An auction just closed on ebay about 2 hours ago for 1 oz of gold. Selling price...$1,352.57 or about $125 over spot price. What does this say when bidding goes so much higher than spot. For those of you that think this is a fluke, go to ebay and check completed auctions and you will see this is a pretty normal price. http://cgi.ebay.com/1-OZ-PAMP-SUISS...iewItemQQptZCoins_Bullion?hash=item35a544a1da Silver is the same...20.67 for a 1 oz silver round. (with 3.99 shipping!) http://cgi.ebay.com/SILVER-round-1-...iewItemQQptZCoins_Bullion?hash=item518e8e6c9e
This is a simple thing. Many people do not know where to get gold, AND/OR don't want to have to buy it "officially" because then they would have to declare it on taxes/etc. The premium is for the anonymity of being able to buy this gold without essentially worrying about feds knocking down your door
Only problem is...if you buy it this way, feds are going to know exactly who you are AND have your address because you had the gold shipped to your home, plus ebay has a record of you, not to mention the credit card you paid with has your name on it. Quite a bit less anonymity this way than if you walk into a coin store with cash and buy gold there. The guys i buy silver from dont even know my first name at the silver store i go to. How did you mean buy it "officially"? Nobody ever took my name down when i bought gold or silver.
Who will sell a PAMP suisse bar for spot unless he is really desperate to get money? These bars carry a small premium. If you want to buy gold at spot you can get some gold sovereigns.
On the flip side, I could argue the same investor class is selling gold for $350 an ounce when they send in their old jewelry. Maybe $350 is the real price? The price dumbass real folks are selling for or are buying at in unregulated markets has nothing to do with the "real" price.
Who the heck buys 1 ounce bars? lol Looking at what the kilo's are selling for, I'm tempted to go dig mine up......
Um. I'm pretty sure ebay is pretty well known for fraud/mail boxing so you can't just find those people, and since its not an official sale of gold, but a transfer of money from one account to another, its harder to track each transaction. When the paypal or whatever bill is paid, it wont say "1 ounce of gold for $1350." It will just say "+$1350" for the seller and "-$1353" for the buyer. And yes, at a local dealer you can pay cash.... but you are still going to be paying a lot more than online. I bet a local dealer would sell an ounce of gold for maybe 1500? Something crazy like that?