I play the market, sure, but I also don’t put all my eggs in one basket. And, once in a very rare while, I get a deal. Today’s case in point:
What did I pay? Spot. See, some forms of gold are more marketable than others. When someone sells the gold/silver guy some gold ‘over the counter’, he usually buys it as close to spot as possible. But if the gold/silver is in a form that is not really sought after in retail, he buys it for less than spot. An example would be a 100-oz bar of silver. Not alot of people walk into a shop and ask for a 100 oz. bar. As a result, he needs to get into it at less than the price he’d have paid for, say , 100 1-oz. bars/rounds.
So, as it turns out, while small (‘fractional’) bits of gold (1 gram, 5 gram, 10 gram, etc) are easy to resell, the larger metric-denominated versions are less desirable. So…he bought it at less than spot. I offered spot. And he took it. So…score.
The lesson here is that if you’re going to buy metals, and you’re planning on holding them for a long time, and if you can swing the cash, your best value is in the larger single-unit quantities…. 10 oz bar vs 10 1-oz bars, 100 oz bar vs 10 10-oz bars etc.
As for this little guy, it goes in the safe and sits there quietly until next years land purchase. Or the apocalypse. Whichever comes first.
ETA: By the way, I never, ever, buy gold in any quantity without testing it on one of these. A tester like this will set you back about a grand. But if it keeps you from buying one fake gold coin, it’s paid for itself. My guy at the coin shop understands that even though I know he tests any gold he buys across the counter, I need to see it being tested. I could take his word for it, and I trust him when he says he tested it and it tested okay..but доверяй, но проверяй…doveryay, no proveryay…trust, but verify. And he’s cool with that. Honestly, if your PM guy isn’t cool with retesting something while you watch and just expects you to take his word for it….you need a new guy.