in to record that duty of 6d an ounce had to be paid on valuable metals.

A mark depicting the sovereign’s head was an extra mark added to the hallmarks between 1784 and 1890, an excise on gold and silver articles was collected by the Assay Offices and a mark depicting the Sovereign’s head was struck to show that it had been paid.

In 1890, the tax was removed but the sovereign’s head has continued to be added to hallmarks on a voluntary basis.

The Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 was marked with a special hallmark, the Millennium followed in 2000 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will be marked with a commemorative hallmark.

All these commemorative hall marks are collectable and seem likely to increase in value in the future.
The rarest duty mark is a figure of Britannia, which was used on export gold and silver.

This was struck for only 9 months between Dec 1st 1784 and July 1785 and because it was struck on finished wares, risked damage to the object so was soon discontinued.

This is the rarest of gold and silver hallmarks and will increase the value of the object considerably.

Bre x - Salting the mine Gold Scam

October 1995: Bre-X Gold Mine

The Bre X Gold mine scandal used the trick of Mine Salting.

This has become the most notable example of this technique. “Salting the mine” was commonly used in old prospecting days.

In the original gold scam, the perpetrators would “salt” a non-producing mine with some gold dust and a few gold nuggets in order to make it appear to be quite literally a "Gold Mine."

Investors would be lured in with promises of huge wealth, and encouraged to “act now” in order to beat other investors when the news broke.

This was the tactic used in the case of Bre-X gold mine in 1995.
The mine site had been “salted” with what turned out later to be grains of gold from rivers located elsewhere in the world, gold jewellery shavings and finely crushed ore.



Despite locals never finding gold in the river, Bre-X announced to the world in 1995 that it had hit the mother lode and used their “salted mine” site as evidence. 

Thousands of people were caught by this trick and investors lost a fortune

Just one, former Bre-X geologist John Felderhof, was ever prosecuted.

He was acquitted in 2007 due to his insistence that, despite the “lucky” timing of him selling off his Bre-X shares, he had no knowledge of “any discrepancies” with the analysis of the find.