Hello everyone, I just came with a thought on sizing and wanted your opinion on this. I'm sure that everyone here would generally prefer to have smaller sized bullion compared to larger sized bullion if the price per ounce was the same. What I wanted to know was whether anyone here would sell larger bullion and then buy smaller bullion + premium for the flexibility it offers or keep the larger bullion because you keep more metal. I'm asking this from an investment/strategy point of view rather than from a collector/semi/numismatic point of view. Like for example, would you sell your 100oz/5kg+ silver bars or 10oz/1kg+ gold bars at spot or maybe less and then buy 1kg or smaller bullion silver or 1~5oz or smaller bullion gold at an extra premium where you end up with less gold/silver but you have smaller units? Has anyone actually done this and what do guys think? Thanks!
I recently sold all my 1/4oz and larger pieces of gold and bought 1/10 and smaller. For silver I have never stacked anything over 1oz size but I can see the advantage of bulk silver over gold due to cost. It will be nigh on impossible to sell larger pieces of gold in a hurry the way the price is moving. When I want to sell, its only because of a need. Sometimes a 1oz piece can take up to a week to move unless I want to cut a loss. I can sell a 1/10oz or even 10 of them within an hour. The same isn't true with silver. You can see larger bars up to 1kg move pretty quick. But it will slow down as price increases. So just my two cents, maybe consider fractional gold but maintain bulk silver for now. Or maintain everything bulk if you don't see yourself as relying on selling it in a hurry.
Can anyone suggest a "premium table" link? Does such a reference exist? e.g. AU Item Premium 1oz ingot 0% 1oz PM 3% 1/2 oz PM 5% etc.. I had a spreadsheet ages ago, but premiums seem to move so it was pretty much useless other than to note the premium I had paid.
So in your case when you traded for smaller pieces, did you end up with less metal as a result and if so, would you say that the cost was worth it as you are ending up with less metal? Also, wouldn't you be able to sell large pieces of bullion to a dealer if you needed it sold quickly to someone who would hopefully offer spot or close to spot or are they just rare these days?
Yes I could have sold to a dealer, but not at the price I want and not without ID for large sums. I ended up with roughly 1/10 less of an ounce than where I started for same cost fortunately.
If I had those big bars I would keep them and buy lots of little bits of silver as well to try and even up my big bits to little bits ratio. When it came time to sell I would sell the little bits to build up a reputation with a dealer and then offload the big bits on them. You might find that the cost of offloading a big bit later is less than the loss of metal in exchanging it for small bits now.
I could see a possible scenario where people would be trading their large silver for gold when the ratio tightens. Would this be more common than trading for smaller metal where you end up with less metal?
