When it come to buying precious metal such as gold or silver, a lot of people become almost confused as where to buy and how to buy. It wasn't that long ago that if yu wanted to buy a gold coin like an eagle or maple leaf you only had a couple of choices. One, you could go down to the local coin and stamp shop and buy one or two, you could go to the local bank, pay your money and they would order you your coin. If you were really lucky the bank might have had a coin or two in stock. Other than that you almost needed to belong to some kind of coin club.
Today however, there are numerous places on the internet that you can buy gold or silver both in coins and in bars. Aside from places like eBay there are now shops that specialize in the sale of these metals. In most cases the metals are on hand for immediate shipping however there are some that because they also buy and refine there could be delays. Kitco is one such place that has been know to have delays or out of stock items. Before purchasing you need to make sure you are aware of this situation as to prevent disappointment on your next purchase.
One of the issues to keep in mind is longevity of the program. There are a lot of new gold and silver sellers appearing out there and not all of them have been around for a very long time. Some sellers have websites but can not get metals in a timely fashion as mentioned before so you might be a bit careful in setting up an account with that sort of seller. Also price differences and shipping make for huge mark ups on metals. The key thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people look at the spot price of a metal and think that is the price. Yes it is the price but it is the base price. That is the price that the miner would get for his gold or silver before assays fees and other related costs are thrown into the equation.
I have narrowed the choices down to a few of the better shops online. These are shops that have been in business for some time and do ship out product on a timely bases and most of all offer competative prices both on the metal itself and also the shipping. Since online buying has become better know and more trust worthy and competetion increases a lot of online business will sell the product a bit cheaper but can stick you with a heavy shipping bill. Keep this mind.
Another option for those who do not have a large amount of cash to spare but would like to start accumulating precious metal in a physical form is "good ole ebay". Believe it or not but ebay can offer you some pretty fair deals. One of the ways is by finding some of the more promonent sellers or power sellers as they are known to be on ebay. In a lot of cases these guys can and will cut you some slack on shipping fees. It might not happen on the first one or two times you buy but if you do buy on a regular basis a lot of these guys offer some decent price breaks. If they don't, move onto to someone else. I've bought a lot of silver on ebay myself over the years. I usually go for the rough hand poured silver bars that are around 5-10 ounces. Keep an eye out for those sort of things.
I will continue to add additional online stores to this page as they become available and proven. In the meantime feel free to check out any of the online shops above for a great deal on buying precious metals or look at single coin options below.
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