Whether you are buying or selling gold coins or bullion, you’ll probably have to deal with shipping the gold to your home or to a seller. You should know that because of its weight and value, gold isn’t all that easy to ship. You have to pay a premium to ship it, and you’ll also have to pay for shipping insurance.
Most sellers use and recommend using Registered Mail for shipping gold. Take pretty much every security measure you can when shipping gold, including having a tracking number for the package and getting delivery confirmation where the recipient has to sign for the package.
Besides this, be sure that you get shipping insurance for your gold before you ship it. You’ll probably need to have it appraised, since you’ll get shipping insurance for the amount that the gold is worth. While you can always have a ballpark figure for this, knowing exactly what the gold is worth is a better idea, since your shipping insurance will be more specific. If someone has bought the gold from you, be sure to insure it for whatever that person paid you so that you can get your money back if the gold doesn’t make it for some reason.
Shipping gold gets particularly complicated if you’re shipping it internationally. Gold can easily get hung up at customs, so you may spend hours on the phone trying to sort the mess out. Before dealing with that, talk to the buyer and, if you can, a customs office representative about how the gold will make it through country lines and what you can do to make the process easier.
If you want to skip shipping gold altogether but still want to invest in gold, you could consider buying gold from a vault. When you buy gold from a vault, you basically own it even though someone else takes care of it for you. Basically, you don’t have to pay for shipping because the gold stays in storage at the vault. Some vaults will ship your gold to you if you request it, but many investors choose to simply leave their precious metals in the vault for the life of their investments.
Shipping gold coins is easier than shipping bullion, and you might get a good deal on shipping if you buy your gold from a reputable company who has deals on shipping and whatnot. Buying gold coins is the same type of investment as buying gold bars, although it does simplify parts of the process.
