Funny, I thought of that as a business venture maybe 10-15 years ago. Then I thought “who would accept a non-stamped/ non-pedigreed bar even if it had the profile (as the URL shows) of being sliced out of a 1000 oz Comex-acceptable bar? (I wouldn’t. You want to sell me a 10 or 100 oz bar, it’s stamped Sunshine or RCM or Englehard or J-M or Silvertowne or even APMEX) And the aspect of being fake has only gotten worse, astronomically, over time)
There is NOTHING you can do with PMs that does not have significant friction associated with it. Any time you TOUCH these metals, there is a 3%-5%-10% or more hit you take.
It does seem that you almost always take a hit.
I thought about making some kind of poured objects, I may still do that someday since I have a furnace and stuff.
Maybe I can make profit ?
I guess there are always gold dipped tungsten bars if that fails.
I think when your economy totally collapses and the currency becomes worthless, as in Venezuela, you tend to become a little less picky about whether a gold or silver flake is precisely the claimed weight. “Close enough” is infinitely better than accepting the worthless paper money.
Pamp bars and Kruggerands don’t seem to have premium that other coins do. Once I bought a good quantity in shot silver and kept it in the apmex bag and I think I only took a .50 cent hit vs spot. These guys are fair traders.