Investing in gold: Coins or Bars?

I am sorry I did not see a business/investor section on BTS and did not feel this belonged in ATS

Tomorrow I will be making an acquisition of about 6 ounces of 9999 fine gold bullion. The gold will be in my physical posession and I will be armed so don't think about tracking me down lol.

This will be my frist time in the the gold market so if anyone here has any experience please let me know. Now the broker I talked to told me it was better to buy the coins instead of bars. The reason was that the gold bars have to be tested for purity because they can be suscebtable to tampering apparantly and may contain impurities. The coins are minted in a certain process in order to make them gold and readily accepted at many places.

I personally think bars are a more neutral way of storing it. One broker was very pusher and wanted to sell me some 1 ounce 1907 20$ Gold liberty dollars for over 1000$ each. Sorry I am not paying over 300$ extra because its a rare coin. I am not a coin collector I just want to trade gold. Thats why I am feeling skeptical about the coins. They are charging spot +5% per coin. Even e-gold (electronic gold) charges up to that much depending on who you buy from as well as storage fees. The biggest concern of course is that you are not in physical possession of that gold and is exposed to risk.


I would like to hear some professionl opinions on my first time market entrance.

Frankly, I like investing in gold coins. Before you jump to any conclusions that I am some sort of rich elitist ...... I'm not like Scrooge McDuck or anything. I don't have a big mound of gold coins or anything. I just have a few coins that I purchased when gold was MUCH cheaper -- and I'm sure glad I did that. I've made a tidy profit so far.

If I had a choice to purchase either gold coins or ingots, I would always opt for the coins. First, a coin that was minted by a country; ie US gold Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs or South African Krugerands satisfy one important requirement for me -- purity. I know that there is some legitimacy behind the minted coinage. I wouldn't begin to know how to verify the authenticity or purity of an ingot.

I see that is definetly the upside there. I had the money in August when gold was about 250$ cheaper but I was just 19, had no experience at all and was frankly quite scared. I am close to the bottom of the social pyramid and nobody I know is even involved with any kind of commodities or exchange market. We are ALL laborers/workers and therefore I have had no teacher to give me advice about it. Noone with experience. I just kind of did some research, and decided I should no longer be afraid of this because it is unknown to me. I will feel good knowing that I will at least have some experience that I can share with my friends and family to maybe help convince them they have other options available to them.

Tomorrow morning I will be ordering my coins (six 1-ounce coins) and will have them shipped VIA registered insured mail. I think I may place them in a safety deposit box at my bank.

On another note, what do yuo think would be the best way for me to invest $1000 in silver? The broker told me it is too expensive to buy silver physically and advised it would be better off dealing with in on paper. Maybe I will just invest in that using an e-matal account?

Again, I am not a metals broker or any sort of "expert" on investing in metals however, my own common sense tells me that the real advantage of having any investments in precious metals is in the actual physical possession of the metal. Investing in silver is no different. Purchasing a quantity of silver (in this case a thousand dollars worth) is also easily facilitated by buying silver coinage.

American Liberty Silver Dollars are readily available as are ingots (though I prefer actual coinage). All you need to do is to store the coins safely in your safe deposit box or a home safe or hidden cache. It would be heavy, physically, but it wouldn't take up that much room.

The drawback that I see in ordering or purchasing "certificates", as such, for a certain amount of silver, or any metal, is that you never actually HAVE the silver. Your investment, in spite of any assurances to the contrary, is that your investment is really only as good as the brokerage you are dealing with. If troubled times are ahead, you might be out of your investment should the brokerage fold. A piece of paper is never a substitute for cold HARD cash.

If your gonna invest it in coins make sure they dont have chocolate in em.

I always hear gold stock rising so invest while you can. Im still a teen so I don't know much bout the stock business.

It's nice to see a young person take an interest in investing. You made the right choice in buying the coins.

If I was buying $1000 silver, I would take physical possession. That shouldn't cost too much to transport, and it's so much more liquid than paper.

I am also taking advantage of the rising precious and base metal prices, but in a riskier way. I have some money in a junior mining company, with copper and gold reserves.

Tax time tip: Don't forget that your safety deposit box charges are deductible on your taxes when used to store investments.