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Many people have thought about buying gold during times of economic recession and stagnation in order to hedge their assets against a poorly performing stock market, an unfavorable movement in currency exchange rates, and other potentially shaky investments. Purchasing gold online can be fairly quick and convenient, especially when you know what type of gold you are looking to get. For those who want to take physical delivery of their gold and store it themselves, the main options are buying from a gold wholesaler, or buying gold online directly from a mint. If you do not need to actually have the gold in your hands, you can buy bullion gold online from a number of different accredited bullion providers.
Buying Gold from a Large Gold Dealer
Buying investment gold online from a dealer or reseller is one of the easiest ways of obtaining physical gold. Large gold dealer websites like APMEX, Kitco, and Goldline offer all sorts of different gold coins and bars from around the world. Certain investors may be looking at buying specific types of gold coins from certain countries, such as the popular South Africa Krugerrand, or Canadian Maple Leafs. Since the website acts as a reseller and doesn’t actually produce the coins themselves, they are able to offer a wide variety of gold coinage from around the world.
Gold dealer websites are also great for people looking to buy gold bars online as well. Since the dealers usually buy gold in bulk, they are sometimes able to secure slightly lower prices than the general public, and pass the savings onto the investor when compared to other dealer websites. Most large gold dealer sites allow you to purchase all sorts of gold bars in different weights and sizes, depending on exactly what you want. The sort of price you can get from a dealer website usually ranges between 2% over spot price for large orders and around 4% over spot price for smaller, single orders.
The wide range of options when it comes to buying gold is what makes dealer sites a great choice if you have a pretty good idea of what you want, but want to look through what is available to see if there is any other gold product that may suit your investment needs in a better way. Generally, online gold dealers will be more than willing to assist you with every step of the gold buying process. They all have phone numbers available which can put you in direct contact with someone who can help you buy gold over the phone, or answer any questions you might have about a specific product. Most gold dealers will even store your gold for you once you buy it for a small fee if you don’t necessarily want or need it in your hands, but still want the option to have it delivered to you if you decide you do want to take physical possession of it.
A couple of the drawbacks to large gold dealer websites is that they will usually end up costing you a little bit more than buying directly from the mints that the gold came from. Whether or not that premium is worth it depends on a variety of thing, such as how fast you would like your gold, if you’d like your gold to be stored, and if you need support either while ordering or after you purchase your gold. In addition to this, there is a good chance that you will run into a credit card processing fee since investment gold dealers already run on pretty thin margins. To get around something like this, you would need to send a bank wire or money order since using a credit card might tack on an extra 2% to your total, which is pretty significant since it will just take you that much longer to recoup your investment.
If you want to be able to choose from a wide variety of investment gold products and get them relatively quickly, a gold dealer website would be what you are looking for in order to purchase your gold online. The support team at most sites can also help answer questions regarding how to buy gold online, including shipping and billing inquiries.
Buying Gold from a Mint
If you are looking to buy gold online directly from a mint, it helps to keep in mind that you will need to immediately take delivery of your gold since a mint will not store it for you. For most investors looking to get a few thousand dollars worth of gold as a hedge, this shouldn’t be too big of a deal, since a few ounces of gold can easily be stored in a safe deposit box at a bank, or a fireproof safe in your house. If storage isn’t an issue, you’ll have to figure out exactly what sort of coin or bar you want to purchase. Most mints will make a wide variety of coins in all different sizes and designs, and a lot of them will be quite a bit over spot price.
The premium on minted products depends a lot on how many of a certain piece will be minted. Generally, the lower the total number minted the more of a premium you can expect to pay. Chances are pretty good that you will be able to retain that premium when you sell, but only if you sell to someone who values it for having a rare piece instead of a run of the mill gold coin. If you are buying gold to use in case of financial disaster, stick to gold that is priced only for its metal value.
Being able to have access to the most up to date collector gold coins is one of the big advantages of using a mint as opposed to a gold dealer or bullion service. Since investment quality gold comes in so many different forms on mint websites, you should ask yourself whether you are looking to buy based more on the price of gold or buy based on the perceived rarity of a certain limited edition run of a gold coin. Large mints are also going to be extra diligent when it comes to shipping and processing your order, since their entire business deals only with taking an order from a customer and getting it out to them. They don’t have to deal with storage or buy-back fees, which means more people are focused on fulfilling the orders that they receive.
There are a couple drawbacks when it comes to buying gold online from a mint, the biggest one being that a lot of the specialty products are priced well above spot price. If you are looking to invest in rare coins made out of gold as opposed to just using coins as a medium to invest in gold, going through a mint website would be the way to go. Another setback is the time it takes to ship, if you can even get the gold product you want in your country at all. Since a mint only deals with coins and bars that are created from inside that country, you can end up waiting weeks if you want to get gold bars from somewhere like Switzerland or Austria.
For investment grade gold that you want to appreciate in terms of both intrinsic and numismatic value, buying gold from a mint is probably one of the best ways of making that happen. You’ll pay extra for it at first, but if you are confident that its value will rise, it should be well worth the initial investment. Keep in mind that you should only buy gold from well-known mints that are clearly marked with both the mint’s symbol and the fineness. When it comes time to sell, having gold that can be easily identified will save you a lot of hassle.
Buying Bullion Gold Online
Getting gold from a bullion vault is a great option if you are looking to purchase physical gold without actually having it in your possession. When you buy gold from a bullion vault, you are paying extremely close to spot price, usually at less than a 1% markup. This is due to the fact that the gold you are buying is already sitting in the company’s vault. Since the gold doesn’t move at all when it is being bought and sold, there are no handling expenses and you never have to worry about the pureness being compromised. Since you can’t take delivery of your gold, there is a mandatory storage fee, which usually is around .2%, sometimes lower, of the current spot value of your gold.
Bullion vaults are what big gold investors use when they are trading their gold, since they can buy at almost spot price and sell for usually just a couple of dollars per ounce under spot as well. One of the best things about bullion vaults is that you can take advantage of spot price fluctuations in the market if you are able to catch them happening in real time. Since most bullion vaults take fairly low commissions, a price rise or fall of a few dollars in the span of a day can be acted upon immediately.
There are many advantages to bullion vaults as opposed to other forms of buying gold online. The biggest advantage to any investor is the fact that you can both buy and sell so close to the spot price of gold, this makes short term gains possible since you don’t have to deal with credit cards fees, shipping fees, or high storage fees. It’s possible to get involved in some storage vaults for as little as $100, this low barrier of entry make gold investing possible for almost anybody who really wants to do it. Some major bullion vaults, like BullionVault, allow you to buy and sell on a moment’s notice so you can take advantage of a good price.
The major disadvantage to a bullion vault is the fact that generally, you cannot take physical delivery of your gold. It is possible to get physical gold out of some vaults, but you will pay a very high processing fee, and you won’t be able to put that gold back into the vault. For some people, this is a positive thing since they don’t want to deal with handling it themselves, but some gold investors may want to store it on their own terms in their own way.
Since you can buy gold online so easily, you don’t really need to travel anywhere to get investment grade gold when you can have it delivered to your house, or stored in a secure location. Owning physical gold is a common way to ride out tough economic times while at the same time having an investment that you can easily turn into cash.
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