Some people ask for an explanation of the price and some people are rude. The rude emails are deleted straight away, and I rarely have time now to reply to the people who'd like to know.
The reason is, tax and labour.
When you buy copper or silver or titanium, palladium, gallium etc you have to pay tax. VAT is 20%. Polishing is labour +VAT, stamping is stamping +VAT
Paypal takes 3% and there are other expenses that push the price higher.
The spot price is a mythical number constantly quoted. I believe you can buy metals at the spot price from the London Metals Exchange but it would have to be about 20 tonnes! Which you'd have to move with a lorry and the pay 20% VAT. What form it would look like I don't know because nobody does it.
Remember the price of gold was at an all time low in about 2002? How many people considered Gold as a good investment back then? How many uses has gold got? Not many. What about Copper?
So as the Euro slides into oblivion much like the Russian Ruble did in the 90s, the currency you think in may actaully be worthless.
Certainly £75 billion of new Quantatative Easing money from the Bank of England last week hasn't done your savings or weekly wage any good.
Metals are money, they have value because they are expensive to mine. Paper money is a promise. The Bank of England has devalued it's promise of worth.
£75billion pounds is about 10% of GDP in Britain and they'll use that up in under 2 years, which probably means the price of everything in paper Pounds will go up by about 10% before the next round of devaluing.
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