shopper approved
    2160.34
    -5.81
    25.02
    -0.16
    916.98
    -8.50
    1036.41
    -19.72

    Bullion Investing Guide Articles

    Beginners’ Guide to Buying Physical Bullion Introduction

    Hey there, you made it! Welcome. Chances are high; you have already done this multiple times. For beginners especially, the standard start goes something like this… You likely visited Google.com, Bing, YouTube (or perhaps another large internet search engine) and you entered in search terms like “silver investing” or “best gold dealer”. Maybe you searched…

    History of Gold and Silver as Money

    Gold and silver have been used as currencies for thousands of years. The Egyptians began producing their gold-bearing shekels around 1500 B.C., and silver coins started appearing in the same areas roughly 700 years later. In other words, gold and silver have been part of the human experience for most of recorded history. Though both…

    Gold’s Fundamentals Today

    Wars have been fought over gold, love is often expressed with it, entire cultures and peoples have been massacred for it, and civilizations and world history have been dramatically shaped by it. Gold is perhaps mankind’s most memorable metal. Precious and useful, gold conducts electricity but it does not tarnish. Gold alloys with many other…

    Gold Demand

    Gold is used in jewelry, which accounts for approximately 50% of the yellow metal’s demand. India and China are the biggest markets for gold jewelry. These two large eastern countries combine to account for about sixty percent of global gold jewelry sales in 2013. When people speak of how in our day and age gold…

    Gold Supply

    It is estimated that all the gold mined ever would fit inside a cube of 20 meters. The world’s aboveground gold stock grows on average by 1 to 2% per year. Although the gold market is very opaque, experts generally estimates all time above ground gold stocks stand at about 170,000 tonnes of gold, approximately…

    Peak Gold

    Gold is getting harder and harder to find and dig up out of the ground. Peak gold is a term used to define the date at which human beings reach the maximum rate of yearly global gold extraction, after which the rate of production enters declines. Source: Visual Capitalist The chart above examines the world’s…

    Silver’s Fundamentals Today

    Historically the money of human day-to-day commerce, silver coinage has had a role in nearly every ancient and modern culture. From ancient Greece’s drachma, which contained 1/8th of an ounce of silver to the Roman denarius and the British pound sterling (both designated a specific weight amount of the white metal), silver has been a…

    Silver Demand

    In 2013, total world physical silver demand stood at a record 1,081,000 troy ounces. Jewelry & Silverware Demand Accounting for approximately 25% of annual silver demand, silver jewelry and eating utensils have long been prized for their brilliant luster and easy workability. A rising gold price and growing markets for mid-priced jewelry have led many…

    Silver Supply

    It is estimated that throughout human history approximately 1.5 million tonnes of silver have been mined able to fit into a 52-meter cube. Unlike gold, which is almost all entirely with us still today, most silver has been used and thrown away without being recycled. Expert sliver researchers state that 90% of all silver mined…

    Bullion 101

    I am now going to assume that you dear reader… You have studied and learned the fundamental reasons to buy silver and gold today and you are also conscience of many of the possible pitfalls involved with silver and gold investing. You understand a naive investor can lose a lot (if not all of their…

    Paper vs Physical?

    Unless you are day-trading for price exposure to the silver and gold price, I suggest you steer clear of paper silver and paper gold vehicles. Paper Gold / Paper Silver – (n) a derivative imitation of silver / gold made by human beings. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) aka Exchange Traded Products (ETPs). Popular examples of…

    So Why Physical Silver and Gold Bullion Right Now?

    There are myriads of motives and goals you may have for your silver and gold buying. Later we can examine them in more detail, but for now, I will take a stab at some basics. For the most part, silver and gold buying boils down to two factors: wealth preservation and growth. Wealth Preservation The…

    Spot Price vs. Physical

    If you are new to the gold and silver game, you will likely look up the silver or gold spot price and assume that is the price of physical gold or silver. Well if the world of silver and gold price discovery was legitimate and honest, that may be the case but I digress, for…

    Which Metal & Bullion Products Are Best For Your Needs?

    Silver vs Gold ➤➤➤ Your Metal Percentage Mix? I have an important question for you. Quick, get a piece of paper and write down a no more than 100 word answer to this critical question. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here and I’ll actually do the same thing with you. We can then compare notes….

    Private vs. Reportable Bullion Transactions

    If bullion buying and selling privacy are of importance to you, take note. All bullion dealers in the U.S.A. are required to follow the IRS’ rules on silver and gold reporting in regards to #1, anti-money laundering policies (AML) and #2, sales of bullion from customers to dealers. Anti-Money Laundering aka A.M.L Compliance If you…

    Should you Buy Bars, Rounds, or Coins?

    Let us begin by differentiating amongst the three choices so we are on the same page regarding the industry’s definitions of bullion bars, rounds, and coins. Bullion bars – (n) physical precious metal in a bar form, its value almost entirely derived from its melt value alone. They are mostly struck by private mints, although…

    Smallest Premium / Cost over Spot

    In general the larger the bullion product’s size is the lower the price per ounce will be. That said I suggest you steer clear of 1000 oz silver bars and 400 oz gold bars for their weights are never homogenous, they are more susceptible to counterfeit than smaller items, and they are cumbersome to move…

    Privacy When Buying & Selling (in the U.S.A.)

    Silver bullion bars and rounds when sold in 1000 ounce or more allotments to dealers are not private. Gold bullion bars and rounds when sold in kilo or 32.15 ounce or more allotments to dealers are not private. Some gold coins (Canadian Maple Leaf coins, South African Krugerrand coins, Mexican Liberated coins) when sold in…

    Highest Liquid 2 Way Buy & Sell Markets + Brand Recognition

    When you choose your bullion brands or hallmarks, take into account the amount of active market makers for that specific product. For instance, there are ten of thousands of coin dealers who buy and sell gold and silver Eagle coins or Sunshine mint bullion bars for example in the U.S.A. Conversely there may not be…

    Private Contract & Court Enforcement via your country’s respective Legal Tender Laws

    I tend to prefer U.S. bullion coinage (Eagle and Buffalo coins) as I am a U.S. citizen and they are legal tender in my country. By having legal tender U.S. bullion coins, it gives me the right to explicitly use their face values in private contracts of sale or purchase so long as I find…

    Cheapest Customs Duties / Easier International Transport

    Generally the easiest bullion gold products to transport internationally are government issued 24k gold coins with legal tender face values. Many governments (Canada and Singapore for example) tax 22k gold coins so if you are thinking about moving your gold bullion abroad, I suggest steering clear of 22k Gold Eagle and Gold Krugerrand coins. If…

    Currency Crisis Hedge / Use in Direct Commerce

    If you have concerns about bank freezes and the need to use bullion in commerce, there are some simple options available. You can buy small silver and gold coins, bars, or rounds and even breakable gold bars if you like. At $20 an ounce, a few ounces of silver would obviously a bit easier to…

    Low Susceptibility to Counterfeit

    In the counterfeit markets there are basically two types of fakes. Bronze silver and gold plated counterfeits are more commonplace… while hollowed out bars have been sold as recent as 2012 in New York’s famous diamond district. In general the smaller the product the more difficult and less profitable to make high grade counterfeits (like…

    Speed of Sale

    Depending on your age you may believe you will simply buy and hold bullion for the remainder of your life. Bullion is certainly easy to pass on to heirs if you so choose. I know for a fact there are tens of thousands of young people, including myself, who are aggressively allocating our savings into…

    Stack-ability

    This is rather self-explanatory. Gold stacks in smaller square footage to silver. Know where you will safely hide your bullion before you buy it.  Bars stack easiest. Mint cases of coins maybe a close second dependent upon the type. Sadly silver Eagle coin mint case are like Cadillacs, if space is an issue, drop the…