Here are some different ways to get into the gold market at very little cost.
Buy Old Gold Jewelry
As funny as it may sound buying old gold jewelry is an excellent and easy way to get into investing in gold – especially for those on a budget. Old jewelry is often referred as scrap gold, the price of the scrap gold item will always reflect the current price of gold. For example someone has an 18k wedding band that weighs 3 grams. 18k gold is 75% pure gold mixed with other metals. The gold price per gram at the moment is around $35. 18k gold is therefore $26.50 per gram so the ring is worth $79.68. As the gold price gold up and down so will the value of your ring in proportion to the amount of gold in it. So you have just made a gold investment for under $100. If you buy 10k or 14 rings then obviously it will get cheaper. The trick is knowing the scrap gold value of an item. If you go to the website linked below there is a Scrap Gold Calculator that will calculate the value of any scrap gold item. Scrap gold can be bought easily on Ebay or try your local coin shop or second hand jeweler. You don’t want to be paying more than 10% above the scrap gold value of the item though.
Buy Old European Coins
Over 100 years ago almost all European countries had gold coins in circulation, these coins contain small fractions of pure gold in them. An Austrian 1 ducat for example has just over one tenth of an ounce of gold in them. A half British Sovereign has 0.1177 of an ounce of pure gold – pricing them at just over $100. The only draw back with these coins is calculating the current value because they all have very odd amounts of gold in them. If you go to the website linked below the gold calculator will calculate the current value of any of these coins.
Buy Silver
Silver is also a precious metal and its price tends to rise and fall with that of gold (see link below for explanation of the Gold to Silver Ratio). It is also much cheaper than gold with an ounce costing under $20 at todays prices. What is even better is junk silver coins – old US coins such as Kennedy Half Dollars , Morgan Silver Dollars, Peace Dollars and So On. The great thing about these coins is that they are very low denomination for example a Mercury Silver Dime will cost you under $2. Its value will always reflect the price of silver and you can keep adding to your collection even on a very small budget. You want to find a dealer that will sell you these coins in small quantities, try your local coin deall or once again Ebay is a great place. The trick with these coins also is to know the current silver value of each coin you are thinking of purchasing. Go to the In Gold We Trust website and their calculator will give you up to the minute prices on all junk silver coins as well as scrap gold prices and values on most other silver and gold coins