Man... I can't believe it has taken me THIS LONG to drum up the nerves to try and go into a precious metals shop in Australia! Really... I find these places more than a little bit intimidating, and if I had my way, I would just do everything over the internet. But I was after some low premium silver in exchange for cash... and that meant that I had to go into the physical store itself.

So, a bit of background... one of the groups that I play for... they pay a really nice per-diem that I can't eat through... and when I'm cooking for myself as well, well, that just means that I am saving a crapload of money just on the subsistence pay... and that is over and above the actual pay, plus accommodation and travel are all covered. Needless to say, it is a nice job....

... and recently, I've been eyeing off the "buyback" low premium silver that a couple of places in Sydney and Melbourne offer. The Melbourne one is slightly cheaper... and they also have Goldbacks! But I left Melbourne the other week, and ran out of time to visit that place...

... and so, I found myself in Sydney... looking at a pretty damn intimidating building, gathering up the nerve to just walk up and press that buzzer. Seriously... it is a huge old colonial building in the middle of the CBD... the sort that screams, YOU DON'T BELONG HERE!

But, I said... screw it... and did it. And they let me in... and I explained that I was here for the buyback silver. The stuff that people sell to them, and that isn't in great condition, and so it gets sold onwards for a small mark up... but nothing compared to the larger markups of the regular stock. It is silver for people who think silver is silver... and for nerds like me who like to get different designs into their collection!

The guy that served me was really nice... it was quite quiet behind the security gates, and he just brought out a box of silver and just let me choose what I wanted! Nerd heaven!

And here we have 4 ounces of pure silver... quite honestly, I would also take fractional silver off their hands as well, that stuff is also pretty cool!

So, these are the ones that I picked up... unusual ones, two Australian, one Danish, and one American.

... and the reverse sides, an Engelhard and a Melbourne Mint being the recognisable ones... well, less familiar with the Melbourne Mint one... and can I say again... faces on coins... bad bad bad... the Australian Queen isn't terrible, but that Danish one?!??!?!?! That is nightmare material there...

Maybe one of these days, I'll get super lucky and find a Silver Shield thing in there or something really cool like that... but for the moment, I'll take the actual entire experience as a win... I actually walked into the store and out again without freaking out completely! And with silver as well...

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