There are many ways to trade gold in today’s market. There are paper gold investments and the actual physical gold itself. Physical gold offers the most safety because he who controls the asset has the power. Examples of paper gold would be ETF’s (electronically traded funds) like GLD which is owning one share of the spot price of gold per ounce. One could also purchase gold mining stocks which participate with the gold market tangentially.

There are two ways to trade in the Physical gold market. These are bullion gold and numismatic gold, which is also called U.S. rare coins or growth gold.

Bullion in the U.S. is anything minted after 1933. It can come in coin form or bar and ingot form. Examples of coins would be American Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs, most countries have their own bullion coins that they mint. Bars or ingots would be what you would see at Fort Knox for example. Bullion can be stock piled in an IRA or can be acquired for storage in one’s home. It is reportable with a 1099B form in certain instances and is considered to be confiscatable.

U.S. rare gold coins were minted from 1795 to 1933. These coins are a completely private position in gold. They are non-reportable, meaning there are no 1099B forms filed by the broker/dealer upon the sale of them. They are also considered to be non-confiscatable due to the exemption during the last gold confiscation in 1933. These coins also tend to outperform bullion. In fact if we study PCGS charts we can derive that mint state rare coins have outperformed bullion close to 4 times to 1.

As you can see there are quite a few ways to trade gold in today’s market. One should always consider their goals and apply a strategy to meet those goals. Even when acquiring gold. In addition one should think of gold as a long-term strategy of conserving and building wealth.