Ok this is prob going to get shot down in flames as I know nothing about either topic, but you you were able to buy 1 gold bullion bar a quater say at £3.5k or the same amount in coins how how safe an investment would this be, I hear people saying u can do stocks, ISA etc but in truth I know nothing about them and gold is gold right?

On another note, say I went and bought random paintings from random artists and just stored them in my attic as an investmet would they hold a value

Gold can fluctuate quite a bit in value, so there is that risk. Long term, it should come out ahead.

But the gold is merely a store of value, and won't actually be doing anything productive. Stocks will let you have a piece of a company that actually is creating something valuable. Stocks can be bad investments and can be overpriced or even worthless if the company is losing money, but if you actually want to grow your money, you need to be actually investing. There are specific mutual funds that target your retirement age and have various mixes that should make it easier for you to not worry about it and will have low fees. Having some gold makes sense for really bad situations (although the really really bad ones, toothpaste or guns might be better).

The paintings, if you know nothing, is basically gambling. If you know what you are doing and find things in the right places you might be able to make some money.

Stay away from investing into art. Dont think it so much as an investment if you buy art. Buy something you like with reasonable price tag. If the price goes up. Great you can sell it and after many years and inflation you might be up some
Money. Same thing with wisky. If you buy Bottle of rare reasonably priced whisky and price remains the same at least you can down it. Not a big loss. If you dont know about art stay away and last thing you should do would be to ask from gallery what to buy. If youre are confident about investing into art you dont have to ask what to buy.

TY so the idea I have is to buy gold with the spare cash I have i mean atual gold coins or bars, im terrible at saving money in say accounts I tend to raid it for items i fancy where as If i bought a gold bar i cant go to sony and say here ya go have a few coins dear sir

Keep in mind that buying buillion (actual coins and bars) is more expensive than buying an ETF. This is particularly true when/if you ever want to sell. Say a one once coin has a retail value of $1,500, you're rarely going to get that much for it. A gold dealer is going to give you a haircut so he can make a profit. You could try to sell it yourself online or something but that also has costs and risks.

I don't know much about art, but I've heard that very few pieces of art really appreciate. You have to have super high-end pieces to consider them an investment. Something well over $10k and more likely in the over $50k range. And, again, you're going to take a haircut when you sell. Collectibles are almost always a bad investment.

I would imagine buying any art that would appreciate is probably a 1000:1 shot or worse.

In terms of gold, I would opt for the physical stuff because there are countless reports of the GLD and SLV ETFs being shady. There is expensive acquisition costs but you can usually recoup them when selling it. Will it provide an adequate return? If the FED keeps printing and there isn't a balanced budget in the near future I would say gold/silver/tangible assets look very good.

if I remember correctly Kyle Bass reported that amount of gold in Comex is less than 4% of the potential outstanding claims

I would say the safest investment is art made out of gold. For example, gold statues. This way you mitigate the risk in that both gold and art would have to drop in value for you to lose.

awesome

No art buy gold, if from us buy from tulving.com bars available at 20 over spot must buy 10. I have bought from them 6 times no problems.