Most efficient way to buy/own physical gold and metals?

[Ed B]

I am thinking about dipping my toe into (probably) silver by buying one or two hundred $$$ worth each month.

I checked out some websites this afternoon based on info in this thread. The premium on most of the coins was steep. Some vendors were charging 50% over spot or more. One site had a couple of choices with a couple of more reasonable premiums, but even on that site anything with an interesting design was 50% over spot.

Over course the price of silver and gold are very high right now. So if I do this some dollar cost averaging should help.

I had a decent stash of various silver coins from my teens until my first grandson turned about 3. I gave the coins to my DD and SIL and told them to sell the coins and we would start a savings for the boy. As luck would have it they left the coins in the piggy bank in the console of their car overnight. Someone picked that night to break into the car and steel stuff including the coins. Live and learn I guess.

[stephenson]

I’ve been stockpiling books for when SHTF.

[copyright1997reloaded]

While some others might say "Why are you wasting your time", I actually appreciate these threads. While I am aware of the value of alcohol and physical books as backup, having them mentioned here again is a good point. I'm actually pretty good at making alcohol although I've never tried to make anything with a still (which is illegal). But I have fermented plenty of other things. On the physical book front, things like "Fundamentals of Nursing" and a "Physicians Desk Reference" are good to have on hand.

Another for now easily acquired good thing to have: Honey. Natural sweetener, has anti-oxidants, antibacterial, can be used as a food preservative as well as a topical medicinal remedy, and can last just about forever if stored properly.

Any thoughts out there regarding the Combibar I mentioned previously?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cNwaA5sNr8

Note: I don't want to get into a debate regarding Peter Schiff or gold in general, rather just the pro's/con's of this approach to holding physical.

[Spock]

I'm not a fan of the combibar... not sure why other than I dunno if I would trust a chunk after it was broke off...
Now a new contender that I just found yesterday are the Maplegrams... 1 gram Canadian Maple Leafs in a sheet of 25 with each gram in an assay. I haven't priced them against combibars.
Prior to that I had Mexican Dos Pesos at just a hair under 1.5grams each. Little buggers are easy to lose.

[pjigar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by copyright1997reloaded Another for now easily acquired good thing to have: Honey. Natural sweetener, has anti-oxidants, antibacterial, can be used as a food preservative as well as a topical medicinal remedy, and can last just about forever if stored properly.

Correct! I have couple of dozen honeybee colonies so we have plenty of honey almost all the time. I joke with DW with we can literally bathe in honey if we can't sell it all.

[copyright1997reloaded]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spock I'm not a fan of the combibar... not sure why other than I dunno if I would trust a chunk after it was broke off... Now a new contender that I just found yesterday are the Maplegrams... 1 gram Canadian Maple Leafs in a sheet of 25 with each gram in an assay. I haven't priced them against combibars. Prior to that I had Mexican Dos Pesos at just a hair under 1.5grams each. Little buggers are easy to lose.

The Maplegrams look nice and I would like some, but at least as of now seem to command a high premium. For example, looking at Apmex quanity 20+ pricing of $79.28 @ 0.0322 oz = 2306.83 per ounce. Ouch. I

One thing about the Combibar I read is that there is a bit more gold than 100 grams per bar (e.g. .5 gram) to help to ensure each chunk will be 1 gram. I'd imagine part of using them would sometimes entail actually weighing the piece.

[kevink]

Getting back to the OP's question as well as numerous posts since then about storing physical gold, it's important to understand just how risky safety deposit boxes are:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/b...box-theft.html

All of which is by way of saying that IMHO gold is "SHTF' insurance not in a literal sense (because there's really no such thing) but as an asset whose performance is truly uncorrelated with the stock and bond markets and which tends to do well in times of currency debasement, sociopolitical upheaval and flights to safety. And 1% isn't going to do it, but 10-20% (taken from the equity side) will:

https://portfoliocharts.com/2019/08/...r-investments/

[sengsational]

If the bank with your safe deposit box has your contact info, all the problems in the NYT article vanish. Or if not completely vanish, then chances are 100 times more likely you'll get struck by lightning than have a problem with your safe deposit box items. Ok, I didn't do the math on that one, but I bet it's close.



As to addressing the need for smaller denominations, I looked at junk silver a while back, but couldn't get past the premium over spot, so didn't go that route. Still have a few pre-65 coins, though, from my childhood coin hobby.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevink Getting back to the OP's question as well as numerous posts since then about storing physical gold, it's important to understand just how risky safety deposit boxes are: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/b...box-theft.html All of which is by way of saying that IMHO gold is "SHTF' insurance not in a literal sense (because there's really no such thing) but as an asset whose performance is truly uncorrelated with the stock and bond markets and which tends to do well in times of currency debasement, sociopolitical upheaval and flights to safety. And 1% isn't going to do it, but 10-20% (taken from the equity side) will: https://portfoliocharts.com/2019/08/...r-investments/

Yes, I know 1 percent is bupkis. That is just meant to be what I would hold in physical metal. A larger position will take time and ideally be bought on dips.

[copyright1997reloaded]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Yes, I know 1 percent is bupkis. That is just meant to be what I would hold in physical metal. A larger position will take time and ideally be bought on dips.

I have about one year of current expenses worth of PM's (both in paper form e.g. GLD, PSLV, IAU) and physical (mostly gold in terms of $ value but also some silver). About half of this was bought years ago at lower prices. Wish I had more but also concerned about buying in at high levels. I *think* these will go considerably higher, but that doesn't make it so.

[Vincenzo Corleone]

Quote:

Originally Posted by captain3d Apmex.com has always worked well for me buying and selling back. Goldmoney.com for holding bullion in another countries vault but requires an extra tax form.

You might want to take a look at the following reviews for GoldMoney.com. I used them back in around 2002-3 and didn't have a problem. It sounds like things started to go south towards the end of 2019. Here's the link to the reviews:

https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/goldmoney.com

[racy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by COcheesehead Based on the reactions of consumers during the recent shut down, the one hard asset I would look at buying is liquor.

Sure! And, toilet paper.

Also, quoting from this article https://tinyurl.com/ya3y4dyx "Among my favorite books of all time is Making Money by Terry Pratchett. It’s a satire on the banking system and how the modern economy works, set in the fantasy realm Discworld. One of the arguments is over the usefulness of gold and what actually counts as real value. Moist von Lipwig, the main character, points out that on a desert island, gold is useless. A potato, though, is valuable. You can plant part of the potato, and it will grow into other potatoes, and you can eat the rest of the potato."

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski I guess that I don't get it. Any currency is only as good as the population's willingness to use it as an exchange medium. If the SHTF to the point where the US$ is worthless as an exchange medium, what makes you think that gold and silver will still be accepted as an exchange medium. None has any practical value other than people's historical willingness to exchange but in that scenario that history may be meaningless.

Here we go again. It's the old "only two realities" straw man. Either the US economy is well, er, "good as gold" or it's totally, well, SHTF territory. It's actually never been either and probably never will be. BUT to answer your actual question: The reason gold and/or silver will probably be accepted as a medium of exchange (even if the US$ is not) is because they HAVE BEEN as long as history has been written. PMs have been "money" since they were discovered. Only two things will ever stop PMs from being money: Laws against using PMs as money (enforced at the point of a gun - and we know how effective those are) OR the true SHTF situation (pick your favorite end-of-the-world-scenario - 10 mile wide asteroid, total-kill pandemic, exploding sun, etc. etc.) Other than those two unlikely events, PMs WILL be money even if we don't like it (or believe it.)

Full disclosure: I too did a double take when I saw that Brewer was interested in PMs!

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter I may be slow, but if the objective is to have gold when SHTF, how are ETF shares or gold held in vaults in Switzerland going to help with that? My other little puzzle is this: Virtually none of us live in houses that are in any way defensible. Again in the SHTF scenario, I think it's more likely that we quickly end up dead and robbed than it is that we end up in a world where we are able to trade assets safely. I have a few thousand rounds in my basement, left over from target-shooting days, but I have never thought of it as much of an asset. I even have a collector grade black rifle. But with three outside doors to the house and all of the main/only floor visible from one window or another, my defensive battle would not last very long.

It's like the old joke about putting on your running shoes to outrun your friend when you are confronted with a grizzly. All you have to do is convince the "bad guys" to turn their attack from you to your neighbors. I think your "black rifle" would convince most folks to pass you by but YMMV

[drcha]

Krugerrands, eagles, maple leafs. At my local store, usually one or the other will be the best buy on any given day (with the least bid-ask spread). It's not the same one all the time. Check Kitco for prices.

A small safe deposit box is about $75/yr.

I'm not going to tell you to cheat the IRS. But I am going to tell you that if you buy and sell gold in small amounts, you can do it in cash. They ask me to sign my name, but it seems to be a formality because they don't ask for identification. One could sign with a pseudonym. Just saying.

[winyaz]

Haven't seen this mentioned but you could buy shares in one of the Central Fund of Canada (now Sprotts) mutual funds. In buying their funds you are the owner of a share of the physical gold, silver, or palladium (depending on the fund) that they have in their vault. They do not use futures like other funds. I doubt this is what you had in mind when mentioning physical gold but it is a big step towards it compared to any other funds that I am aware of. You don't have the hassle of storing it, the price is close to net asset value, minimal spread, and the shares are redeemable for physical gold (subject to some limitations).

[Bongleur]

Quote:

Originally Posted by winyaz Haven't seen this mentioned but you could buy shares in one of the Central Fund of Canada (now Sprotts) mutual funds... You don't have the hassle of storing it, the price is close to net asset value, minimal spread, and the shares are redeemable for physical gold (subject to some limitations).

Redeemable for those who hold 100,000 units, so that's about $1.6M. But it does trade at below NAV quite often. Tax issues somewhat confusing, have file a special form to get the 15% tax rate on gains. And a very high management fee. Seems like you would have to pay attention to a strategy of redeeming units when the price goes up, to cover the fee.

I would never take precious metals in trade since I don't know how to identify fakes. And I don't know how to seek out someone who would take them in trade from me, for things I would need during bad times. Maybe certain ethnic groups found in some urban clusters are willing to take metals...

[Dash man]

Texas Metals is an excellent company I’ve used.


https://www.texmetals.com

[kingkarmann]

I have a fair amount of Gold China Panda’s?

[copyright1997reloaded]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingkarmann I have a fair amount of Gold China Panda’s?

Yes, you do?
Or: No, you don't?

Not sure if you were asking a question or making a statement.