Buy gold!
March 4, 2009 – 9:41 pm by JohnI bought $505 worth of gold yesterday at a local coin and antiques shop. It was almost half an ounce contained in three old British and Swiss coins. That wasn’t quite the optimal gold-coin purchase I had in mind when I looked up local coin shops, but I guess gold is gold. The gold in those coins should be as valuable as the Jew gold Cartman is so obsessed with.
Today I went to the other collectors’ coins seller in town, which I should have gone to in the beginning, which should have been months ago (when gold was cheaper and there was more available). It was a coin and stamp collectors’ shop. They had hundreds of coins of all kinds and numismatist magazines and newsletters out on the counters. I bought two gold coins, one a half-ounce British coin and the other an almost-quarter-ounce British coin. These were $685. I paid cash for all of them.
Near the end of February, I also bought a 1-oz. gold coin from eBay, for over $1100 (definitely NOT the spot price of gold, but I don’t know how else to do it online…the other bidders always just bid up the price a lot), but the stupid thing didn’t come in the mail until today. It really worried me because shipping took over a week, and it’s really the seller’s fault for using the post office instead of UPS or Federal Express. I mean, there are two problems with this seller’s shipping of that gold coin. First, he charges $15 for shipping, and it isn’t even like next-day ground or anything else fast or special. It was supposed to arrive after 4 or 5 business days. That isn’t worth $15 in shipping charges. This is just a tiny freaking coin. Books, DVD’s, and video games that I’ve bought from other websites were delivered much, much faster, for half the price. So, that was stupid and problematic on his part to begin with. Secondly, why use the fucking postal service at all? Why would you not ship something valuable with a private company? Especially when you’re charging that much for shipping? The packaging said “registered mail” and had a bar code on it, which apparently means it is extra-secure. I can understand that for a thousand-dollar coin, and I guess I shouldn’t complain about the extra cost (now that I’ve paid for it!), but 8 days, what a pain.
3 Responses to “Buy gold!”
Heya, John.
Been there, I know the feeling of checking the box every day for the damned shipment.
Still, hopefully what you paid for was insurance. You could have had it for $50 the next day, perhaps from another vendor, but you’re already paying a premium at $1.1k. Patience… blood pressure…
By Mike Gogulski on Mar 4, 2009
The place I usually go and check is http://www.nwtmint.com. They sell gold and silver. Unfortunately, the minimum order for gold is 5 ounces, so that’ll run you about $5k (give or take). I’m currently saving up, but I might actually buy a lot of silver first, before I start buying gold.
By Kel on Mar 6, 2009
I recommend taking the free advice Bob Murphy gave me: When you buy gold or silver online from one of those international sellers, your metal is stored in some warehouse where you might never, ever touch it. Given the moderate degree of likelihood that the Imperial Federal Government will declare gold contraband sometime in our lives, the gold in those warehouses will be inaccessible to you. You won’t be able to drive up or break in and get it, and the vendor certainly won’t say, “Yeah, sure, where can we ship this illegal and highly valuable metal to you?” They will probably hand it over to the feds.
So buy gold coins that you can store in your own home or safe-deposit box. Coin collectors are all around and easy to buy quarter-ounce or half-ounce coins from. Also, if you look at what you have to go through to actually purchase gold from a web site that deals gold bullion, it is usually a huge pain in the ass.
By John on Mar 7, 2009