GOLD!! Need information!!

[CoinCrusader42]

This is an area in which I know next to nothing.  I own about six gold coins, and most were purchased quite a while back.

What I need is information I can forward to our oldest son.

Our son Michael (member BurkeM) would like to invest in some gold.  He doesn't know whether to buy coins, bullion, or bars.  Also, he doesn't know where to look for the best deals in gold.

Suggestions as to what to buy, and sites he can look into, will be much appreciated.

 

[scottishmoney]

Sage advice from one that actively searches for any such yellow flavoured materiel which finds itself in the ignominy of being sold.... good luck finding gold in any appreciable quantity.   I can nitpick stuff here and there, but buying rolls of coin etc. are a thing of the past for the time being.

[scottishmoney]

I can offer further advice, and Paint Your Wagon and myself are cut from the same cloth, but he is the primary authority here on all matters of the noble metal and I will defer to him to broach this subject further.

[Paint Your Wagon]

Ok let's address a few points of concern a lot of non cognicenti have

1) Recognisability
You want something nearly every american or canadian should recognize
Double Eagles ? American new eagles ? Maples ? and I am not sure about Krugerrands even less about bars or Napoleons etc

2) A lot of people especially germans want 9.99 pure I do not know about american ;but at a cheap price this would
mean Canadian Maples but beware they scratch very easily and some will use this
as a pretext to pay you less when you sell . So do not buy scratched specimen and keep them at least in a flap
and don't slide them out and don't pass them around the family to grease up

3) There are two approaches go for bullion coins mentioned under number one (apart from the Double Eagles maybe ) or go for
coins that may have potential premium in the future . I have been buying South American coins cheap and the Proof canadians in box with cert are cheap . Someday somebody rich may want them enough to pay a premium . Or somebody may be desperate enough to pay a large premium

4) Falsification : get a cheap chinese weighing scale 0-50 grams at 0.01 exactness and most important get a 50 grams calibration weight cause the suckers are wacked out of factory calibration by the post . After calibrating the first time I never had to re adjust again . For the same reason I buy nothing poured instead of struck . And for the same reason I buy no bars cause they have very simple designs and anybody can put a number on them . A lot of fake goldbars have been going on ebay France as paperweights . The only product that has the same density as gold is Osram and that is nearly unworkable for the non specialist . So knowing the real dimentions and weighing is safe enough unless you pay 500% over melt

5) Coffins . Some guy on capitalstool bought 100 slabbed Saints MS63 and when he sold them early this year half his premium disappeared in fees for the vendor and his margin . If he had bought unslabbed new eagles he would have made double gains . Coins only get rare from MS65 on and some rare years . There are only three slabbers more or less good NGC and PCGS and maybe ANACS. ( I have no slabs I grade myself )

At this point in time I would grab the phonebook and phone around to see which dealer still has coins and at what markup
and drive there and get them
Alternatively use a shipping dealer like Tulving or Pandaamerica very good but very expensive
Alternatively buy on ebay canadians with a certificate or maples
But everywhere be ready to pay a stiff premium of 10% over melt at least
Alternatively you could buy at a dealer in Paris or Vienna but Paris asks 30 euro insured shipping cost I am not sure about Vienna but shipping in Europe is horribly costly
I know those two since 5 years now

I asked my american friend the retired coindealer whether he knows additional options but you are 10 days too late to get it cheap and simple
Good luck

[Paint Your Wagon]

http://www.pandaamerica.com/coins.asp#a

http://www.kitco.com/


http://www.tulving.com/

http://www.steinbergs.com/

http://www.pamp.ch/

Austria

http://www.coinstore.at/shop/index.php?cp_sid=298301de9754&cp_tpl=main


UK
http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/countries.html

[scottishmoney]

For value, history, and not a big premium over melt I would add in early 20th century American gold coins.  As Paint Your Wagon suggests, you want something that is familiar, easy to authenticate and with known dimensions specifics etc.  Last night on a discussion forum on their BST board I bought a 1910-S $10 gold piece for $460.  Melt on that coin right now is $438, a markup of $22 or 5%, which is less than half ounce AGE's are selling for presently.  You have to look for the bargains, but they are out there.  Over the last weekend I found a Hungarian 100 Koronas weighing 0.98 ounce of gold for something like $850 on eBay, right now as of this morning that coin will melt for $895.  It is a large and beautiful coin like this:



These were a bit more popular when they were restruck by the Austrian mint in the 1980's than they are now because don't quite have a full ounce of gold in them.

I just wish I could find gold coins in appreciable quantities like I could before, rolls of AGE's etc.  For the now those days are history.

[scottishmoney]

I bought two of these a couple of weeks ago for $375 each on another BST board:



These have .5288 oz of gold in them, and presently melt on them is $482!  I made a profit of over $100 on each coin by being at the right place at the right time and snapping them up quickly.

[Paint Your Wagon]

answer of my friend the retired american coin dealer

if he's wanting a lot of it then i would recommend http://www.dillongage.com/ (they're huge -- tell him to ask to speak to a trader and he should get better prices than they'd normally do retail). tulving would be my next recommendation

[Paint Your Wagon]

Cheapest are the 4 ducats 1915
Wafer thin and very large
Unloved

[Paint Your Wagon]

These belgian money exchanger prices change every five minutes
If you can come close you are doing a good deal
Notice they only buy american coins they do not sell them ( unless to americans that pay a lot more then what they are bought for )

http://www.munters.be/servlet/javaparser?pgm=lst_or_new&lg=nl

[scottishmoney]

I miss being able to walk into banks on the Rive Gauch in Paris and buy American $20's for melt.

[Paint Your Wagon]

I miss being able to walk into banks on the Rive Gauch in Paris and buy American $20's for melt.

Those days are over
Too many american and english pros comining to buy once a month and the sellers know it

[CoinCrusader42]

A sincere thank you for the information.

It has been forwarded to our son.

 

[KurtS]

While I don't buy gold, I can recommend an inexpensive and reasonably accurate scale. I've found this scale accurate from 0.045 grams and upward, calibrating well to much more expensive units. Error margin is around +/-.015 grams.

A portable Chinese-made unit, selling for $30 under various "brands" at jeweler supplies:

[Paint Your Wagon]

Any of the chinese made scales will do but you MUST buy a calibration weight for setting 100%
I got a 50 grams scale so i got a 50 grams calibration weight

[KurtS]

That's a good idea. I calibrated mine against various gemstones which I had tested--it was almost exactly the same.