Bullion Price Comparison More Important Today

The company I used to own and where I still work has continuously monitored the retail selling prices at which our national competitors were offering to sell products to retail customers.

During normal markets, we tended to see a tight range from the various dealers for what they were quoting for their ask spot prices for gold, silver and platinum. For most of the dealers, the range of their selling prices tended to be relatively close.

One thing we consistently noticed is that no one company consistently quoted the lowest selling prices across the spectrum of products and across the range of sizes of orders. It also happened that a company that might be a low seller of a particular product one day would not be a week later.

In markets where precious metals prices are more volatile than usual, you tend to see sellers widening their profit margins out of self-protection. However, what has happened since the failure of two U.S. banks in early March, the high-pressure industry bailout of another, and the collapse of Credit Suisse, some dealers who used to be quite competitive on prices really increased some of their markups.

To give you an idea of the wider price disparities, see the chart containing the retail selling prices of several popular products as of about 4 p.m. EST on April 12.

But for coins expected to be shipped 5/18/23 $21,106.10

The prices for these products were selected where the seller offered a lower price to ship “random year” coins or “random brand” silver bars.

The information shows that it is now more important than ever to do comparison price shopping. Three companies were the low-price sellers among the four products listed. Note that all of these transactions would be shipped postpaid, so the postage costs do not affect what the buyer would have paid.

For immediate or short delay shipment of 10 U.S. 1-ounce gold American Eagles, the high price seller charged an extra $679.70, which is 3.16 percent higher than the low-price seller. A buyer could save even more if willing to wait five weeks for delivery. The company with delayed delivery offering these coins at the lowest price also happened to be the highest price seller of 100-ounce silver ingots and U.S. 1-ounce platinum Eagles.

For the 10 100-ounce silver ingots, the low- to high-price seller range was $1,720, where the high-price seller was 6.19 percent more than the low-price seller.

For the $1,000 face value bag of U.S. 90 percent silver coins, there was a huge difference of $7,300.16 between the low- and high-price seller, where the highest price was 29.66 above that of the lowest price.

For the 10 U.S. 1-ounce platinum Eagles, the prices ranged $898, with the top price 7.53 percent above the lowest price.

Most bullion products are fungible, meaning that it doesn’t really matter where you purchase them. Therefore, price and service are more important than just automatically dealing with the same company you used for your last transaction. An internet search will find several potential vendors who might be able to help you with your next purchase.

Patrick A. Heller was honored as a 2019 FUN Numismatic Ambassador. He is also the recipient of the American Numismatic Association 2018 Glenn Smedley Memorial Service Award, 2017 Exemplary Service Award, 2012 Harry Forman National Dealer of the Year Award and 2008 Presidential Award. Over the years, he has also been honored by the Numismatic Literary Guild (including in 2021 for Best Investment Newsletter), Professional Numismatists Guild, Industry Council for Tangible Assets and the Michigan State Numismatic Society. He is the communications officer of Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Mich., and writes Liberty’s Outlook, a monthly newsletter on rare coins and precious metals subjects. Past newsletter issues can be viewed at www.libertycoinservice.com. Some of his radio commentaries titled “Things You ‘Know’ That Just Aren’t So, And Important News You Need To Know” can be heard at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday and Friday mornings on 1320-AM WILS in Lansing (which streams live and becomes part of the audio archives posted at www.1320wils.com).