Investing in physical gold can be difficult for investors more used to trading stocks and bonds online.
When it comes to physical gold goldco reviews, you will usually interact with sellers outside of the traditional middlemen and you will probably have to pay storage costs and insure your investment.
The three options for investing in physical gold are bullion, coins, and jewelry.
Gold bullion
When most people think of investing in gold, they think of bullion: big, shiny gold bars locked in a vault.
Available gold bars range from a few grams to 400 ounces, although the most common are between 1 and 10 ounces.
Since the current price of gold is approximately $1,800 an ounce (as of February 2022), it makes investing in gold bullion expensive.
Unlike stocks, there is no way to get a fractional share of a gold bar.
Due to the high price of gold bars, it is particularly important to use a reliable seller and pay on delivery, with insurance and pay for storage in a vault or safe deposit box.
If you decide to invest in gold bullion, it is also a good idea to keep an eye on the price of gold so that you can take advantage of the best time to buy: most sellers update their prices based on current spot prices.
Gold coins
The most common gold coins weigh one or two ounces, although half and quarter ounce coins also exist.
Collector coins, such as South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or North American Golden Eagles, are the most common type of gold coin.
Some sellers also sell raw gold made from damaged or excessively worn coins.
However, the prices of gold coins are not always commensurate with their gold content.
Collector coins usually trade for a little more. An American one-ounce gold coin, for example, retails for just over $2,000 in mid-February 2022.
It is a recharge of 5% on the price of a gold bar.
You may be able to find better deals on gold coins through local collectors or pawn shops, but it’s generally safer to make these purchases from trusted, authorized dealers.
Buy gold in a jewelry store
You can also choose to buy gold that you can wear, or that someone has worn on occasion and has been damaged, in the form of jewelry.
However, investing in gold jewelry carries much more risk than investing in pure gold.
First of all, you should be careful when buying jewelry since not all second-hand jewelry is sold by reliable sellers.
Its authenticity is important not only for you, but also for anyone you want to sell the garment to.
This makes it essential to purchase investment jewelry from a reputable seller and obtain as much documentation as possible.
Second, you will pay a certain amount of markup depending on the company that has designed and made the jewelry.
This could be between 20% and more than three times the gross value of the precious metal.
You will also have to be aware of the purity of your jewelry or its percentage of gold.
The purity of gold is calculated based on karats, with 24 karats being synonymous with 100% gold. A lower purity reduces the casting value of your garment or the raw value of your jewelry components, if cast in pure gold.