Gold/Silver Bullion as an Investment

[tplyons]

What are your thoughts on gold or silver bullion as an investment? I hate the look of gold as jewelry, but I love the look when it's in my hand. I'm looking to start investing small, far smaller than stocks right now... and am looking to dabble a bit, buy a few coins or bars.

If for no reason other than to say I own bullion.

What to know? Coins? Ingots? Which is better? Easier to sell? Etc. etc.

From what I can tell, coins are easier to move, and easier to buy locally. However, there are the Canadian Maple Leafs, American Silver Eagles, Chines Pandas, etc. Which are easier to move? Is there REALLY a big difference between them?

[FL Knifemaker]

Unless you are uber wealthy and feel the need for an apocolypse fund, there are much better ways to invest.

[MakiSupaStar]

^+1. What about a good old fashioned mutual fund?

[RWP]

I don't think it would hurt to have 10% of your portfolio in gold and silver. Not sure I would be buying right now however. To bad we all didn't decide to jump in recently when it was $250 a OZ!

[michelle_andree]

Originally Posted by tplyons

..........there are the Canadian Maple Leafs, American Silver Eagles, Chines Pandas, etc. Which are easier to move? Is there REALLY a big difference between them?

The coins are more recognizable I guess, (worldwide) and may be easier to convert to different currencies. The leafs are .9999 v/s some bullion that is .999, not sure of the others. It's a safe concentration of your wealth if you buy low. (and it's down now, for now...)

I like the silver leafs

[Mark Latimour]

My understanding of investment in gold is that you very rarely have physical possession of the actual item, but rather a "share" if you will representing your holding and its tradable on an exchange just like any other stock. Going out and pimping yourself up with bling like 50 Cent is not investing in gold.

[tplyons]

Mark, you can buy gold bullion to possess yourself, or you can buy third party bullion. I'm opting for the first.

I'm thinking of going out and getting a few one ounce silver coins. They're running about $17 or so a pop... figure if I grab one or two a month instead of eating expensively, I can build up a fair collection this summer AND save a few calories.

[Mark Latimour]

Originally Posted by tplyons

Mark, you can buy gold bullion to possess yourself, or you can buy third party bullion. I'm opting for the first.

I'm thinking of going out and getting a few one ounce silver coins. They're running about $17 or so a pop... figure if I grab one or two a month instead of eating expensively, I can build up a fair collection this summer AND save a few calories.

I can't imagine that any minerals you have possession of would retain the same value as exchange traded stock. The reason being that its hard to move a specific piece of gold vs exchange traded and people may worry about authenticity. I would have thought that if it really is for investment, exchange traded is the way to go. Is there any reason you would want physical possession rather than the cache of saying you have it in your possession?

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by Mark Latimour

I can't imagine that any minerals you have possession of would retain the same value as exchange traded stock. The reason being that its hard to move a specific piece of gold vs exchange traded and people may worry about authenticity. I would have thought that if it really is for investment, exchange traded is the way to go. Is there any reason you would want physical possession rather than the cache of saying you have it in your possession?

For one, the small amounts that I'm talking about hardly warrant paying any trading fees. Second, I like shiny things.

[Mark Latimour]

Originally Posted by tplyons

For one, the small amounts that I'm talking about hardly warrant paying any trading fees. Second, I like shiny things.

I would definitely spend some time looking into how easy it is to move your investment. At the end of the day you don't want to end up holding a bunch of "shiny things" that have no real value (ie cannot be sold). It would be worth checking this out because it may be that what you are buying is just for show (I remember seeing ads for things like this in magazines in Australia). It would be best to know that upfront rather than after you have sunk some cash into it. FWIW.

[edzillion]

Hi guys, noticed this thread and thought I would chip in.

For one, the small amounts that I'm talking about hardly warrant paying any trading fees.

I'm afraid you will always pay trading fees, whether you take possession of the gold or buy into ETFs etc. The decision really depends on how long you plan to hold it for. ETFs are great for short term speculation, but because they charge a % it quickly adds up. I would reccomend that you hold the gold for 3-5 years; precious metals go in roughly 15 year cycles, which bottomed out in about 1999, so you have a while to go before it hits the peak of the cycle.

A great way to invest and get the best of both is to invest in the Perth Mint Certificate Programme, which has low commission and zero storage, no delivery charges and you don't have the security risk of holding the gold yourself:

http://www.goldassets.co.uk/perth_mi..._programme.php

There is a minimum investment though, which is 10k USD, but when we get enquiries about lower amounts we reccomend that people invest in e-gold such as BullionVault.com which has very low commissions, and then when they have enough withdraw the profits and then invest in the Perth Mint.

Hope this helps

Ed

[MAJOR METAL]

Timothy when are you getting gold Grills yo ?

[tplyons]

Time to bring my own thread back from the dead:

In my current business, one of my good friends reports on commodities. CPG companies left and right are raising prices because of commodity increases. Someone mentioned something about buying bullion, and I remembered asking here.

Long story short: I wish I bought in 2008. Back then I had disposable income and silver has doubled in three years. But hindsight is 20/20. Have to laugh that this came full circle.

[Pilgrim]

Every time the economy sneezes, the scam artists tell people the country is going to crash and they need to buy gold. Of course, they conveniently happen to be selling gold, too.

I don't agree, and to quote Heinlein, I don't trust the hucksters as far as I can throw a fit.

[McHaven]

My grandfather went crazy when Obama was elected and bought 3 kilograms of gold. Rich old bastard with more money than sense.

[MAJOR METAL]

One of the Cops I work with has started buying up US Silver Eagles as a long term investment. When I was buying for my coin collection I was buying more for the numismatic value as opposed to metallic value.

[tplyons]

Originally Posted by MAJOR METAL

One of the Cops I work with has started buying up US Silver Eagles as a long term investment. When I was buying for my coin collection I was buying more for the numismatic value as opposed to metallic value.

Back when I collected coins, it was all about the numismatic values as well. But these days, I think I'll be looking more closely at metallic compositions.

I'm not talking a huge "the end is near" stash, but a way to simply diversify my portfolio with a small portion of physical precious metals.

[knumbskull]

basically what you want to invest in is the US aircrew survival list from Dr Strangelove.

[SLaPiNFuNK]

Coins or Bullion will get you the best resale to a shop or something... Its amazing how much markup they have on eBay!

If you can find coins / Bullion without a huge premium buy it. Its always worth its weight.

Its never a bad idea to buy junk morgan's.... I found some that I could sell at 3-4 times their melt value.

Silver / Gold is so expensive now though... I haven't bought silver for a couple of years, I sold most of my silver around the $20 mark... but have a couple of 5oz bars and morgans that I purchased when silver was around $10 without paying much of a premium.

Some good info here:

Gold And Silver

[JimB52]

For a collapse of civilization investment, I'd say canned goods, batteries and weapons are the wisest investments.