Chances are high, even if you are in a major metropolitan city, the best bullion prices to be found will be found online due to higher volumes of bullion being sold by online dealers and the typically lower overhead costs associated without having a retail storefront.
Exclusive online bullion dealers typically don’t have all the brick and mortar costs associated and they have the entire market of their respective country (and even other nations as some online bullion dealers deliver worldwide).
Having a trusted local coin shop is great if you are in need of quick cash or a small bullion purchase. As for the bulk majority of your bullion buying, you will likely save a nice amount of cash if you elect to buy from a trusted high volume bullion dealer like us at Kitco Metals. We have been in the bullion business serving customers all around the world since 1977.
Research and due diligence are required to find the best bullion dealers. Before you select a bullion dealer to work with make sure to look for organic reviews of the company’s customers online to hear their satisfaction levels. Large volumes of bad customer reviews is a likely sign of poor business practices and worse even a potential sign that a company may be going out of business. Before each and every order you might place perform your research so you can be confident that the bullion dealer you may buy from or sell to has not had any recent complaint trends online.
Other important bullion dealer consideration factors include the following items:
It is important to be competitively shopping with bullion prices always while simultaneously ensuring that the product being offered is not some form of a “Bait and Switch” or worse a place dealer that collects your currency but delays or perhaps never buys nor delivers the goods you expended for.
Are the people you are buying bullion from, do they offer you excellent customer service? Do they try and educate you and keep you up to date on the real market goings-on day to day?
Do they offer highly respected bullion brands? Do they carry an overwhelming number of products to choose from? Most bullion buyers will want to steer clear of great granddaddy's graded coins, proof coins, rare high profit margin collectibles, etc.
After your payment clears do you get tracking and and confirmation of delivery within a short timeframe? The United States’ CFTC declares the limit time for retail bullion deliveries to be 28 days. If it takes a long time for physical delivery, your capital may be financing a losing venture.
In the USA, shipping high volumes of bullion fully insured costs anywhere from $10 to $100 USD per 5 to 500 ounces of silver or 1 - 10 ounces of gold. Most high volume bullion dealers are now offering Free Shipping and taking the shipping expenses from the overall premiums they charge. Unless you are moving bullion internationally, paying large shipping fees should be held to a minimum.
Does the bullion dealer actually buy back the bullion products they offer and post not merely what they are selling the bullion product(s) at but also what they are buying the same bullion product(s) back at currently?
If they are simply a one way dealer only selling bullion products, you might want to begin building relationships with other bullion dealers who are actually practiced at buying back the items they sell.
All competent bullion dealing websites typically allow you to buy from their website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In other words, you can buy and lock in your product price at any time of the day.
To commit to buying a product, bullion websites generally need collateral from you typically in the form of a live active credit or debit card or through the funding of an account with the company.
Due to merchant account fees sometimes at high as 3.5%, the most cost effective payment methods for bullion buying are typically two options.
First is bank wire transfers for larger $10,000+ sized orders. Although not as cost effective as payment by check, a bank wire transfer moves cash faster through the banking system and thus allows your bullion order to be processed and shipped quicker to you or its final destination.
The next low cost bullion payment option is personal checks although bullion dealers are required to hold checks for complete payment clearance generally some 7-10 business days. This slight check payment clearance delay helps ensure that the bullion dealer is paid in full for the bullion items purchased before they are shipped to their final destination.
Safe shipments of precious metal bullion coins and bars in the mail is more common than you might think.
The majority of our customers at Kitco Metals take fully insured physical delivery to their door (or preferred mailing addresses). Upon fully cleared payment of as order with Kitco, the bullion products purchased are securely packaged tightly in a sound nondescript box. Bullion parcels are then shipped with full insurance, postal tracking information, and adult signature requirements.
Kitco Metals customers can and do also elect to have their physical precious metal bullion products safely delivered and stored in various professional non-bank fully insured bullion storage locations located in Canada, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands (some restrictions apply), and in the United States.
Kitco Metals also offers investment grade physical bullion bars and coins for IRAs in the USA and for RSPs in Canada. Visit our secure website for further information on retirement precious metal investment options.
Hiding valuables in one’s home or apartment is nothing new and not extremely difficult. Use diversification of location in safeguarding your metals against the most probable and improbable scenarios.
Keeping bullion items privately stowed away in safe hiding spots helps to decrease the risk of theft. The safest bullion investment stashes are those which are well diversified in location, disclosed to as few trusted people as possible (spouse or loved ones), and unknown to one's circle of acquaintances and of course strangers.
If you are buying and holding silver, you will want to find a secure hidden location that is dry with low humidity. Silver can and will oxidize which can erode the value coins especially if it oxidizes heavily. Gold coins that aren’t 24k pure can also oxidize. It may behoove a bullion owner to invest in some desiccant packets for long term dry and safe keeping of one’s precious metals.
An important final point for anyone with benefactors, make certain your trusted loved one(s) know where your bullion is located in case of emergency or bequeathment. Itemizing bullion holdings in a last will and testament is a common practice as well.
Selling your bullion and getting a good bid price is every bit as intricate as intelligently buying your bullion. Full attention to details are required to successfully sell your bullion at the best price. When it come to turning your bullion into fiat currency there are hundreds of online and perhaps local options for selling it too, especially if you live in a large city.
When selling your bullion perhaps only deal with proven bullion dealers with long track records. One of the safest methods to get a good price is sell your bullion online to one of the major online bullion dealers (like us at Kitco Metals) who have long proven track records and business practices.
When you sell online to a bullion dealer you will typically be able to commit with a quantity and price locking in either over the phone or even online without a phone call. When selling online the dealer will most likely take a credit or debit card deposit from you just in case you balk on the delivery of your end of the deal (bullion dealers often charge as administrative or cancellation fee if you fail to deliver). When selling to an online dealer they should give you an order number of some sort to identify the specific transaction, a packing slip to print and put inside the parcel(s), and an address to ship the contracted goods to. Then within one business day you would safely ship the metals to the dealer and give them the tracking information so they can monitor the incoming goods.
Once the bullion items have been safely delivered to the dealer’s mandated address, the dealer will then inspect and verify the metals and finally issue payment subsequent to the their payment policy and your payment preference (the most common online dealer to customer payment methods are check via mail or even bank wire transfer, which will require your giving the bullion dealer your bank account information).
Kitco Metals can help you arrange a safe and fully insured bullion shipment, learn how here.
For packing all bullion product shipments please take the following suggestions into account:
• Use 2 sturdy boxes to double box the shipment
• All boxes used should be in sound shape and have all their flaps intact
• Wrap your bullion products with cushioning material (packing foam, bubble wrap, etc.)
• Remove any and all old address labels from any reused boxes
• Ensure that there are no holes, tears or dents in the outer box
• Use packing tape and secure materials to ensure safe shipping
• Split your bullion products so that no package contains more than 500 oz of metal
• Keep information about the contents of your package private and nondescript
You can find even more information on how to safely ship bullion in mail by clicking here.
We hope this bullion related educational content has been beneficial for you.
Millions of precious metal investors trust Kitco as their #1 source for 24 hour precious metal price updates, industry news, and financial market insights.
Kitco Metals both buys and sells physical bullion bars, rounds, and coins made of fine investment grade precious metals. For decades we have safely sold and delivered millions of ounces of silver, gold, platinum, rhodium, and palladium bullion products to investors in North America and around the globe. We are also an active buyer of physical precious metal bullion products from our very own offices in Canada, Hong Kong, and the United States.
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