if you can find decent numi coins at near bullion prices (old sovereigns or 1800's US gold eagles), at say spot plus 10% I would go that way since the downside on spot is a big question mark at the moment and they won't fall like straight bullion. If you wait until gold hits $1000 usd then bullion might be the go if your in the states, the lower premium the better. If your almost anywhere else it's more complicated.
Gold coins, gold bars are still bullion. Only some gold coins will hold its premium. ie Perth Mint Lunar gold coins. Some old vintage bars. All depend on individual.
If you want to invest some of your money in physical gold (not certificates) instead keeping it in a savings account with the intention of being able to sell it if necessary, what would you buy? Gold coins or bars. With gold bars I mean ones of 20g, 50g, 10g or 1 ounce.
if you don't have much then $3000, even in coins, isn't going to make you rich. I would suggest maximising your money and getting the most metal you can. In your question that means bars and typically avoiding the higher premium bars such as PAMP/Englehard etc depending on where you are in the world.
Try 1 oz of each. 1 x Perth mint gold certicard 1 x Perth mint kangaroo, or nuggett. and then you'll have your answer !
Check the price of a one ounce gold lunar coin at todays price and the issue price. 1oz gold lunar coins are released once a year and the mintage is only 30,000 coins. All of the coins from 2008 to 2015 have sold-out.
If you have $3k the problem will be to keep premiums for bullion as low as possible whilst getting fractional amounts - picking numismatic value and bargains is a whole other problem. If you can find Sovereigns or half Sovereigns at under 5% that might be interesting, but to throw a whole different bullion idea into your pot, what about $200 gold coins (1980 to 1996) from RAM? If you are near enough to a refiner (someone like Ainsley or Perth Mint) they have buybacks of these, otherwise destined for melt, at very low premiums in 10g lumps. Gold is Gold.
I think your probably right, particularly as he says he's using it instead of a bank account. Nobody wants savings where they can only cash out one half at a time. If the premiums are low enough I think the $200 gold coins are a great idea.
But the only counterfits i've ever seen were coins. I think a 1oz abc bullion bar would be hard to counterfit compared to a gold kangaroo which they could just plate. You see fake coins all over alibaba.com
Small being 1/4,1/10th. How are you going to slip tungsten into it? Otherwise its the wrong dimensions to weight. Tungsten is too hard to ppress properly. Much easier to slip something into a bar and then reseal, the edge being flat People can counterfeit, but not undetectably. And small is good.Who counterfeits $5 notes?
