Buying Gold

I forgot something important !!

Wall Street tends to play a game called, pump and dump. They will spend millions buying stock inflating it value and creating a media frenzy. When it hits a desired price, they dump (shorting) causing new lows and making them a ton of money.

That's a nice story but irrelevant to your initial question.

Depending on what you purchased, most likely pre 1933 gold. There is inherent numismatic value. My saint collection are also worth more now than 10 years ago.

When people post about buying gold for investments purposes and the choice between coins and bars, the coins they refer to are bullion coins not numismatic coins. That's comparing apples and oranges.

Coins like Kruggerands, maple leafs and American eagles are "investment coins". To buy gold as an investment (i.e. as close to spot at possible) bars will give you a better per dollar value.

If you want gold as a hedge against gubmint financial mismangement, why would you buy something they can control?

Therein lies the crux of the matter. Why indeed? Perhaps because there is a difference between government mismanagement and government theft. It is quite possible to have one without the other... or even both at the same time!

I am thinking that we will continue to see government financial incompetence for some time to come now. Whether or not that results in confiscation of privately held PM investments, whether paper or physical, is a guess at best.

Fortunately, this is not an either / or choice. It is quite possible and perhaps even beneficial as well, to have both physical and paper PM investments. I do. Whether or not that will work out satisfactorily in the end... who knows? But there are advantages to this approach that can't be had via only choosing one of them.