Wanting Advice On Starting World Gold Coin Collection

Allow me to ramble aimlessly...
So, your looking to spend about 160 bucks a month, or save up for a few months and spend a corresponding amount. Some will say you missed the gold boat, and some not... anyway. What you could do are buy common smaller size coins and possibly fractional bullion rounds.

To start off, I'd get common world gold coins... esp. Mexico 2 and 2.5 pesos, these can be had for near spot(the gold bullion value of the coin... most gold coins are not pure gold, common is 90% or .900 with 10% copper as a hardener... gold is very soft and pure gold would not stand up to circulation so well) and are typically re-strikes(official mint re-issues of common gold coins struck as bullion). Same can be said for Austrian gold coronas. There are also common 2.5 dollar US coins that aren't much more than spot.

Get a good book on "world gold coins"(<hint) , or otherwise familiarize yourself with the coins before you purchase or bid... like purity, weight, size, etc. Buying more common gold to start off keeps things affordable and you are less likely to get stung... but there are copies of everything out there, but less likely with common stuff.

Buying rare gold is another story. You can pay sustatially more than the bullion value of the coin... a coin that is more likely to be counterfeited, so learning on lower value/common coins is safer. Also, third party grading(tpgs) ccompanies can verify and encase the coins of high value. Rare coins having low mintages that are old and in good condition cost alot more than their intrinsic gold value.

Fractional bullion rounds can be had from most bullion producing countries, and are interesting as a more affordable collection. Twenty-fifths, twentieths(< I consider these a little too small... unless they can be had at spot), tenths, quarters, halves and whole ounces can be had. True, the smaller the round the higher the premium%(price over spot that you'll pay)... but this can be manageable if you shop crefully and buy the unexpected one that may crop up... when you were looking for something else... can be a nice surprise.

So, you could get a tenth ounce... American gold Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf, Mexican Libertad, Australian Nugget/Kangaroo, South African Krugerrand, British Britannia, Chinese Panda (these are most common) and a few others... and have a decent world bullion collection within a year.

The spot price of gold rite now is say 1500 bucks, so a tenth is about 150 bucks but, of course theremay be shipping and that premium mentioned above, so you mite be looking at 170 bucks for a common tenth.

You can sorta apply the same idea to world gold coins, esp. to common European coins.

I would like to mention that there are now soo many commemorative gold coins out there. Stay away from the mini coins these days... Until you get up to speed. Anything equal to or less than 1/25 of an ounce... I'd only want from a world recognized mint. Having coins that are actually marked as to their gold content and weight, such as some from South America, are more re-salable than unmarked beany baby type stuff.

So anyway, in my opinion, a decent world gold set can be put together at an affordable price, over not too long of time period. And any coin seller here will agree with me that an educated customer is the best customer.

If it's gold you want


this is the least expensive way to do it.

I also collect Gold coins, as well as Gold Proofs.

For the South African 1/10th Kruger Rand, the best place to go to is to directly order from the South African Mint.
Go to the sa mint website, there you will find all the relevant info on the gold series, as well as link to CoinWorld, which is the selling arm of the SA Mint.
You can do Mail order there. IMO is the best way to get lowest price and guaranteed Gold Coin, is to buy directly from the source.
You would probably also be able to get the other countries gold directly from the mints, I guess, check them out and see.

If you are going to collect in a specialised area, get the references.
Here are three:

Krause's World Gold Coins..... one of their famous series of 'telephone books'.....crazily, perhaps, I have read this book somewhat like a novel from end to end. Why? because in doing this, you can attain a good appreciation of what is available, as well as inspiring yourself as to what you would try to obtain at sometime in the future.

Historic Gold coins of the World from Croesus to Elizabeth 11, by Burton Hobson. publ. 1971, London, by Blandford Press Ltd. This has absolutely superb colour photographs of about 250 gold coins that have been produced over the last 2500 years. This book was a joy to read from cover to cover, and learn in the process. Most coins are pictured at either 2.5X or 4X, so it is possible to appreciate the detail.

How to Invest in Gold Coins, by Donald J. Hoppe, publ. by Arlington House New Rochelle, NY. This book mainly concentrates on historic U.S. gold coins, but considers world gold as well. There a couple of detailed chapters on how to build gold coin investment portfolios, with size depending on your budget.




For me, I have a few ancient Roman Aureii most bought decades ago from Spink's in London, and include the Emperors Augustus, Claudius, and Vespasian. I also have a Philip 11 gold stater from Macedon, and a nice Solidus of Leo, also from Spink's. I also have some nice American gold.

For ancient gold, it is ESSENTIAL that you get that sort of material from dealers or auction houses whose reputation is beyond reproach. There are an awful lot of modern forged gold coins purporting to be ancient. ALWAYS check the provenance of any ancient gold coin you are considering. For every purchase with ancients, I suggest you refer to the International Bureau for the Suppression of Counterfeit Coins (IBSCC). All of the top dealers are subscribers to this organisation, and are more than willing to help you.

The VCOINS website has quite a few ancient gold coins for sale, from dealers around the world. The pictures on this site are a good pictorial reference, as well as a place to consider a purchase.

For modern coins, the gold coins of George 1V have always intrigued me, and I have managed to get the Five Sovereign and Two Sovereign plain edged proof of 1937, as well as a proof 1952 Pound of South Africa. Very few gold coins were made anywhere in the World between 1932 and about 1970.

I had a complete type set of Australian Sovereigns and Half Sovereigns and an Adelaide Pound, But I sold that collection a long time ago, and was part deposit for my first house. That set comprised 17 coins, and would have been worth perhaps $20,000 now, considering the conditions of the coins involved.

I also have a platinum 1 Ounce bullion Koala, a rather nice commemorative gold medal, and some ancient Indian gold.

If you are into modern bullion, all of the suggestions in this thread before mine are excellent advice.

Then why Gold?



Lots of possibly good advice but as you mentioned your not rich. By that statement alone I would suspect money is not readily available in large quantities for you. Silver coins alone are now rather on the expensive side for many of us. Trying to collect Gold coins is nice but for many of us, just not practical. And with Gold at a fantastic high now, I'd almost wait to see if it crashes down like Silver once did.
And I too say warm wishes.

just_carl

OP had said:




Which I took to mean that they were looking to use this as somewhat of a savings/collection incentive rather than a get rich incentive (of course I could just be reading too much into it).

I had, however, thought along the lines as to what you had said. There's a better chance with silver if for no other reason that you can buy more of it and if it rises then you have far more value but if they're looking towards gold simply as a vehicle for savings/interesting world collection than it doesn't really matter.

OP:

I've been toying with a similar idea myself after seeing another thread here where a guy is filling a tube with quarter eagles--one or so at a time. I just may have to do this too...

this is a fun thing to do. There are so many world gold that when you get a sizable collection, there is so much neat things to see. Also foreign gold is fairly cheap, you can usually find it at spot. But like others said, get some books and get educated so you don't buy fakes, etc.