All that glitters is not gold, but if you’re buying pure 1oz gold coins you certainly know that you are handling the real thing. Although there are a lot of fakes on the market – often just gold plated nickel or copper, once you have purchased a few of gold coins to start your long term investment off securely, you will start to recognize the gold quality at just a glance.
There is a certain weight and feel to true gold. There is obviously a difference between the different types of genuine gold as well – rose gold is obviously a different color to yellow gold, but how about the difference between a 9karat, a 24 karat and .9999 pure fine gold? Again, when you have been looking at a few coins or bars, particularly if you stick with the 1 oz gold coins for sale, you will quickly begin to be able to tell the difference not only by sight but also by the way they feel differently in your hand.
Value of Gold
If you are a coin collector, you will often find that the value of the coin in your possession outstrips either the face value or the value of the gold itself. However, if you are investing for long term (which is the only way you should be investing gold) then you shouldn’t be looking at collection pieces – these are only worth as much as someone is willing to pay. There are instances of this throughout history, where collectors have spent a small fortune on their collection, keeping the items pristine, only to discover that unfortunately they were really the only person left who still had an interest in the item, and their collection was worthless. Heartbreaking on both an emotional and a financial level.
Market Fluctuations
Although the gold market is generally much more stable than other markets on either the world-widecommodities exchange or the world wide stock markets, it still suffers from ups and downs. Market analysts make it their full-time job to follow what the gold price is doing, whether they are actually interested in investing (or having their clients invest) in gold or not. The gold market is often seen as an indicator for how other markets are doing. When one goes up, something else comes down. Watching the stock markets and other resources markets like silver, nickel, copper and platinum, are taken together can be helpful for predicting the right time to invest in gold.
Bear in mind that when talking about the gold price this is different from the retail price of gold – although the spot price of gold will of course have a big influence in how much a jeweler will sell a 24-karat gold ring for, there may be little actual resemblance between this price and the current spot gold price. Unfortunately, this is something the people discover when they try to sell their jewelry, particularly if they are selling to scrap metal dealers rather than as jewelry.
Coins Or Bars
1oz gold coins are beautiful and easy to display, a 1 oz gold bar is easy to stack in a safe. However, assuming that both are of the same karat they will have the same intrinsic value based solely on the market value of the gold content when it comes to sell. Does it matter which you invest in? No, not really. As above, unless the coin develops additional value as a collection piece, which doesn’t happen as often as coin collectors might lead you to believe, the real value always comes down to home much gold content is in the item.
Jewelry
India is one of the biggest purchasers of gold – and although many people may think that this is because of their involvement in the technology industry, believe it or not, the gold influx into it is more because of their wedding industries (see here for Tamil traditional jewelry).
Types of Coins To Collect
Despite the suggestions that investing in coins should only be taken at the market value of the gold content, there are some positive investments to be had in the market for collectable coins. However, investing in these comes with an awareness that at the very least you will get back the market value. Of course, you can take the gamble that the 1913 nickel will fetch millions at auction – but if not, it’s worth a nickel at least.
