Who would you go to purchase gold bullion & bullion coins at the cheapest price?

Question

I believe that the U.S. dollar will lose value to the Euro. Thus, I am seriously thing of buying gold/silver/platinum bullion as well as bullion gold coins (NOT collectible gold coins) as a hedge. Therefore, I am looking at which U.S. gold supplier (e.g. Goldline International, Lear Financial, et. al.) offers the BEST deals.

Answer 1

I'm sure there's more, but here are a couple coin and bullion sites I've been looking at recently (no actual experience yet, but they seem fairly low-cost, plus they purportedly will buy coins from you at spot prices, thus saving you the hassle of having to go to a coin dealer and possibly getting hosed).

http://www.onlygold.com/
http://www.ajpm.com/htbin/gold.cgi
http://www.nwtmintbullion.com/index.php

Be careful, though, because no dealer has any obligation to buy your coins back, at any price. Remember, they are in it to make money, and they do that by buying coins at reduced price, then selling at marked up price, then buying back at reduced prices, etc. etc.

Even if gold goes up to, say, a thousand dollars an ounce or more, dealers may just close their "buy" windows for a while until prices cool off a bit. That's what happened back in '80 or '81, when gold shot up to about 850 US dollars an ounce. You only had a matter of weeks or actually just days to unload gold at those high prices, but even then, not every dealer was in a hurry to buy from you at those prices. So, just remember "caveat emptor" - let the buyer beware.

BTW, unless you're an expert, you're right to steer clear of the collectible-type coins, they are a waste of money from an investment standpoint, though some of the 20-dollar St. Gaudens as well as the recessed Indian Head golds are certainly beautiful to look at, so you might want to own a few just to impress your friends.

One more thing: even with bullion coins, make sure you get extremely clean and scratch-free coins (this is especially true of Canadian Maple Leaves, which are pure fine gold (.9999 purity) and can scratch easily). Many dealers will use any little scratch as an excuse to knock the buy-back price down 10 or 20 bucks a coin. They often times won't tell you that, though, when they go to sell you that very same coin.... How convenient!

The gold-based ETF's are a good and convenient (read: LIQUID) way to play gold, as are select mining shares and metals funds. Too many to name here, so I guess I'll save that for another thread. LOL

*Note about your stuff getting stolen or lost: store your precious metals in a safe deposit box and you will gain at least a certain amount of peace of mind as to their safety.

Good night, and good luck. Col. Kurtz.

Answer 2

Stuff in my possession can be stolen or lost. Try the Ishares ETF for gold, IAU or SLV (silver).

Answer 3

http://www.ZingerMetals.com best prices for bullion and easy to work with my favorite! good luck!!