Gold Coins: Safety and Security

Many Americans choose to buy gold coins to provide safety and security for their hard earned wealth.

This has especially been the case in the past 2 years with the collapse of the real estate market and a bear market in stocks.

Gold is viewed as an excellent alternative investment because it tends to move independently of paper assets. It also has a long history of providing a safe haven in a variety of trying times: depression, hyperinflation, crisis, war and even famine.

Gold is a tangible asset that has been around thousands of years. And it has been said that gold is the only asset not dependent on anyone’s promise to repay.

Gold is especially effective at being a counterweight to paper currencies, such as the U.S. dollar. When the dollar is weak, the price of gold tends to rise substantially. This is also true with regard to international currency crises. For instance, when various Asian currencies fell sharply in 1997, the price of gold in those currencies, such as the Thai baht, rose sharply.

It seems that when ever conditions dictate that people seek safety and security, they turn to gold, and gold does indeed provide that safety and security.

Owning Gold Coins

For the most part, the best way for most people to own gold is to own coins. There are different kinds of gold coins from which to choose.

The most widely owned gold coins in America are gold bullion coins. Gold bullion coins are coins that are sold and held strictly for their precious metals content. They have no appeal to collectors, however they are an excellent, cost-effective way to own gold.

There are many different kinds of gold bullion coins. Among the types that can be encountered in the marketplace are the Gold American Eagle, the Gold American Buffalo, the Gold Canadian Maple Leaf, the Gold Austrian Vienna Philharmonic, and the South African Krugerrand.

The most widely owned of these coins is the Gold American Eagle, followed closely by the South African Krugerrand.

With the exception of the Gold American Buffalo, which is available in only the 1-ounce size, these coins are generally available in a variety of sizes to meet almost any budget, ranging from 1/20 ounce to 1 ounce.

There is another class of gold coins which provide an excellent means of gold ownership: rare gold coins.

Rare Gold Coins

Today, rare gold coins are generally those gold coins minted in the United States for circulation between 1795 and 1933.

Many Americans are still unaware that the U.S. Mint minted gold coins for circulation as money in this country for most of our early history. In fact, gold coinage as circulating money only ceased in 1933 when, in an effort to combat some of the effect of the economic crisis known as the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Congress acted to end gold coinage, recalled all the gold coins in circulation and made it illegal for private citizens to own gold.

From 1933 until 1974, when the right to own gold was restored, Americans could not legally own gold. And the overwhelming majority of the gold coins in circulation before 1933 were melted down into gold bars.

As a result, surviving gold coins from the era stretching from 1795 to 1933 have varying levels of rarity.

Rare gold coins are an excellent way to own gold because they offer the intrinsic value of their gold content, combined with added capital appreciation potential due to their rarity and quality levels.

In addition, rare gold coins offer unique privacy advantages, a key consideration in today’s litigation-crazed society. In addition, in 1933 those who owned gold coins that were rare or unusual were able to keep them as they were excluded from confiscation.