Buy Gold Bars or Gold Coins?
November 26th, 2008 by Randy Slabey
Why Should I Buy Gold Coins Instead of Gold Bars?
Gold bullions are available in two forms i.e. Gold bars and Gold coins. If you are not going to store your gold bullions in a special storage facility or if you are not looking to buy gold bullion as required by your business, then gold coins are the best investment for you. Many people who are new to the gold market consider gold coins to be a bad investment, because they need to pay extra for the crafting, refinement and packing etc. Well as much as that may be true, there are no storage risks involved when you buy gold coins. The biggest benefit is you don’t need to arrange for a special holding facility. You can buy gold coins and store it under your bed, and wake up next morning to resell it. However when you are dealing with gold bars, its not that simple. Gold bars need to be stored in a special facility, you will also need to arrange for a special transportation module to transport your gold bars to a special holding facility after you buy gold bars. These kinds of special measures are only convenient for banks, financial intuitions and governments.
For most of us who want to buy gold we are looking for a simple transaction, where we just buy gold bullions and store it in our locker or safe. This is why buying gold coins are so practice, because all you do is purchase gold coins at their current market rate, add to that a small cost that pays for crafting, refining and shipping. Once you want to sell all you need to do is to take it to a jeweler, show your purchase certificate and sell it.
Most people confuse the term gold bullion as gold bricks or bars. Whereas gold bullion simply means a refined, and weighed chunk of precious metal i.e. gold or silver. So you don’t need to buy gold bullion in the form you see stored in fort Knox, coins too are gold bullion.
It makes a lot of financial sense to buy gold bars of over 400 troy ounces, since you are paying less for the fabrication and refinement of the gold that you are buying. But it isn’t practice for individuals who are looking to make an investment in gold, because of the high price of storage and shipping associated with it. For an individual it is best that he or she buy gold in the form of gold coins and benefit from the ease of storage and resale that it has.
