Purchasing Physical Gold/Silver

Following the selloff in gold and silver more recently (minus today) have been looking into purchasing some physical gold and silver instead of the GLD and SLV funds for reasons that have been mentioned in previous gold investing posts. Does anyone have experience using these sites and would you recommend them? Thanks

http://www.autrading.us/product.php?productid=16297&cat=250&page=4

http://www.bullionvault.com/

http://goldsilver.com/buy-online/credit-suisse-10-oz-gold-bar/ref:MTIwOQ==/

I haven’t used those before. Personally, I like going to a coin dealer and buying in person. If you shop around the premiums are competitive with what you can find online. If you have to shop online, I like http://www.apmex.com/.

Do you get even close to market value for physical gold? Or are old people just getting completely ripped off?

Right now at APMEX you can get an oz of gold for a premium of approximately 4.6% and an oz of silver for about 15% over spot. If you order more the premium goes down. Compare that to the physical ETFs: PHYS trades at a 4.9% premium and PSLV trades at a 24.35% premium (as of today’s close). So the premiums directly from the dealer is your cost to eliminate counterparty risk, and the second is to eliminate* counterparty risk but adding in the cost of storage. *Since you still don’t physically hold the metal I guess you can’t say it’s completely eliminated, but it’s as close as you’re going to get with an ETF.

Ripped off in a proportion you wouldn’t believe.

got to be careful. Even when you get a warehouse receipt for physical gold bullion, you can still get screwed over like the MF global clients

don’t take physical gold delivery, it’s so not worth it.

take the delivery in gold fronts…girls love them gold grills…

I believe the OP was talking about purchasing physical gold/silver for himself vs the ETFs. Not the value of cash settlement vs taking delivery. Pretty big difference there. On an not wholly unrelated note, PSLV’s follow on offering knocked the premium down to about 9%. Provided Sprott can get his $300MM of silver, the premium should start its climb back up to the ~24% range. Just something else to consider…

I’ve purchased from www.apmex.com and www.kitco.com multiple times. Additionally Kitco.com has a forum with a buying/selling subforum. I’ve never purchased there but I’ve sold physical bullion there to drasticlly reduce the haircut (and the premium for the buyer).

onlygold.com - I bought from them in 2005. Sold back to them in 2009-2011. Bought 1oz bars. Very reputable and very quick and simple transactions.

Would recommend them to anyone. They’ve had a great website for years.

Careful with physical metals: It has to be assayed by a reputable assayer. PAMP, Perth Mint, and Johnson Matthey are famous ones globally, while ABC, Bullion Club, and ABC Melbourne are famous in Australia. I have heard good things about Gainsville Coins in the US, but I’m certain there are other places you can get cheap bullion. Just remember, it has to be assayed by a known firm!

In Australia, we can buy physical metals for around 1.5% over spot for gold and 3% over for silver, with the buyback roughly 98% of spot (sometimes more if you hunt around). If you want to maximise the amount of gold you get for your dollar, never buy/sell from/to jewelers or those Gold Buyers booths you see in malls. They’re spreads are huge.

I personally own gold and silver through the ETFS here on the exchange as they are open funds and generally have small tracking error against the underlying metal, and the spreads are small. The benefit I get from the gold ETF is that I can borrow against it. That’s not so easy with physical. (My broker does not lend against the silver ETF).

PS: I’m a coin dealer by trade so I know some of the traps.