Once upon a time you would find (mainly) men, crowded into small underground basement shops, looking through collections of stamps and coins, exchanging currency well above the face value of the object they were buying. Although these shops still exist, in more modern times they are often found by the very secure windows, doors and occasionally security guards standing around.
The invention of the internet has thrown coin collectors to the wind. No longer are they limited to purchasinglocally orhaving arrangements with fellow collectors and suppliers around the world, connected by mail, fax and telephone. Budding coin collectors and bullion investors are able to shop online, they are able to investigate coins they have found and find estimated values.
So, if you’re interested in bullion investing or starting your collection you might to ask where to buy gold coins, and the answers can take as long as finding out if that 2005 Kansas state quarter really does say In God We Rust or if it has just been rubbed out a bit.
Coin Dealers
Traditional coin dealers still abound, but often people take gold coins (and precious metal jewelry) to scrap metal merchants to try and reclaim the value of the gold contained in the item rather than trying to sell to a collector. We can hope that a scrap metal merchant is aware of the value beyond just the spot gold price for certain rare and collectable coins. However, throughout history coins have been melted down for their metal, including the nickel and copper content needed to make bullets and armaments for the military during times of war. Of course, it is the very fact that coins from these periods are so rare that makes the occasional find so valuable.
Precious Metal Merchants
If you are buying gold coins as an investment in bullion, then you are more likely to buy directly from a precious metals merchant that specializes in gold bullion. Although for some period of time it was illegal for US citizens to own gold bullion in America, that restriction has been lifted, and people are again starting to enjoy the security of having the physical metal under their personal control. And why not – governments generally have a stock pile of gold bullion bars to stabilize the country’s currency, it makes sense for personal households to also want to have the same security.
Online Coin Sellers
Online sources for gold coins, both bullion and collectable, do abound. However, the very nature of both online trading and purchasing collectable items mean that you really do have to ensure that you are purchasing from a Bonafede dealer. You might be ok taking a risk on the $10 bulk lot of coins to get the kids started down the path of coin collecting but thinking that someone is selling a genuine 2007 collectable presidential coin for $1 should make you think again. Much of the time people aren’t purposely being deceitful, just ignorant. However, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Auctioning Coin Collections
Truly valuable coins are generally put up for sale at more prominent auction houses. If you can get yourself on the mailing list for these auctions you will at least be able to dream when the coins go under the hammer (see here for examples). If you have a small local auction house keep an eye out there for coins as well. Particularly with the Marie Kondo effect happening at the moment, people are having big clear-outs. So, Granddads old coin collection that was inspected by a coin expert 20 years ago and deemed to be nearly worthless, might be worth significantly more now – both in terms of the spot gold price increase but also because what is deemed to be collectable changes over time. As currency gets lost certain coins become rarer and rarer. So yes, it is rare to get a truly amazing find from a bulk lot of coins at a small out of the way auction house – but that is half the fun and joy of collecting, hoping that you’ll find that rare lady liberty, or discovering a coin that all the collectors had thought long vanished from the earth.
It’s not just the hoarding of coins for long term investment that makes coin collectors smile, much of the time it’s the hours under a magnifying glass trying to identify a coin and researching its history.
