Please do not apologize! I enjoy all the pictures. And thank you for everything you wrote! Those coins are gorgeous! And yes - I love that Red Dragon gold coin! Stunning! The first silver coins I ever bought I got from JM Bullion's introductory offer of 10oz rounds at spot. I was blown away by how gorgeous they were, though now I don't think much of them at all LOL (not to mention that the price of spot silver was much higher and I wonder if I will ever be able to break even). Everything you wrote brings up lots of questions that I have about bullion - gold and silver. And also the cross-section of collectors items vs bullion as well as buying prices vs selling prices. Gosh, I have loads of questions. But I'm extremely tired right now and can't concentrate enough to formulate them in writing, so maybe tomorrow I can get to writing them. Can I get a rain check on answers?
Those swans are so nice. I need to get me some Aussie swans one day. You might want to send the pics to JM Bullion and tell them they need to put these bars in bigger flips in the future. I find plastic flips to be so flimsy in general though - they crack so easily. I'm not sure I really see the point of flips for that reason. That broken flip in your picture can scratch the bar worse than if the bars were just stacked on top of each other.
What are generic OPM rounds? EDIT: Sorry, I just realized you were commenting on MPC's pictures. (I'm really tired. I need to get offline!)
Nice, but... make sure to weigh it (should weigh 31.1g plus a bit for the plastic) and check it with a magnet. It's probably legit, but there are apparently a lot of people now who buy fake stuff from China and sell it at flea markets.
If you still want to stick with coins, picked this one up awhile back Its a really cool piece so i thought i would share