numismatics is where it's at. A Confederate Dollar in mint condition is worth more than it was when Jefferson Davis printed it. So don't be taking those greenbacks and wadding them all up and sticking them in some young girl's G string. They may be worth something someday.
GLD has no restrictions on utilizing futures contracts instead of bullion. You have to read the prospectus. Additionally, you cannot redeem the shares for physical gold. The ETF holds "Investment Gold" which can be anything. It's not even audited. Take it for what it is, but it is not equivalent to holding real bullion. Bullion dealers or jewelers recognize acceptable mint marks and only assay no name brands, old brands or no brand whatsoever. If you bring a Pamp Suisse bar and the jeweler tries to charge you an assaying fee, you should be saying "thanks but no thanks" and walk out the door.
maybe I just don't realize how the other half lives, but the whole idea of walking around town looking for a buyer with a 100 troy oz bar which at todays prices is worth 170k seems a little comical to me.
============ LOL is right; but as a % of total price, probably not much, even if he had no other insurance business there..
He's notoriously thrifty. Had all the m's removed from his computers since he doesn't use them anymore, now he just deals in billions, and if I recall it was about 6 billion worth of silver he bought a few years ago, before it started moving for the common man. Also, if you ever fly over there on a silver run with him, bring your own food (unless you like microwaved Mc Donalds.)
what r u talking about. delivery is a nice man in a tuxedo, white gloves, comes to your door, and hand delivers the gold bars. you are congratulated for being a mover and shaker and then he bids his leave, while your gold has no bid.
You can generally sell to refiners at a few percent below spot. So you could cut up your 100 oz bar and sell that way if you chose not to sell back thru Comex. After MFGlobal's theft, I think a lot of people are waking up to the cleptocracy we live in and demanding physical rather than some ETF papers. Even taking delivery of a Comex contract is a risk post MFGlobal. I'd personally recommend paying a small percentage more and buying one oz bullion coins through a series of small orders from some local bulk dealer. Or you can just ignore precious metal and trust the good folks on Wallstreet and Pennsylvania Avenue to look out for your interests.
finding 1 oz buyers is very easy and you can get a small premium too - silver very easy too - look for gold dealer in your area and they have many buyers wanting physical. Don't do craigslist ads, real bad idea for obvious reasons - LOL. I have bought and sold physical for past 3 years and I don't have any problems finding buyers when gold or silver has moves to top of price range.
In the far east (Singapore ,Hong Kong etc) phyical bullion sales in the form of coins and jewellery (22k jewellery and 24k coins) is quite high. United Overseas bank and DBS bank in Singapore have very competitive physical price.(usually $ 0.50 /ounce premium and ofcourse the the prevailing spread bid/ask and applied only at the time of delivery/debiting my a/c . I used to be a wholesaler & buy Bullion Tola bars (116 gms each approx). I sell in bulk to the middlemen on COD who sell to jewellery stores at a higher price with 2-3 days credit) I have taken physical delivery usually 50 to 100 bars each time. Infact I have signed agreements with the Bullion desk to take with in 3 months say 500-1000 pcs of a particular mint brand of 10 Tola bar. On 24 hours trading desk -I will fix the paper futures gold price eiether open ( if I think the price will fall further) or if I feel the price is a short term bottom ,I will fix the price. There is 24 to 48 hour delay when the bullion bar reaches my target market. ( currency hedging between S$/US$ is another matter) If the price falls further, i will loose money ( though there is cushion -my usual profit)as my customers will pay @ the screen price + my premium . Full payment will be debitted from my UOB a/c before I go to collect from the basement treasury. Since I maintain healthy balance - I dont pay seperate futures margin. Once in a while I used to close the long in paper itself if there is a huge profit with out taking delivery. But usually all my longs were meant for conversion and physical delivery. Nowadays numbered 1 Kg bullion bar is the norm. You can get a locker in eiether one of the banks ( if you could a/c open with s$ 250-500 k ) and keep your gold there.