Gold Trading: A Couple of Tips from Experts

As gold rose to a record high of $1498.6/oz in the third week of April 2011, investors took opportunity to benefit from gold trading. However, despite the rise in gold prices, there was not much selling in gold as the investors are confident of further upside in its bullion prices. The year of 2011 is being considered as the profitable year for gold trading as there are great hopes of reaping returns on gold in future.

Gold Trading Tips

Before trading for gold, one needs to be very precise about a number of aspects that goes into acquiring gold. Here are a few tips laid by the experts regarding the safe investing:

• Investment in history: Numismatic gold coins are the first choice of savvy gold buyers today. Many are drawn to the numismatic gold coins simply for the reason of owning a piece of history. In Asian countries, especially India, gold holds a cultural significance and people like to buy gold for the sake of safe investment as well as symbol of heritage. Gold experts recommend acquiring the following coins as they are some of the most popular:
• American Eagle: American Gold Eagle is one a great option to buy gold. Built with an ounce of gold, this fifty dollar denomination gold coin had been the popular coinage of America for many years. First minted in 1986, this coin is very rarely found today and this rarity has increased its value many times over.
• American Double Eagle: Built with almost an ounce of gold, this gold coin was one with the highest denominations in ancient American history. Since this gold piece had twice the value of the American Eagle, these coins were termed as "Double Eagles". The first double eagle was minted in 1849, corresponding with the California Gold Rush. Due to the intrinsic gold content of this coin, it holds a great value from the point of view of serious investors. This coin remained in circulation from 1850-1933.
• American Half Eagle: The Half Eagle implies the face value of $5 and was produced for circulation from 1795 to 1929. Originally designed by Robert Scot, the design and composition of this coin changed many times over the years. Initially, the coin contained .9167 gold and .0833 copper and silver.
• American Quarter Eagle: The quarter eagle was a coin issued by the United States with a denomination of two hundred and fifty cents. The first issues of this coin weighed 67.5 grains with .9167 fineness of gold, until the weight was modified to 64.5 grains and the fineness changed to .8992 by the Act of June 28, 1834. The Act of January 18, 1837 finally established a fineness of .900 for this coin.
  

One needs to be extra cautious while investing in jewelry. If a jewelry piece has a karat stamp on it then it is deemed as pure gold. 24K is considered as the purest form of gold. So, if your jewelry piece has the 18K stamp on it, then it is only 75% gold and rest 25% is alloy. The thumb rule is to divide the karat stamp amount by 24 in order to calculate the purity in percentage. The higher the percentage, the purer the gold and the more money you can get out of the gold trading.

Gold trading can prove as an extremely profitable venture considering its current price hovering just below $1500 per ounce. Investors are hopeful that the price of gold will still go high and they will get handsome returns in future.