If you have ever traded or learned about the trading of precious metals, you are probably aware a metal like gold comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Perhaps the most popular type of gold is the gold bar. Investors search high and low for the best deals on gold bars in an attempt to profit off of their investment at some point in the future. Investors need to know a few crucial facts before they make a purchase because there is a lot more that goes into buying gold bars than you would think.
There are so many different sizes of bars and their prices vary so greatly that it is important for you to have an idea of how much you are willing to spend before even browsing an online precious metals dealer’s selection. Ounce sized gold bars are most definitely for investors who are serious about investing because they can be quite the commitment.
Apart from size, other things you may want to look for while shopping are the brand that produces a given bar as well as the premium the dealer is going to charge. All of these things and more will be discussed in the following few section.
Sizes of Ounce Gold Bars
Gold bars that weigh a given number of ounces can range from being as small as 1 ounce to as large as 400 ounces and beyond. It goes without saying that there is a large disparity between the price charged for something like a 1 ounce gold bar and a 100 ounce gold bar.
Smaller bars such as the 1 and 10 ounce varieties are some of the most popular for investors to purchase. These bars are easy to store, easy to protect, and can be a valuable addition or beginning to any investor’s portfolio. These bars will typically be shipped to you from an online dealer encased in plastic coupled with something called assay.
If you are unfamiliar, assay is no more than a little note or marking that accompanies the protective casing that authenticates that the little piece of yellow metal inside the case is actually gold. After all, gold is a very soft metal which means it easily shows sign of wear so it is advised that if it comes in a protective case, you should keep it there.
Larger bars, which can be anything from 1 kilo (32.15 ounces0 all the way up to 400 ounces, are unlike 1 and 10 ounce bars in that they almost never come encased in protection. As far as assay is concerned, the authentication on bars this large is usually imprinted right on to the metal itself.
The factors of gold being so soft and your bar not being protected like smaller bars mean that you must be extremely careful when handling larger bars. While damage to bars is not nearly as concerning as damage to coins, it is something worth preventing nonetheless.
Below we have listed each common size of ounce gold bars, as well as a generic listing explaining rarer sizes. Click each of the links to learn more about the pricing, availability, and brands for each weight of bar:
Brands of Ounce Size Gold Bars
In addition to the size and content of the bar, another factor in determining how much you are going to be paying for a given gold bar is the company that made it. Just like certain people are loyal to certain clothing and food brands, some investors are just as concerned about the brand of their gold bars.
While it may seem like every bar is the same, the reality is that investors really love to buy into little things that set the bars they have apart from others. At the end of the day, the only thing that remaining strictly brand loyal is going to get you is a bigger price tag.
Some brands that produce ounce sized gold bars are Pamp Suisse, Perth Mint, Credit Suisse, Royal Canadian Mint, Heraeus, Johnson Matthey, and many more. With all of these different options available to the average investor of precious metals you can see how some investors struggle with what kind of bar they are going to purchase.
Storage Options
Investing in gold is one thing, but being able to store and protect your physical gold once it arrives on your doorstep is an entirely different animal. Throughout this whole article we have mentioned that gold is a soft metal that is likely to show signs of wear and tear. Because of this it is important that you keep your gold somewhere where you know it will be safe.
For smaller sizes of gold such as the 1, 5, and 10 ounce varieties, the presence of protective casing means that the company that sold the bar to you has already done most of the leg work as far as protection is concerned.
But for larger bars such as the 1 kilo bar it is your job to protect it. Most people who invest in precious metals also invest in a safe or a lock box for inside their home. While you can likely hide your gold in any number of places around the house, nothing brings peace of mind quite like a lock box or safe does.
If all else fails you can even employ a depository to hold and keep watch over your gold. A depository is nothing more than a huge vault owned by a company whose main goal is to keep your metals safe and sound. Of course there are fees attached with storing your gold in a depository but with a little shopping around you will find that more often than not, the fees are not too astronomical.