 |
| How to Buy and Sell Gold Coins for Profit |
1Know which coins to buy. Gold coins can be segregated into various types.
Steps
The most common bullion coins (e.g. American Gold Eagle, South African Krugerrand) sell for, approximately, their base gold value.
Rare collectible (numismatic) coins can sell at a (sometimes very high) premium--more than the gold value alone. While there is more potential profit here, you'll need to learn as much as possible about grading and evaluating rare coins. Not recommended for beginners.
The standard weight for a gold coin is one troy ounce (31.1 grams, a little heavier than the standard ounce). There are coins that weigh less than one troy ounce (1ozt), but they trade less frequently, and you will pay a bigger percentage premium to buy them from dealers. That will cut into your potential profits.
2 Plan where you will store the coins. Any secure method of storage is going to cost you money. Consider a bank safe deposit box, a home safe or a safekeeping program offered by some gold dealers. This only concerns investors, though. You will keep the coins on hand if you plan to resell them for a quick profit.
3 Shop around. There are many ways you can buy gold coins. Your best bet is to compare prices on whichever coin you're thinking of buying.
Buy from a government. Their coins usually come with a reliable guarantee of gold content, weight, and purity. The US government sells gold coins online.
Buy from private firms, preferably ones that have been selling gold for over 30 years, like the following:
monex.com
kitco.com
blanchardonline.com
apmex.com
Buy on an online auction site such as ebay.
Buy from an individual dealer. This is the riskiest route. Try and obtain a price guarantee (a specific value guarantee that the dealer places on your coin). On the flip-side, some dealers make shady guarantees in order to sucker buyers to purchase their coins.
If you want to buy coins below market value, like the dealers do, learn how to buy coins from the public. One former gold buyer wrote a guide that explains this method at beagoldbuyer.com
4 Keep track of gold value. Most newspapers report the price of gold daily, and you can get almost instantaneous updates online at several sites, including kitco.com.
5 Keep track of value of the dollar. This is also widely reported. As mentioned earlier, there tends to be an inverse relationship between that and the value of gold.
6 Aim to sell your coins at the peak of demand. This is where both research andintuition steps in. You want to sell your coins right before the value of gold starts going down, so that you walk away from the transaction with more money than you spent on the coins. Since timing the market does not always work, you should consider selling when gold price is at all time high, the demand is very high, the sentiment is generally bullish, and you are sitting at a sizable profit.
