How To Buy Physical Gold

There are several forms of physical gold you can buy. You could buy big bars if you have a lot of gold to buy and you want to do it in bulk. The better way to buy physical gold is to buy coins for a variety of reasons. For one if you wanted to sell only a small amount of gold at some point, it is easier to sell coins and that way you don’t have to sell more than you have to. However, the more important reason is the cheap call option on the collectibility/numismatic value of the coin. That is assuming you do not pay a huge premium on the coin you are buying.

The premium on the coin depends on several factors such as what country and date the coin is from, what mint it was minted in, the condition of the coin, and how many of them exist to count a few. It, also, depends on where you buy them. Coin dealers will most likely charge you a high premium. Jewelers that don’t concentrate on the numismatic value of the coin, but only on the gold value can provide a better place to buy as long as you know your coins.

My suggestion would be to buy older coins from the US or other countries that have been used as money at some point in the past. Most of these coins go for the price of gold both on online auction sites and at jewelers. If you decide to buy online, however, you should pay attention to a lot of factors such as what platform you use (such as eBay), who the other party is. Platforms such as eBay provide a lot of data on the sellers such as the feedbacks of other buyers. Before you buy a thousand dollar coin from some random person on eBay, you should confirm a lot of positive feedback and check to see that they have sold similar items to others with a lot of feedback – hopefully proving that these people know what they are doing.

Another way to buy online is to use reputed online dealers that are either approved by the US Mint – there is a list of approved dealers on the mint website – or on the numismatic agency websites (such as PCGS and NGC). Bullion dealers such as Northwest Territorial Mint. One of my personal favorites (including the low level of premium on coins and bars as well as the availability of other bullion products such as palladium, platinum, and silver) is Gainesville Coins. There are a lot of other places to buy from online, so do not feel the need to use any one place. You are probably better of to buy from several different sources anyways. Diversification is a good thing in any type of portfolio construction in terms of risk reduction.