Buying Gold Coins - Everything You Need To Know - YouTube

Maybe you've been thinking that you'd like to  buy some gold and I know I've been thinking  

that I'd like to fix some videos where I talked  about buying gold. So I came up with a plan.

I've posted quite a few videos covering the  different aspects of buying gold, but I've  

never done a full buyer guide for newcomers  to gold. I'm going to fix that right now. 

this video is meant to tell you everything you  need to know to buy gold or silver without making  

expensive mistakes. Each part of this guide  will be marked as a chapter in the description  

so you'll be able to skip directly to that  section if you need to come back over time  

by the time we're done here you should be  able to confidently purchase gold and maybe even  

have a little fun with it. So let's get started.  The first thing you need to know is what to buy.

if you're new to gold you should  focus on the most popular type of gold  

and here in the United States it's  government-backed bullion coins. Bullion coins are  

investment-grade coins that don't carry additional  numismatic or collector value, so this means you're  

paying for the gold content plus a reasonable  premium above the spot price of gold  

the US Mint produces two gold bullion coins each year - the American Gold Eagle and the American Buffalo  

the American Gold Eagle is the most popular gold  coin in the United States and it's second only to  

the South African Krugerrand worldwide. This coin  was introduced in 1986 and it comes in four sizes  

but for now we're going to focus on the one ounce  size. This coin contains one full ounce of gold  

if you notice the color is a little different  than the others here, that's because it's a 22  

karat gold coin. That means that it's 91.67% gold and the remaining 8% is  

copper and silver alloy that's meant to harden  the coin and make it more resistant to wear  

but you'll see on the coin that the amount of  gold is printed directly on it, and it is one full ounce of gold  

you'll also see that it has a face  value of $50, so you could go into  

a store and buy $50 worth of goods  with it, but before you try that let me know  

because I'll buy it from you for 60. and the  next coin the U.S. Mint produces is the  

American Buffalo - this is a 24 karat gold coin that's  refined to 9999 fine gold  

so you'll see it has a lot more yellow color  like you'd expect from pure gold, but in most  

ways it's very similar to the American Gold Eagle.  It has the same face value of $50  

it has the same outer dimensions... very similar coin.  Because it's pure gold, though, you will need to  

keep these coins in capsules, and you'll have to be  careful with how you handle them because gold will  

scratch and dent very easily. You do not want to  let your four-year-old nephew play with this coin  

so if you live in the United States  and you're going to buy one gold coin

one of these two coins would be your best  choice. My recommendation for the new gold buyer  

would be the American Gold Eagle, but if you  feel you'd prefer the aesthetics of pure gold  

the Buffalo is a fantastic choice. And it's  probably my personal favorite  

the Buffalo was introduced in 2006 and both of these coins have been mostly unchanged since their introduction  

but the American Gold Eagle will actually  be going through a redesign later in 2021  

now if you don't live in the United States or if  you wanted a non-U.S. gold coin for whatever reason  

there are plenty of other  popular government-backed options  

this Canadian Gold Maple Leaf was the first  pure gold bullion coin, and it's one of the  

most popular gold coins in the world. It was  introduced in 1979, and you'll only see slight  

changes to the coin over time. That includes the  purity changing from three nines fine to four nines fine

but again, regardless of purity each  of these coins has one full ounce of gold content  

other popular coin choices would be the South  African Krugerrand and the Austrian Philharmonic  

and if you live in another country of course you'd  want to go with the local favorite, and these would  

include coins like the British Britannia, the  Australian Kangaroo, and the Chinese Gold Panda  

now gold bars are options as well but they  just aren't as popular in the United States  

but you can find popular bars produced by PAMP  Suisse, Valcambi, Perth Mint and the Royal Canadian Mint  

personally I'd recommend sticking to coins  for initial purchases just to keep us focused  

now the next thing you're going to need to know  is how much a gold coin should cost, and the price  

of gold is going to fluctuate, and it's going to  be different for three primary reasons  

first, the spot price of gold which is the value of gold   at the moment and the next is the premium  

which would be like the markup cost above that spot  price, and then finally you'll have sales tax which  

rarely applies to one ounce gold bullion coins, but  it might be a factor  

spot price at any given time can be found with a quick google search.  This is a Kitco chart, and it will show you the current  

standard price of gold as well as its performance  over time. The premium depends on what you're buying,

where you're buying, and when you're buying, but  you'll find that premium is typically about 5%  

give or take on one ounce gold coins, so if  the spot price of gold is about $1,900  

like it is in this chart ,then the price  of that coin might be around $2,000  

but you'll see lots of coins with much higher  premiums, and if you're new to gold you should  

avoid them regardless of how pretty they are  or how collectible somebody tells you they might become

here in the United States you  might find that a Gold Buffalo coin will cost  

$2,010 and a Gold Canadian Maple Leaf here might cost $1,980

now both of these coins have the exact same amount  of gold but the difference in premium  

is going to be based on popularity and in the event that  you were selling those very same coins you would  

get more back from the Gold Buffalo here in the  United States than you would for the Maple Leaf  

now I won't go into this in depth because this is  a buyer's guide rather than a seller's guide  

but in the event that you wanted to sell your gold  coins you could expect to get about spot price  

back and not much more, so you'll get a little  bit more for a Gold Buffalo than you will for a  

Canadian Maple Leaf, but again not a whole lot over  spot, so just keep that in mind   

if that seems a little bit scary, the other thing to keep in mind  is that the spot price of gold does fluctuate  

up and down, but over time it increases, and that  brings us to the next part which is where to buy the coins  

the two primary places you can  safely buy gold coins are your local coin shops (LCS) 

and online bullion dealers. And to find out if  you have a local coin shop in your area  

you can do a quick google search for "gold coin shops  in dallas texas" or wherever it is that you live  

you'll want to weed out the jewelers that come up  in that search and then whatever's left, give them a call 

a really easy qualifying question is  to ask them if they have any American Gold Eagles  

in stock and if they say yes, you've probably  found someone who deals with a lot of gold coins  

and once you've found a shop, you want to do a  little bit of research before you go into buy  

coin shops are not like car dealerships where  they walk you through the process, and the people  

who run them are a little bit of a mixed bag - they  aren't all going to be sweethearts   

what I do when I'm traveling is call the shop and I'll  ask them if I have a specific coin and then  

I'll ask them for the price so that might be like,   "hey do you have any one ounce American Gold Eagles in stock?"

and if they say yes, fantastic well then  I'll ask, "how much do you get for them right now?" 

and that tells me what they have, but it  also tells me what they charge for premium  

your local coin shops will typically  have the best prices on gold coins and  

it's good to be familiar with them  just in case you ever want to sell  

but you should know that most of their coins will  be from the secondary market - what that means is  

they won't all be in perfect condition, and the  selection will be limited - that shouldn't turn  

you off from the local coin shop, it just means  that you're going to have to shop a little bit  

now online dealers will typically cost you a bit  more, but you'll be able to shop and compare  

and buy whatever you want, but you have to keep in mind  that having hundreds or thousands of options isn't  

always a good thing, so if you're shopping online  keep in mind that everything I mentioned earlier  

about gold coins applies here - you always want to  start with the most popular coins in your region  

now online dealers sell on their websites  and other marketplaces like eBay but if you  

aren't familiar with the sellers and you  want to be confident with your purchase  

I recommend going directly to the dealer's  website. There are dozens of options 

but for the sake of giving you  an easy place to start I'll give you two  

APMEX which is the screen that I was just showing  you and SD Bullion - APMEX is going to have the  

widest selection and the fastest shipping where  SD Bullion will have cheaper prices   

I have zero dogs in this fight - I'm certainly not being  paid by either of those to tell you to go shop there  

they just happen to be two options that I know  that you could start with. The biggest issue with  

buying online is that price is tiered depending on  your payment method, so paying with a credit card  

is going to cost you more in premium than  if you were to pay through a wire transfer  

or by sending them a check - that of course takes  longer, but regardless of whether you prefer to pay  

cash in person at a local coin shop, or you want  to go online and buy, I would check both the local  

coin shop and the online dealers before buying  from one or the other. Okay so up until now we've  

talked about one ounce gold coins, but if you'd  prefer to dip your toe into buying gold you have  

other options here as well. The primary sizes for  gold bullion are going to be the 1 oz coin,  

a 1/2 oz, a 1/4 oz and a 1/10 oz coin  the spot price is the same for each, so a 1/10 oz  

gold coin is worth 1/10 the spot price of  gold at the time, but the percentage of premium  

that you pay increases as you go down in size  so it costs more to accumulate an ounce of gold  

if you buy 10 1/10 oz gold coins rather than  a single one ounce gold coin. So that 1/10 oz  

American Gold Eagle right there might cost about  $230 while the 1 oz Eagle costs $2,000  

so 10 of those would cost $2,300 but  

would be worth the same amount in terms of  gold content as that 1 oz gold coin  

now you'll typically be able to get some of  that premium back in a sale, but it'll cost  

you more to buy gold if you choose fractional  gold coins - there's just no way around that  

and whether you're new to gold or not, fractional  gold coins can still be really good options  

I've been buying gold for 12 years and  I still buy 1/4 oz gold coins  

these coins will probably cost around $530  again that's based on a $1,900 spot price  

and that's give or take, so it would  cost you more than a single 1 oz gold coin to  

accumulate that ounce with these coins as well,  but they're a price point decision  

$530 might be an easier purchase each time. If  you're trying to buy U.S. Mint coins in fractional sizes

it's only the American Gold Eagle that  comes in the fractional sizes - you can't find  

American Gold Buffaloes in 1/2, 1/4 or 1/10 oz except from 2008 and that was a limited  

run, so they typically cost a lot more. So if you  want a fractional gold coin and you want that  

to be a 24 karat coin you're going to be looking  at other options like this Austrian Philharmonic  

which does come in all of those sizes just like  the Canadian Maple Leaf and a number of other  

popular government-backed coins as well.  Okay, so we've covered all of the hard stuff

the last thing you need to know is how to store your gold.  When you walk out of the coin shop or you open  

your shipping box ,your coins are going to come in cheap flips, and if your coin is a 24 carat coin  

then you'll want it in a capsule like you see  here, and you can find these capsules in a lot  

of different places - you can find them at the local  coin shop, you can find them at online dealer sites,  

on Amazon, etc. You can also find tubes if you plan  to continue to buy - you put your capsules in the tubes

you'll find [tubes] at all of the same places.  A quick tip on finding the right capsules... 

APMEX tells you on the product detail pages what  size capsule you'll need, and even if you aren't  

buying from them, it's easy enough to take that  info and pick them up from Amazon or wherever you want  

once you have your gold coins protected  in those capsules and tubes, it's best to keep  

them in a personal safe or a safe deposit box.  And that is it. Now there are a lot more details  

that I cover in individual videos, but that should  give you enough to be able to buy gold confidently  

if you have any questions feel free to drop them  in the comments. I do my best to respond and the  

YouTube community has all kinds of really smart  people, and they might jump in as well  

Thank you for watching - if you want to know more  about gold and precious metals, be sure to subscribe  

and if this video was helpful at all, please hit  the like button. Thanks and have a fantastic day!