BullionBidder
Notes on bidding smarter at auction, reading a catalog, and the all-in cost of bullion.
The honest origin story. Twenty years is the platinum anniversary, so we bought a 1 g platinum bar as a gift. It took eight weeks to arrive, we went looking for a faster way to add to it, found auctions, and built a tool to bid without overpaying. The first thing it won us was a hard-to-find 10 g bar at roughly a third less per gram than the gift cost.
Read postAuctions can be a real sourcing channel for resellers, but the number that decides your margin isn't the hammer, it's the all-in after premium and shipping. How the margin math works, how to ground your resale number in real eBay comps, and how to run it across whole catalogs without losing your evenings.
Read postOne of our own auction wins, every number on the table: a 4 oz colourized Ghostbusters .999 bar, 1 of 400, bought at CA$416.95 all-in, basically the price of the silver. How the all-in math let us set a ceiling and recognize a real deal, and why we keep the metal math and the collectibility separate on purpose.
Read postJunk silver is real silver, ordinary circulated coins with no collector premium, and often the cheapest way to stack. Which US and Canadian coins count, the two factors that price any bag, and the messy Canadian years to watch.
Read postI'm not an AI skeptic, I pay for the top tiers and use them daily. So I handed a 400-lot catalog to the chatbots and asked which lots were below retail. The answers were confidently wrong, and confidently wrong is the only kind that costs you money.
Read postA reputable house is one of the safer places to buy bullion, but "reputable" means it stands behind its sales, not that every catalog line is perfect. The checks that let you vet any house yourself, and why you still verify the lot.
Read postSpot, melt, premium, hammer, all-in. Nine pricing terms in plain language, in the order they build on each other, ending with the one that actually tells you whether you got a deal. The other eight are just the pieces that feed it.
Read postThe same 10 oz silver bar, the same afternoon, priced four ways. The cheapest channel was never a place. Here's how to compare a shop sticker, an online price, an auction hammer, and a marketplace listing on the one number that makes them honest.
Read postThe winning bid is the smallest number you'll pay. Premium, shipping, and a possible card surcharge can add close to a fifth on top of your hammer. Here's how to read any fee schedule, the whole stack, before you raise your hand.
Read postThe metal is often cheaper at auction than anywhere else, but the first time is intimidating. Here's the plain walkthrough start to finish, plus the one thing nobody warns a beginner about: set your all-in maximum before you bid, not your hammer maximum.
Read postTwo stackers bid the same afternoon. One wins under melt and overpays. The other wins over melt and walks away with a steal. The difference is which number they were reading, all-in versus retail, not the lot against melt.
Read postWin a 10 oz bar under melt and it can still cost you more than the dealer once the buyer's premium lands. Here's the all-in math, and why the lots that truly beat retail sell below spot.
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