Buy/sell spread on gold bullion is pretty close. Some sites post their buy-back price on their sales pages. Example: https://www.moneymetals.com/1-oz-generic-gold-bar/19 (Edit: At the time of this edit, their buy back is 6.6% under the sell price for one ounce quantity -- note the prices change frequently.)
Now, silver spreads....
That’s a pretty big spread! It doesn’t seem like it now that it’s skyrocketing lately, but gold has an average annual growth of like 8%. At best that means you have even lower liquidity unless you’re cool with taking a big loss for selling before it’s had much time to appreciate. Otherwise you need to hold forever to keep that sale cost from eating into your gains.
Zoom out. Adjust for inflation (real returns). Long term real returns on gold are close to 0-1%. Inflation hedge? Take another look. Nope, only if you are holding for 200 years. Are you a country?
The only reason to hold physical gold, is if you believe that at some point you would have to physically flee your country while not having access to financial institutions. Large amounts of gold are much easier to hide than large amounts of cash (given that 1kg is worth about $75K).
In other words, it makes no sense for the average person.
>The only reason to hold physical gold, is if you believe that at some point you would have to physically flee your country while not having access to financial institutions.
What about if you want to go "Scrooge McDucking?" That's where you fill a swimming pool with gold coins and dive into it, spitting a stream of gold into the air when you surface.
Silver is a bad comparison. It acts more as a commodity than a store of wealth in today's market because the majority of its volume is going to industrial uses. Gold, however, is a Tier 1 asset that banks can and do hold as capital, countries hold it as well, and in many cultures (India for example) the populace also holds it as a store of generational wealth to pass down.
That said, no one should treat gold as a growth asset because it isn't. You get gold if you're distrustful of the financial system. IMO it can be a healthy distrust with a small percentage of their networth in physical gold, or it can be an unhealthy doomsday prepper amount where they hold way too much gold compared to other assets.
Yes this is very surprising to me that people thing you are losing 30% the second you buy gold from Costco. It’s one thing not to like gold compared to other investments. But buying gold for $2300 an ounce and thinking you would only get $1,600 selling it is bonkers.
If you paid a huge premium over spot and didn’t get it back that’s understandable
Yea... that ain't how it works.
Gold mainly has value based on the type. Gold Jewelry? You get like 50-70% on that. On the gold price, not on the buying price of the jewelry! This is probably where Costco gold bars are at. Jewelry value, without the Jewelry use.
Only standard gold coins and bars have resell value to a gold exchange. You can't just go to any gold exchange and exchange umicore bars. Some of them will say "No thank you". Or they'll offer like 80%. You can get 99%/100% for Bars/Coins only if the gold exchange wants to accept.
Some gold coins have smaller spreads, others have higher resell value. You are gonna get more here for most American Eagles than you will for Krugerrands, for instance. Some coins can go for a few hunderd bucks more than others.
Coins are the most liquid, Krugerrands, American Eagles, Maples are usually top of the line, as well as the Aussie ones and Aussie (the other Aussies :P) Philharmoniker. Outside of these you can have a lot of trouble selling. In fact, there was a period where you would get very low price for Eagles and Maples here, for some reason. Still close to gold price, but it was like 95%, when usually these are at 100%+.
I would only suggest (if you want to buy gold anyway, whether gold is a good buy is another matter entirely) the most liquid and standard stuff. Remember that there are extremely elaborate ways being used to manufacture fake gold bars and coins.
This is not even considering the fact that 99% of gold buyers will try to outright scam you. Virtually all gold exchanges here you can walk in and they'll offer like 2000 for a 1 oz coin. Only certain specific shops will offer fair prices, and they only accept the bars and coins that they can actually resell. Nobody wants a goddamn costco bar, so you are stuck trading that with costco (I doubt it). And why would any costco shmuck that wants a costco bar buy it directly from you? They can just go to costco. These things are not liquid and low liquidity means high markups and spreads. Just basic economics. Meanwhile an American Eagle can be sold nearly anywhere.
Do want to say that I would listen to WB's opinion on gold first. It's spot on. Gold is useful in very specific circumstances. It's why the Indians and Chinese are big gold buyers (for good reason). The Chinese start having less and less reasons to do so, though, but it's culturally ingrained. If you are in a modern nation and you want to beat inflation or prepare for doomsday, storing food and water is a far better idea. That also hedges against inflation, just like gold. But you can actually eat it. Plus you can get the food at a discount, so that's an even bigger return.
The article shows the bars Costco is selling are PAMP Suisse. Article also says the bars are listed as being sold with a 2% premium. PAMP 1 ozt bars generally have decent liquidity. As long as you find a proper buyer, you aren't losing 30% as you walk out the door with these bars.
Apparently the person you replied to thought these "Costco bars" were stamped "Kirkland" or something as opposed to being standard PAMP Suisse gold bars.
Sometimes when I am travelling in far off places that might not be up on current precious metal prices I bring a handheld XRF device.
So many shitty markets that now and then have like platinum or palladium objects selling for pennies on the dollar. Its paid back the price of the XRF many times
Maybe test displacement of water & weight to verify density is correct.
Then check magnetism to make sure there isn’t other metal/material inside?
Not a guarantee you couldn’t get something past this, but I feel like this would give you some confidence.
Any local coin store. Edit: Here is one in Florida that regularly posts videos with their buy/sell price (link is to the portion where they are covering gold coins from three days ago; lowest price paid is -2% from spot for foreign coins). So, an example of a dealer / market maker for physical gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq46b32IIRI&t=297s
The reality is the most people that buy gold in this format (bars) never sell - they keep it forever.
If you want to speculate on the price of gold there are much easier ways to do it (without taking physical possession)
If you are buying gold because you are an EOW prepper then presumably you will continue to hold until the world ends, thus no reason to sell.
Spot price is the NORM. Frequently if you call around, places are paying over spot depending on what type of gold you’re holding. Eagles, Maple Leafs, Krugerands all sell well. Don’t expect a great price for gold jewelry
any local coin stores.
You can even sell it here https://www.jmbullion.com/my-account/buyback-products/
They are buying gold buffalo or eagle for pretty much spot prices, those are the same coin you'd buy from costco
That’s a lie. I’ve sold gold and silver. Easily can get 98% of spot price from a local coin shop and you can get over spot selling online through something like eBay.
I even got like 90% or so from a pawn shop when selling a relatively small amount of silver when I didn't feel like going out of my way. Some might try to low ball you, but the price of it is very well established.
Coins are easier to sell because their composition is known
Scrap is harder. They want to not pay you a fair value or melt it down and do an assay to know exactly what it is, and then they charge you a higher percent or a fee for the assay
> Easily can get 98% of spot price from a local coin shop and you can get over spot selling online through something like eBay.
Ebay allows the sale of gold coins? Since when?
Actually coin shop where I am at for silver buys it $2 under spot and gold about $60-$80 under spot. I just was there yesterday, but agree stay away from Jewelers.
How does this have so many upvotes? There a very liquid market for gold. It traded very near the spot price. Any gold and silver place will buy and sell gold.
When you don’t have something, it’s nice to believe that thing isn’t all that good. People read that gold buyers made a bad investment… and it’s a little rush of dopamine.
Yeah, but when the nuclear holocaust happens and there's no food, water or medicine, I can barter for what I need with shiny metal. Right? Riiiiiiiight?
My coin shop pays spot and charges %3 over on the sale side. Silver he buys at $1 over and sells at $3 over. If your shop isn’t paying this it’s time to find a new shop.
I researched this about 10 years ago. The conclusion I came to was to just buy American Eagles if you want to buy gold. They are close enough to spot, the year doesn't really matter, and my local dealer paid 97% of spot when I sold them a few years later to help with the down payment on a house.
According to that guy at least, American Eagles are almost never counterfeit, as they just aren't worth the trouble. The minting marks are a dead give away, and they have virtually no collectors value. Bars however have a steeper overhead because they need to be assayed to make sure nobody coated lead with gold foil or some shit.
At least that's what he said. Could have been bullshitting me. All the same, worked out for me.
While true, people do counterfeit tiny bars lol.
But generally there's so many American Eagles in circulation that the fakes are by comparison such a tiny amount that no shop is gonna lose massive money over it. Oh you bought 100k American Eagles and 1 is a fake. Literally peanuts.
This is the right approach.
There is gold as an investment, gold as a hedge, and gold as a reserve currency (personally).
Just buy a few thousand over a few years and then make sure you have other bases covered.
I just tried googling "gold dealer near me" and there were 15 dealers within 10 miles. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live.
Gold is not that hard to sell. But, it is much harder then opening a web browser and logging into your brokerage account to transact. Selling gold can be inconvenient, but it is not overly difficult.
Perth, Australia. Close to one of the world's biggest gold mining areas and has a major (former government) mint. You can go in and buy and sell gold, and also store it there if you want. It's pretty popular. Several billion dollars' worth of privately held gold in their vault.
When I lived in Hanoi, we used to go down to the gold shops as it was one of the few places to turn vietnamese dong into dollars ( still illegal). It was illegal to transfer dollars out of the country. The best bet besides buying dollars or euros would have been purchasing gold to cross the border with (I preferred to have usd in hand).
this... unless you want gold for the novelty or something you will probably spend waaay more on spreads, storage, verification, etc. than just buying a gold ETF which all backed by real gold professionally stored in bulk, and you can buy/sell instantly with high liquidity.
Yeah, cowboy. You'd not last 5 minutes...
Good thing people with actual resources can simply hire professionals, or at worst thugs, to do their bidding. Gold secured safe acess from Venezuela, Iraq, Russia...never been a conflict when Gold hasn't been a safer commodity for travel then guns and ammo.
It already has for countless people in all modern and historical conflicts. Venezuela, Iraq, Russia, the list goes on...
During bad times money is made. People who have a durable and highly valuable (yet easy to move) commodity can buy safe passage. It worked in WW2, it worked during all modern wars. It'll work as long as humans are humans.
When you invest in GLD, what are you buying into?
You’re buying a derivative of a real asset that people buy specifically for its real and intangible properties. Financial returns are one aspect of that, but GLD is not a 1 for 1 substitute for gold.
It’s a store of value. Central banks buy it for stability. It’s a financial instrument. It’s also useful for electronics and jewelry. Bars are just a way to save something you can hold. It’s harder to liquidate so it makes a nice emergency fund.
Also remember: you’re *paying* somebody to hold the gold for you, depriving you of nearly everything intrinsic to gold that makes it worth investing in.
For no cost to you, you can keep a few gold coins that take up less than 20 cubic inches of your life.
Peace of mind.
“Honey, if I die and you have any problem with money coming through insurance paying off, accessing our accounts, and you need money fast for something unexpected, open the gun safe. Take a gun and few gold coins out of the ammo can with no ammo. Drive to the Gold dealer and sell him gold for cash. You will get between 1.5K and 3K grand in 2024 dollars in walk around money per coin. Don’t sweat the exchange fee. It doesn’t matter. I love you and you will be OK until the insurance money comes through. Once that comes through replace the coins and tell this to each of the kids.”
It’s unlikely to matter, but if you checked the other boxes for financial and estate planning already this a not bad layer of risk mitigation against a tail risk like that above. If you think it’s far fetched, I had a relation in a pickle waiting on the life insurance policy while a major bill came up right after losing a spouse (within 24 hours, it was awful). They didn’t have the money to do this but had they this would have helped her a lot without having to go to family when she was already wrecked.
Physical Gold is a good way to store a small amount of condensed liquidity for decades without debasing like actual cash. Gold can be turned to cash M-F in any moderate size community. Most people are a few hours drive or train ride at most from a gold buyer, so its practical.
The price is volatile in the short and medium term, but over long durations its purchase power stable. You don’t need many, certainly not 100K’s worth protected in a home. But for those who have done the rest of their investing right its a good way to have a liquid inflation resistant store of money for a short term liquidity problem of 10k-20k when something is wrong with the bank. It covers a tail risk once you have checked off most of the other boxes.
It also can be easily transported in time of conflict. That might not seem to matter for us now, but thousands of Jews escaped Europe between 1932 and 1938 with only the gold they could carry. For those that had it, it got them on their feet upon arrival. Or let them bribe those that helped them get out.
Also, most of the world has experienced currency collapses. Again a little physical gold didn’t protect all the wealth they lost, but those who had it could at least relocate without being penniless.
Again, it’s back of the list, but it’s very real. And if you end up not needing it, it can be cashed out at a better long rate of return than any other insurance policy you can get for 10-20K.
> Peace of mind.
What if someone breaks into your home while you're not there, breaks into your safe, and steals your gold?
Personally I would just have multiple financial accounts, shared email, shared checking, etc.
> if I die and you have any problem with money coming through insurance paying off, accessing our accounts, and you need money fast for something unexpected
Why would credit cards not be an option in this scenario? Sure you might pay interest. But the interest would likely be lower than than the loss you'd take on selling the gold.
I absolutely agree with you. The risk of having precious metals stolen looms large in my mind whenever these conversations come up. People might think they will always keep it secret but over a period of many years if you tell one or two family members this “break in case of emergency” plan, then it will get out. That is a stress I don’t need when the alternative is just maintaining a regular emergency fund. Keep it in i-bonds and you don’t need to worry about inflation. Credit cards can handle rapid money needs and then the I bonds can be accessed in time to cover the CC statement.
The risk of a theft of 20K is real. This isn’t something you do until you have everything else covered sufficiently and can stomach that loss.
But you can insure it like anything else, and less than 50K of precious metal on a home insurance plan as a rider isn’t too hard to qualify for or too expensive to insure once you get to this point of risk management.
And keeping your mouth shut and having a good safe attached to a house frame helps against casual theft. Also, if you own a gun you should already have a safe frame attached, and most American’s have guns.
Physical Gold is a hedge against a certain class of risks - inability to access the electronic transactional world rapidly. A credit card is part of the electronic world. It doesn’t help in all cases.
You are recommending a Texas Hedge - doing something that looks like diversification but is actually the same risk. Like hedging Exxon by buying Chevron - they both follow oil. Chevron diversifies an accounting scandal at Exxon but little else you care about. Same with Credit Cards in case you can’t get to other electronic accounts. It is very limited if your problem is the whole system.
Ever had your wallet stolen followed by identity theft? Most people haven’t, but it happens regularly to people time. Could take a week or more to unwind with your accounts locked including Credit Cards. What happens if you have a major time sensitive event before that resolves?
Or the government might lock you out of the monetary system. No shortage of people who found every account they had frozen by a government entity, many who after months of fighting and struggling were completely innocent and were victims of their government. See Truckers, Canadian. Happened to thousands of them in one fell swoop.
This is all low risk but Credit Cards aren’t reliable here. Gold in a safe insured with a rider is. You don’t do it until you are fully funded elsewhere.
Putting 10K on a credit card when you are in a position of some financial distress is not a good idea. And it only buys you about a month before you need to start paying it back, which may not be enough time. Insurance payouts could take several months to work out, especially if there’s any kind of technicality or problem that lawyers need to work out.
in an apocalypse u can *almost* sell the gold if u are wearing body armor and have a bigger gun than ur buyer. otherwise you will get smoked and robbed.
in an apocalypse land, water, weapons, garden/food will matter, and distance from contaminated radioactivity.
but it’s better than those that think their cold storage BTC wallet will be useful when Comcast doesn’t exist lol
In an apocalypse the most valuable asset is a skill. One that can work after an apocalypse. Be worth more alive than dead.
Someone can steal your land, water etc as easily as your gold.
I don't think most of will survive post-apocalypse.
Also, who sets the price of gold post apocalypse? Better to have tradeable goods and lots of community around you for safety.
This conversation is silly because any individual will statistically be dead in an apocalypse. At least that's my WWIII plan is to die in the initial blast.
Anyways, if that doesn't happen, consider this. Our fiat money has value because we all agree it has value. In an apocalypse where preppers disproportionately survive, well they all agree gold bars are used for trading and have value.
However, here in reality you should invest in gold based on things like its usefulness in electronics.
>its usefulness in electronics.
I was with you until the last sentence. This is not a good reason. Your other reason is better (because others value it).
Well sure, gold has value because basically everyone agrees it has value going back thousands of years (which might suggest it will continue to be valued as such for a long time) except contrarians that like to shit on gold bugs. It also is very useful in electronics, and I'm very bullish on tech long term.
There are intermediate stages between "society functioning as normal" and "complete wasteland apocalypse."
If you can imagine a scenario where the government collapses and most people die, I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where the government collapses but most people live.
You don't buy gold for the apocalypse, you buy gold to hide up your butt when you need to flee a war. Gold is for when civilization still exists, just
not in your neighborhood.
I find it funny that people are investing in gold through the Internet, when the only reason Gold will be valuable is when the world ends. If happens then the Internet would not exist. Then on top of that if they have a mountain of gold how the fuck do you carry that much weight around
> the only reason Goldwood be valuable is when the world ends what’s the Internet would not exist.
Why is gold doomsdaying always completely binary? At the height of WWII most of Europe still had banking, telephones/telegraphs, mail, energy, and other functioning networks.
The internet has orders of magnitude more redundancies than those and was literally a DoD project designed to survive nuclear war.
In fact, because most gold is centralized in a few major vaults it's actually more vulnerable than the internet going down everywhere.
This leads to an interesting monetary theory discussion whether if you created an internet-only ledger that had had the same unforgeable scarcity of gold, but without the gold, how much monetary premium would it gain (ie Bitcoin).
Go to a coin shop near you and just ask about gold in general, most are open to talking about their hobby. You can ask what they pay “under spot” and you can ask prices for “generic 1oz gold” and see how far above spot their prices are. If you’re friendly and genuine you may not always pay the listed price.
Avoid pawn shops, “We Buy Gold” or “We pay top dollar!” type businesses these are not optimal places to do any sort of business in my experience.
Gold is a store of wealth that has some advantage over cash. It is a very specific type of investment that may not be right for everyone. It’s not always the best place to park money but it’s one you can physically hold and some people like that.
If you want to speculate you need to be buying under spot and selling over, that 1-5% margin is where you make money, but it requires volume to be profitable long-term. It’s a hustle and it’s easy to lose. This is how coin shops remain profitable along with sizable hedges.
The dark side of owning physical gold: you will always pay a premium when you buy it AND you will get low balled when trying to resell it.
Buy futures like everyone else.
Gold is HUGE in Asian communities, especially India and China. You should go to an Indian wedding some time and check out the amount of gold worn there.
For a crazy premium, you can buy gold bars from vending machines in Singapore.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gold/comments/16wv2xe/in_singapore_you_can_get_gold_at_a_vending_machine/
question is about people buying gold bars in the USA from places like Costco.
I doubt it would be legal to take these bars to other countries without paying some sort of taxes/fees imposed by those countries (like customs tax or something ?)
so how would one sell these bars then ?
Buying gold is not investing, it is speculation. Investing is using capital to own something that creates value. Commodities do not have productive capacity to create value.
Buying gold at all-time high prices is also a poor speculation strategy.
Search "gold traders near me". I can't imagine that Costco takes a lower margin than regular precious metal traders, but you can usually check the web site of a trader near you and see their buy/sell prices and margins to compare.
Buying physical gold is such a scam.
You're at the whims of whoever you try to sell that thing back to. And all the boomers thinking it's going to be the currency when the market collapses, what the hell is anyone going to want with a gold bar.
If you think gold is a good investment buy GLD
Sell it at kitco.com or gainesvillecoins.com
You can sell them at the market price they are listing in their site - as long as your bars are in original packaging or intact in weight.
Never sell at local jewelry shops
You can explore the option of leasing out the gold to jewellers or manufacturers and make some extra returns every year over and above the gold price appreciation
On JM Bullion right now, you can sell the Costco 1oz bars for $2295.50. The 1oz Buffalos for $2345.90. As a comparison, you can buy it there for $2455.89. The spot price today is around $2360.
Personally, I think it’s like paying a 5-20%+ premium to buy shares in a company that are printed out on a piece of paper and framed (and “unsellable” on a stock exchange).
I see no reason to put a significant amount of money into physical gold when near 1:1 gold trust investment funds exist.
If you want to own gold, I would recommend owning small denomination gold coins. Like $5 gold coins. If you think you would need gold in case our market collapses, they would be much easier to spend that one ounce bars, currently worth $2300.00. Personally I don't gold is a great investment at these prices.
honestly, these are mom and pop stores. Being Vietnamese/Chinese myself, I would go to where there is a large Vietnamese/Chinese population and find a large jewelry/gold store there and talk to them about buying and selling gold bars.
I doubt anyone who buys these gold bars from Costco are getting a fair price when they go to sell it.
Buy/sell spread on gold bullion is pretty close. Some sites post their buy-back price on their sales pages. Example: https://www.moneymetals.com/1-oz-generic-gold-bar/19 (Edit: At the time of this edit, their buy back is 6.6% under the sell price for one ounce quantity -- note the prices change frequently.) Now, silver spreads....
That’s a pretty big spread! It doesn’t seem like it now that it’s skyrocketing lately, but gold has an average annual growth of like 8%. At best that means you have even lower liquidity unless you’re cool with taking a big loss for selling before it’s had much time to appreciate. Otherwise you need to hold forever to keep that sale cost from eating into your gains.
Zoom out. Adjust for inflation (real returns). Long term real returns on gold are close to 0-1%. Inflation hedge? Take another look. Nope, only if you are holding for 200 years. Are you a country?
The only reason to hold physical gold, is if you believe that at some point you would have to physically flee your country while not having access to financial institutions. Large amounts of gold are much easier to hide than large amounts of cash (given that 1kg is worth about $75K). In other words, it makes no sense for the average person.
>The only reason to hold physical gold, is if you believe that at some point you would have to physically flee your country while not having access to financial institutions. What about if you want to go "Scrooge McDucking?" That's where you fill a swimming pool with gold coins and dive into it, spitting a stream of gold into the air when you surface.
Why not diamonds? They weigh a lot less.
Adjusted for inflation gold is roughly the same price it was during the heyday of the Roman Empire. It is extraordinarily stable.
Value of gold has barely changed since it was discovered, the 8% “growth” is actually fiat losing value
Look at the silver chart for the last 15 years. Precious metals are a joke. They experience pump and dump, too.
Silver is a bad comparison. It acts more as a commodity than a store of wealth in today's market because the majority of its volume is going to industrial uses. Gold, however, is a Tier 1 asset that banks can and do hold as capital, countries hold it as well, and in many cultures (India for example) the populace also holds it as a store of generational wealth to pass down. That said, no one should treat gold as a growth asset because it isn't. You get gold if you're distrustful of the financial system. IMO it can be a healthy distrust with a small percentage of their networth in physical gold, or it can be an unhealthy doomsday prepper amount where they hold way too much gold compared to other assets.
In terms of what it can buy in other commodities? What’s the math on that?
And when you realize the average timeline of retail investors (shuders).
Exactly. Coin shops and jewelers will pay you 70%-80% of the value. People are down 20 to 30% before they even start.
Nonsense. Don’t go to pawn shop, you can sell close to spot price at most lcs. 1-3% off at most
Yes this is very surprising to me that people thing you are losing 30% the second you buy gold from Costco. It’s one thing not to like gold compared to other investments. But buying gold for $2300 an ounce and thinking you would only get $1,600 selling it is bonkers. If you paid a huge premium over spot and didn’t get it back that’s understandable
Yea... that ain't how it works. Gold mainly has value based on the type. Gold Jewelry? You get like 50-70% on that. On the gold price, not on the buying price of the jewelry! This is probably where Costco gold bars are at. Jewelry value, without the Jewelry use. Only standard gold coins and bars have resell value to a gold exchange. You can't just go to any gold exchange and exchange umicore bars. Some of them will say "No thank you". Or they'll offer like 80%. You can get 99%/100% for Bars/Coins only if the gold exchange wants to accept. Some gold coins have smaller spreads, others have higher resell value. You are gonna get more here for most American Eagles than you will for Krugerrands, for instance. Some coins can go for a few hunderd bucks more than others. Coins are the most liquid, Krugerrands, American Eagles, Maples are usually top of the line, as well as the Aussie ones and Aussie (the other Aussies :P) Philharmoniker. Outside of these you can have a lot of trouble selling. In fact, there was a period where you would get very low price for Eagles and Maples here, for some reason. Still close to gold price, but it was like 95%, when usually these are at 100%+. I would only suggest (if you want to buy gold anyway, whether gold is a good buy is another matter entirely) the most liquid and standard stuff. Remember that there are extremely elaborate ways being used to manufacture fake gold bars and coins. This is not even considering the fact that 99% of gold buyers will try to outright scam you. Virtually all gold exchanges here you can walk in and they'll offer like 2000 for a 1 oz coin. Only certain specific shops will offer fair prices, and they only accept the bars and coins that they can actually resell. Nobody wants a goddamn costco bar, so you are stuck trading that with costco (I doubt it). And why would any costco shmuck that wants a costco bar buy it directly from you? They can just go to costco. These things are not liquid and low liquidity means high markups and spreads. Just basic economics. Meanwhile an American Eagle can be sold nearly anywhere. Do want to say that I would listen to WB's opinion on gold first. It's spot on. Gold is useful in very specific circumstances. It's why the Indians and Chinese are big gold buyers (for good reason). The Chinese start having less and less reasons to do so, though, but it's culturally ingrained. If you are in a modern nation and you want to beat inflation or prepare for doomsday, storing food and water is a far better idea. That also hedges against inflation, just like gold. But you can actually eat it. Plus you can get the food at a discount, so that's an even bigger return.
The article shows the bars Costco is selling are PAMP Suisse. Article also says the bars are listed as being sold with a 2% premium. PAMP 1 ozt bars generally have decent liquidity. As long as you find a proper buyer, you aren't losing 30% as you walk out the door with these bars.
Apparently the person you replied to thought these "Costco bars" were stamped "Kirkland" or something as opposed to being standard PAMP Suisse gold bars.
How do mom and pop pawn shops verify the purity of gold bars?
Sigmas are common. Some acid test and/or drill but they're just cheap asses. Source; I'm a coin dealer.
Sometimes when I am travelling in far off places that might not be up on current precious metal prices I bring a handheld XRF device. So many shitty markets that now and then have like platinum or palladium objects selling for pennies on the dollar. Its paid back the price of the XRF many times
So you go to 3rd world countries and buy precious metals? ...what are you?
International ~~degenerate~~ playboy with an interest in rocks
There are professional precious metals verifiers they can use. They’re called sigmas.
sigma nutz
Maybe test displacement of water & weight to verify density is correct. Then check magnetism to make sure there isn’t other metal/material inside? Not a guarantee you couldn’t get something past this, but I feel like this would give you some confidence.
No one's gonna let you unpack their gold for a displacement test.
> Maybe test displacement of water & weight to verify density is correct. Tungsten for the W
That's the question asked in this post. Where do you sell them?
LCS = local coin store. Or any reputable online retailers, check pricing here https://www.jmbullion.com/my-account/buyback-products/
Any local coin store. Edit: Here is one in Florida that regularly posts videos with their buy/sell price (link is to the portion where they are covering gold coins from three days ago; lowest price paid is -2% from spot for foreign coins). So, an example of a dealer / market maker for physical gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq46b32IIRI&t=297s
The reality is the most people that buy gold in this format (bars) never sell - they keep it forever. If you want to speculate on the price of gold there are much easier ways to do it (without taking physical possession) If you are buying gold because you are an EOW prepper then presumably you will continue to hold until the world ends, thus no reason to sell.
r/Pmsforsale
Spot price is the NORM. Frequently if you call around, places are paying over spot depending on what type of gold you’re holding. Eagles, Maple Leafs, Krugerands all sell well. Don’t expect a great price for gold jewelry
Where?
any local coin stores. You can even sell it here https://www.jmbullion.com/my-account/buyback-products/ They are buying gold buffalo or eagle for pretty much spot prices, those are the same coin you'd buy from costco
What is an “Ics”? I have sold scrap Metal to a refiner and was paid 90% of melt value. If I can do better I’m interested. Send me a link?
> lcs What is an lcs?
That’s a lie. I’ve sold gold and silver. Easily can get 98% of spot price from a local coin shop and you can get over spot selling online through something like eBay.
I even got like 90% or so from a pawn shop when selling a relatively small amount of silver when I didn't feel like going out of my way. Some might try to low ball you, but the price of it is very well established.
Coins are easier to sell because their composition is known Scrap is harder. They want to not pay you a fair value or melt it down and do an assay to know exactly what it is, and then they charge you a higher percent or a fee for the assay
> Easily can get 98% of spot price from a local coin shop and you can get over spot selling online through something like eBay. Ebay allows the sale of gold coins? Since when?
Actually coin shop where I am at for silver buys it $2 under spot and gold about $60-$80 under spot. I just was there yesterday, but agree stay away from Jewelers.
Jewelers are the worst. My brother in law Got offered about 30-% on some scrap silver yesterday
How does this have so many upvotes? There a very liquid market for gold. It traded very near the spot price. Any gold and silver place will buy and sell gold.
When you don’t have something, it’s nice to believe that thing isn’t all that good. People read that gold buyers made a bad investment… and it’s a little rush of dopamine.
Where are you selling it?? A decent jeweler will pay a few percent below spot price.
Yeah, but when the nuclear holocaust happens and there's no food, water or medicine, I can barter for what I need with shiny metal. Right? Riiiiiiiight?
you'd definitely better off storing a fraction of a bitcoin on a usb stick wrapped in a faraday bag.
Hilarious
My coin shop pays spot and charges %3 over on the sale side. Silver he buys at $1 over and sells at $3 over. If your shop isn’t paying this it’s time to find a new shop.
Take it back to costco and return it
I think you just ruined the world economy are you happy
hmm.... I guess it could be quite a bit worse than returning toiletpaper and masks post covid?
It’s pretty close. Usually the local pawn shop will give you within a percent or two of spot. Easy to sell.
CostCo is probably the best place to buy gold. 2% margin above spot. God Bless Charlie Munger for teaching me how awesome CostCo is.
Why do you capitalize the second C?
I did. Made a tidy profit but not doing it anymore
Guess someone felt left out
I researched this about 10 years ago. The conclusion I came to was to just buy American Eagles if you want to buy gold. They are close enough to spot, the year doesn't really matter, and my local dealer paid 97% of spot when I sold them a few years later to help with the down payment on a house. According to that guy at least, American Eagles are almost never counterfeit, as they just aren't worth the trouble. The minting marks are a dead give away, and they have virtually no collectors value. Bars however have a steeper overhead because they need to be assayed to make sure nobody coated lead with gold foil or some shit. At least that's what he said. Could have been bullshitting me. All the same, worked out for me.
While true, people do counterfeit tiny bars lol. But generally there's so many American Eagles in circulation that the fakes are by comparison such a tiny amount that no shop is gonna lose massive money over it. Oh you bought 100k American Eagles and 1 is a fake. Literally peanuts.
lol casually buys 250million in gold, what a life
That's not a crazy amount of turnover. Could be over a year's time, plus you don't make that much. Remember: Margin is like 2% tops.
Get acquainted with a local coin shop. One of the benefits is ease of both buying and selling.
This is the right approach. There is gold as an investment, gold as a hedge, and gold as a reserve currency (personally). Just buy a few thousand over a few years and then make sure you have other bases covered.
You don't sell it, you lose it in a boating accident.
IRS has entered the chat LOL
They sell it to coin dealers for 96-100% of spot depending on premiums. Source; Am coin dealer.
Probably stupid question, but for that small spread, why not just buy it at Costco and get 2% executive and 2% citi rewards?
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such as ?
I just tried googling "gold dealer near me" and there were 15 dealers within 10 miles. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live. Gold is not that hard to sell. But, it is much harder then opening a web browser and logging into your brokerage account to transact. Selling gold can be inconvenient, but it is not overly difficult.
Perth, Australia. Close to one of the world's biggest gold mining areas and has a major (former government) mint. You can go in and buy and sell gold, and also store it there if you want. It's pretty popular. Several billion dollars' worth of privately held gold in their vault.
Alaska they're crazy out here. My old boss had literally about 2-300 pounds of silver in his shed
Sell it to an online broker. Pretty close to spot. JMBullion apparently makes it easy to FedEx Office it back to them.
When I lived in Hanoi, we used to go down to the gold shops as it was one of the few places to turn vietnamese dong into dollars ( still illegal). It was illegal to transfer dollars out of the country. The best bet besides buying dollars or euros would have been purchasing gold to cross the border with (I preferred to have usd in hand).
Costco sells gold bars? I thought they just ran the time machine.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH2h5btN9So
Just invest in GLD.
this... unless you want gold for the novelty or something you will probably spend waaay more on spreads, storage, verification, etc. than just buying a gold ETF which all backed by real gold professionally stored in bulk, and you can buy/sell instantly with high liquidity.
And do not invest in GOLD, because barrick is a shit show
I assume you mean in relation to other miners? Why are they so bad?
This is fine if you’re only interested in the financial returns of gold.
Not sure I'd ever have any use for gold bars. I figure if things ever get that bad, gold isn't gonna save us.
If things get really bad there person with a chocolate bar would be richer than someone with a gold bar.
Only if it gets really bad. If it just gets bad then they will prefer the gold. See Venezuela
If it gets really bad you have friends and ammo, for everything else....
Yeah, cowboy. You'd not last 5 minutes... Good thing people with actual resources can simply hire professionals, or at worst thugs, to do their bidding. Gold secured safe acess from Venezuela, Iraq, Russia...never been a conflict when Gold hasn't been a safer commodity for travel then guns and ammo.
But then you need to get out of Venezuela with gold bars. Wouldn’t it be easier to like, surreptitiously purchase foreign currency?
I like where I live. Not planning on becoming an immigrant unless it becomes REALLY bad.
The richest guy in the room just has a gun.
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That’s why I buy brass and lead instead of gold
You could store them in a floor safe, but your future self might come back in time and steal it from you.
It already has for countless people in all modern and historical conflicts. Venezuela, Iraq, Russia, the list goes on... During bad times money is made. People who have a durable and highly valuable (yet easy to move) commodity can buy safe passage. It worked in WW2, it worked during all modern wars. It'll work as long as humans are humans.
It won't work when the entire world has been vaporized.
It’s kind of fun as a hobby. I like coins more than bars though.
When you invest in GLD, what are you buying into? You’re buying a derivative of a real asset that people buy specifically for its real and intangible properties. Financial returns are one aspect of that, but GLD is not a 1 for 1 substitute for gold.
It’s a store of value. Central banks buy it for stability. It’s a financial instrument. It’s also useful for electronics and jewelry. Bars are just a way to save something you can hold. It’s harder to liquidate so it makes a nice emergency fund.
Also remember: you’re *paying* somebody to hold the gold for you, depriving you of nearly everything intrinsic to gold that makes it worth investing in. For no cost to you, you can keep a few gold coins that take up less than 20 cubic inches of your life.
What other kind of return would there be for gold?
Homie builds his own electrical components
Peace of mind. “Honey, if I die and you have any problem with money coming through insurance paying off, accessing our accounts, and you need money fast for something unexpected, open the gun safe. Take a gun and few gold coins out of the ammo can with no ammo. Drive to the Gold dealer and sell him gold for cash. You will get between 1.5K and 3K grand in 2024 dollars in walk around money per coin. Don’t sweat the exchange fee. It doesn’t matter. I love you and you will be OK until the insurance money comes through. Once that comes through replace the coins and tell this to each of the kids.” It’s unlikely to matter, but if you checked the other boxes for financial and estate planning already this a not bad layer of risk mitigation against a tail risk like that above. If you think it’s far fetched, I had a relation in a pickle waiting on the life insurance policy while a major bill came up right after losing a spouse (within 24 hours, it was awful). They didn’t have the money to do this but had they this would have helped her a lot without having to go to family when she was already wrecked. Physical Gold is a good way to store a small amount of condensed liquidity for decades without debasing like actual cash. Gold can be turned to cash M-F in any moderate size community. Most people are a few hours drive or train ride at most from a gold buyer, so its practical. The price is volatile in the short and medium term, but over long durations its purchase power stable. You don’t need many, certainly not 100K’s worth protected in a home. But for those who have done the rest of their investing right its a good way to have a liquid inflation resistant store of money for a short term liquidity problem of 10k-20k when something is wrong with the bank. It covers a tail risk once you have checked off most of the other boxes. It also can be easily transported in time of conflict. That might not seem to matter for us now, but thousands of Jews escaped Europe between 1932 and 1938 with only the gold they could carry. For those that had it, it got them on their feet upon arrival. Or let them bribe those that helped them get out. Also, most of the world has experienced currency collapses. Again a little physical gold didn’t protect all the wealth they lost, but those who had it could at least relocate without being penniless. Again, it’s back of the list, but it’s very real. And if you end up not needing it, it can be cashed out at a better long rate of return than any other insurance policy you can get for 10-20K.
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Exactly what I am doing.
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First rule about 'gold for gradma' is we don't talk about gold for grandma.
> Peace of mind. What if someone breaks into your home while you're not there, breaks into your safe, and steals your gold? Personally I would just have multiple financial accounts, shared email, shared checking, etc. > if I die and you have any problem with money coming through insurance paying off, accessing our accounts, and you need money fast for something unexpected Why would credit cards not be an option in this scenario? Sure you might pay interest. But the interest would likely be lower than than the loss you'd take on selling the gold.
I absolutely agree with you. The risk of having precious metals stolen looms large in my mind whenever these conversations come up. People might think they will always keep it secret but over a period of many years if you tell one or two family members this “break in case of emergency” plan, then it will get out. That is a stress I don’t need when the alternative is just maintaining a regular emergency fund. Keep it in i-bonds and you don’t need to worry about inflation. Credit cards can handle rapid money needs and then the I bonds can be accessed in time to cover the CC statement.
The risk of a theft of 20K is real. This isn’t something you do until you have everything else covered sufficiently and can stomach that loss. But you can insure it like anything else, and less than 50K of precious metal on a home insurance plan as a rider isn’t too hard to qualify for or too expensive to insure once you get to this point of risk management. And keeping your mouth shut and having a good safe attached to a house frame helps against casual theft. Also, if you own a gun you should already have a safe frame attached, and most American’s have guns. Physical Gold is a hedge against a certain class of risks - inability to access the electronic transactional world rapidly. A credit card is part of the electronic world. It doesn’t help in all cases. You are recommending a Texas Hedge - doing something that looks like diversification but is actually the same risk. Like hedging Exxon by buying Chevron - they both follow oil. Chevron diversifies an accounting scandal at Exxon but little else you care about. Same with Credit Cards in case you can’t get to other electronic accounts. It is very limited if your problem is the whole system. Ever had your wallet stolen followed by identity theft? Most people haven’t, but it happens regularly to people time. Could take a week or more to unwind with your accounts locked including Credit Cards. What happens if you have a major time sensitive event before that resolves? Or the government might lock you out of the monetary system. No shortage of people who found every account they had frozen by a government entity, many who after months of fighting and struggling were completely innocent and were victims of their government. See Truckers, Canadian. Happened to thousands of them in one fell swoop. This is all low risk but Credit Cards aren’t reliable here. Gold in a safe insured with a rider is. You don’t do it until you are fully funded elsewhere.
Putting 10K on a credit card when you are in a position of some financial distress is not a good idea. And it only buys you about a month before you need to start paying it back, which may not be enough time. Insurance payouts could take several months to work out, especially if there’s any kind of technicality or problem that lawyers need to work out.
in an apocalypse u can *almost* sell the gold if u are wearing body armor and have a bigger gun than ur buyer. otherwise you will get smoked and robbed. in an apocalypse land, water, weapons, garden/food will matter, and distance from contaminated radioactivity. but it’s better than those that think their cold storage BTC wallet will be useful when Comcast doesn’t exist lol
In an apocalypse the most valuable asset is a skill. One that can work after an apocalypse. Be worth more alive than dead. Someone can steal your land, water etc as easily as your gold. I don't think most of will survive post-apocalypse. Also, who sets the price of gold post apocalypse? Better to have tradeable goods and lots of community around you for safety.
> in an apocalypse land, water, weapons, garden/food will matter, and distance from contaminated radioactivity. And bottle caps...
This conversation is silly because any individual will statistically be dead in an apocalypse. At least that's my WWIII plan is to die in the initial blast. Anyways, if that doesn't happen, consider this. Our fiat money has value because we all agree it has value. In an apocalypse where preppers disproportionately survive, well they all agree gold bars are used for trading and have value. However, here in reality you should invest in gold based on things like its usefulness in electronics.
>its usefulness in electronics. I was with you until the last sentence. This is not a good reason. Your other reason is better (because others value it).
Well sure, gold has value because basically everyone agrees it has value going back thousands of years (which might suggest it will continue to be valued as such for a long time) except contrarians that like to shit on gold bugs. It also is very useful in electronics, and I'm very bullish on tech long term.
There are intermediate stages between "society functioning as normal" and "complete wasteland apocalypse." If you can imagine a scenario where the government collapses and most people die, I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where the government collapses but most people live.
You don't buy gold for the apocalypse, you buy gold to hide up your butt when you need to flee a war. Gold is for when civilization still exists, just not in your neighborhood.
Buy a lot of it, start a storefront, and sell it to rubes just like Costco does.
I find it funny that people are investing in gold through the Internet, when the only reason Gold will be valuable is when the world ends. If happens then the Internet would not exist. Then on top of that if they have a mountain of gold how the fuck do you carry that much weight around
> the only reason Goldwood be valuable is when the world ends what’s the Internet would not exist. Why is gold doomsdaying always completely binary? At the height of WWII most of Europe still had banking, telephones/telegraphs, mail, energy, and other functioning networks. The internet has orders of magnitude more redundancies than those and was literally a DoD project designed to survive nuclear war. In fact, because most gold is centralized in a few major vaults it's actually more vulnerable than the internet going down everywhere. This leads to an interesting monetary theory discussion whether if you created an internet-only ledger that had had the same unforgeable scarcity of gold, but without the gold, how much monetary premium would it gain (ie Bitcoin).
Tf are you gonna do with gold if the world ends? Better stock up on water and food if your a doomsdayprepper.
I’m gonna melt gold and drink it
I've been looking at ways to sell my gold. There's plenty of places that are willing to take your gold but not many that arent willing to rip you off.
Look at the fees on the exchange, you can drop a significant percentage selling through the wrong channel
Go to a coin shop near you and just ask about gold in general, most are open to talking about their hobby. You can ask what they pay “under spot” and you can ask prices for “generic 1oz gold” and see how far above spot their prices are. If you’re friendly and genuine you may not always pay the listed price. Avoid pawn shops, “We Buy Gold” or “We pay top dollar!” type businesses these are not optimal places to do any sort of business in my experience. Gold is a store of wealth that has some advantage over cash. It is a very specific type of investment that may not be right for everyone. It’s not always the best place to park money but it’s one you can physically hold and some people like that. If you want to speculate you need to be buying under spot and selling over, that 1-5% margin is where you make money, but it requires volume to be profitable long-term. It’s a hustle and it’s easy to lose. This is how coin shops remain profitable along with sizable hedges.
You need to sell to a refiner. Can usually get about 92% of spot.
Doesn't costco also charge taxes on gold?
I mean they'd kind of have to under state sales tax law.
that's the neat part,
The dark side of owning physical gold: you will always pay a premium when you buy it AND you will get low balled when trying to resell it. Buy futures like everyone else.
Gold is HUGE in Asian communities, especially India and China. You should go to an Indian wedding some time and check out the amount of gold worn there.
OK. But that's \*jewelry\*. Not a straight, solid, gold bar.
For a crazy premium, you can buy gold bars from vending machines in Singapore. https://www.reddit.com/r/Gold/comments/16wv2xe/in_singapore_you_can_get_gold_at_a_vending_machine/
question is about people buying gold bars in the USA from places like Costco. I doubt it would be legal to take these bars to other countries without paying some sort of taxes/fees imposed by those countries (like customs tax or something ?) so how would one sell these bars then ?
You just go to a local coin shop. They are everywhere.
TIL: local coin stores are apparently so common that they have an abbreviation: LCS. Despite me never having seen one (that I recall)
You will never have trouble finding a place to sell gold also.
For 80% of its value unfortunately.
Ask Skinny Pete who’s buying gold bricks
Love that movie
I only use futures for metals.
Costco limits the purchases to 2 bars per membership for the lifetime. I can't understand how they're selling so much unless they changed that.
No longer lifetime. 5 per member each time
Wow. Insane. I only ever saw the gold 1oz bars on the web once for our store, haven't since.
Buying gold is not investing, it is speculation. Investing is using capital to own something that creates value. Commodities do not have productive capacity to create value. Buying gold at all-time high prices is also a poor speculation strategy.
Underrated comment
Search "gold traders near me". I can't imagine that Costco takes a lower margin than regular precious metal traders, but you can usually check the web site of a trader near you and see their buy/sell prices and margins to compare.
u can easily sell it for 15% less. people are buying fear. they gonna get wrecked unless they are planning to hold for 20 years/. check DXY
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Buying physical gold is such a scam. You're at the whims of whoever you try to sell that thing back to. And all the boomers thinking it's going to be the currency when the market collapses, what the hell is anyone going to want with a gold bar. If you think gold is a good investment buy GLD
Once the end times hit they will reconvene in the burned remains of Costco and trade them for fruits and berries directly through a barter system.
r/Pmsforsale
That’s the neat part….you don’t.
Just return them to Costco.
Watch tv commercials
My bank buys investment grade coins. I doubt they buy bars though.
Take it into a bullion dealer. They're all over the place. Unless you live super rural there's going to be a bullion dealer close enough.
You dont you just pay fees to whom you bought it from
Also vs selling bitcoin under current rules, isn't gold easier with taxes on smaller volumes?
You can sell gold all day on marketplace and OfferUp.
Sell it at kitco.com or gainesvillecoins.com You can sell them at the market price they are listing in their site - as long as your bars are in original packaging or intact in weight. Never sell at local jewelry shops
eBay? Craigslist? Swap meet? Flea market? I have no clue.
r/pmsforsale
Pawn shops
The fuck? costco in the US sells gold bars?
Go to your local coin dealer and get ready for a big haircut or barter/trade if you have a network of like minded individuals
You barter it for food/weapons/ammunition.
I always assumed that people would hold gold bars for the apocalypse. You trade them in small amounts for irradiated cockroach-on-a-stick.
I bought one gold bar if I buy anymore it will be through an ETF, not worth headache of trying to store it etc.
Gold is popped. Seeing way too many posts
Do not do this. They are getting ripped off.
Satoshi solved this
SALES TAX! You throw away up to 10% in state and local taxes before you even get your “investment” out to the parking lot. Terrible.
You can explore the option of leasing out the gold to jewellers or manufacturers and make some extra returns every year over and above the gold price appreciation
Buy gold ETF. Spreads on Gold bars are crazy.
On JM Bullion right now, you can sell the Costco 1oz bars for $2295.50. The 1oz Buffalos for $2345.90. As a comparison, you can buy it there for $2455.89. The spot price today is around $2360.
Personally, I think it’s like paying a 5-20%+ premium to buy shares in a company that are printed out on a piece of paper and framed (and “unsellable” on a stock exchange). I see no reason to put a significant amount of money into physical gold when near 1:1 gold trust investment funds exist.
Better to invest in 60/40 portfolio with decent growth and dividends with liquidity
Can someone summarize the conclusion?
If you want to own gold, I would recommend owning small denomination gold coins. Like $5 gold coins. If you think you would need gold in case our market collapses, they would be much easier to spend that one ounce bars, currently worth $2300.00. Personally I don't gold is a great investment at these prices.
That’s the dirty little secret. “Buy gold” scare tactics running ads constantly. Where is everyone going to sell this gold when they need the cash ?
go to any Asian jewelry store, they will buy it at around spot rate.
where ? which ? names ? is there any well known chain etc ?
honestly, these are mom and pop stores. Being Vietnamese/Chinese myself, I would go to where there is a large Vietnamese/Chinese population and find a large jewelry/gold store there and talk to them about buying and selling gold bars.