Buying gold and silver can be challenging for precious metals investors. On the one hand, many investors prefer to purchase physical precious metals, including gold and silver bars and coins, instead of purchasing precious metals via an ETF or futures contract.
There is one simple reason for this: You physically own the metal. You can hold the metal. This means that the metal exists if the price goes up or down.
Retail precious metals investors primarily invest in gold, silver, platinum and palladium in the form of bars and coins.
Gold, silver, platinum and palladium coins are most popular in 1 Ounce sizes.
Government mints produce all coins sold by swissbullion.eu
The most popular gold coins are:
The most popular silver coins are:
Primarily metal refineries, including PAMP, Valcambi, Argor Heraeus and Heraeus, produce gold and silver bars. These refineries also produce gold and silver bars for many of the banks, including the Credit Suisse and UBS gold bars.
Recently, some of the government mints have also started producing gold bars in various sizes; this includes gold bars produced by the Royal Canadian Mint, and the Loxodonta Elephant bar produced by the Rand Refinery.
The precious metals market for platinum and palladium is much smaller than that for gold and silver. However, these are still valuable investment options for precious metals investors. PAMP and Credit Suisse are the most popular palladium and platinum bars. The Canadian Maple Leaf is the most popular coin for platinum and palladium.
