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OK, if you search and find my original introduction post you'll see the details, but I have a very small random collection of coins, value (determined by checking recent sales on eBay) of around $600 max. Melt value might be slightly higher on a few, but not by much.

Fast forward several months and the wife and I are serious about moving a lot of our cash over into gold. Primary motivation is to avoid the devaluation of our savings and protect against potential threats (government default, inflation, hyper-inflation, etc.). Any increase in gold value will be appreciated (pun intended) but we will consider that a welcome bonus. We're not buying gold as an investment per se.

Today we began by purchasing from a local shop. And by local, I mean the nearest one to our current location. Fresno Coin, specifically. When we first went in they had a gold 1 oz. bar, but by the time we got back from the bank with cash it was gone. So all they had left in the 1oz. size were AGE's w/ a $70 premium. We went ahead and purchased three. Incredibly this is the cheapest premium I can find when looking at other California dealer's web sites!

Going forward, we intend to keep accumulating, but I have questions about the best way to go about this. Here are our caveats:

1 - Portability/storage - we are currently traveling in an SUV towing a pop-up trailer for several months. Having a lot of gold on us feels risky, so we will probably ship most of it to a safe storage location for later pickup. If you have any ideas for safe temporary storage in our vehicle it would be appreciated. We plan on using something non-obvious. In other words, we won't be putting it in a safe, or a bag marked "lots of gold in here."

2 - Foreign travel - Starting next year we plan to travel through Central America and South America. I like the idea of having my gold with me, but I don't like the idea of having it seen by prying eyes at every border or customs inspection station. Again, we might store most back in the states, but might have some with us, or acquire it on the road.

So, given the above, what would you suggest? AGE's seem to have really high premiums, but many think their liquidity offsets this. We're not planning on selling for profit as much as just keeping to prevent loss, so I'm not sure the high premium is justified. I like the Mexican gold pesos in case we need to do some selling in Latin America, but I'm not sure if it would help at all. And I am wondering if smaller coins would be easier to sell on the market if gold really shoots through the roof. Ingots really appeal to me and seem to have much lower premiums, but I'm not sure about liquidity or buyer perception if I need to sell at some future date.

OK, enough rambling for now. I look forward to any thoughts you might have. Thanks in advance!

1. You'll get a higher premium back when you sell those AGE's. But, there's nothing wrong with having some other well-known coins in the stash (Krugs, Maples, 50 Pesos, 100 Coronas) that don't have such a high premium, and the spreads are still pretty narrow. The 50 pesos and 100 coronas have the lowest premiums around, and any gold dealer worth anything will buy them on the spot. They're my preferred way to store gold.

2. How long are you guys planning to stay abroad??? If you have trusted family or even a good digging spot, leave it there--DON'T TAKE GOLD TO LATIN/SOUTH AMERICA! Walking down the street there isn't like walking down the street here. You want to buy some gold while you're down there, though? Good on ya! Take some pics and show us when you get back!

You're not looking to re-sell quickly, that's good--but, you'll sell it eventually so the majority of your stack should be in a form that is easily recognizable. And 1 oz. bars are cool, I'd just stick with well-known refiners, you know, for the sake of liquidity since bars are less liquid than coins. Also, kudos to your wife for being behind you! It's great when couples are on the same financial page. My wife wouldn't let me touch silver 7 years ago when I first wanted to buy it, now she's like "Why didn't you just ignore me and buy it anyway!?" and "When our tax refund comes in, I want you to put it all into metals!" I was never more attracted to her in my life

You're already on the right track, but here's some extra tips:
- Industry standard purity is .999+ fine. Anything made of this will have no refining costs, thus less retail seller discount
- Make larger purchases with gold, make change with silver (think 10 oz bars and 1 oz bars/rounds)
- Hide your stash in multiple locations and in the vehicle less likely to be stolen
- Be discreet in your dealings. In foreign places, you might stick out like a sore thumb. Then if the local word spreads that you have gold and silver, you become an easily identifiable target.

Read people's experiences in smaller forums like this one, regarding travel in Latin America. Any place that has check points inside the country is a place you are going to have to pay bribes to get through (maybe not to start, but such check points depress internal trade, the economy flat lines, tax receipts fall close to zero, no money to pay police/army, police/army start "direct taxation", and that means "bribes"). Such check points can become government protected robbery. Although the "most stolen" is probably flashlight batteries, I doubt if they will turn their noses up at gold, and don't think you can think of a place to hide anything that the police/bandits/army/drug runners are not familiar with.

I don't know about Latin America, but I've read that the best bribe for check points in the Philipines is bulk packs of AAA cells.

Some people have relatives who can be trusted. I don't. The one branch that might be trustworthy has decided to shelter a relative who is a meth user. Forget it. Maybe you have someone who can be trusted, and will not shelter such scum. If you do, and and if they live somewhere fairly safe, you might use them as a drop point. Be sure they will be willing to turn away, kill if necessary, parasitic relatives and "freinds".

argent_pur wrote:1. You'll get a higher premium back when you sell those AGE's. But, there's nothing wrong with having some other well-known coins in the stash (Krugs, Maples, 50 Pesos, 100 Coronas) that don't have such a high premium, and the spreads are still pretty narrow. The 50 pesos and 100 coronas have the lowest premiums around, and any gold dealer worth anything will buy them on the spot. They're my preferred way to store gold.

Thanks, I will start looking for the pesos and coronas, or small ingots.

argent_pur wrote:2. How long are you guys planning to stay abroad???

Possibly a year or two. It depends.

Mossy wrote:Read people's experiences in smaller forums like this one, regarding travel in Latin America. Any place that has check points inside the country is a place you are going to have to pay bribes to get through (maybe not to start, but such check points depress internal trade, the economy flat lines, tax receipts fall close to zero, no money to pay police/army, police/army start "direct taxation", and that means "bribes"). Such check points can become government protected robbery. Although the "most stolen" is probably flashlight batteries, I doubt if they will turn their noses up at gold, and don't think you can think of a place to hide anything that the police/bandits/army/drug runners are not familiar with.

We're not above traveling in countries that the State Department issues warnings about, but we're not crazy either. We spent 10 days in Mexico in 2008 and had a blast. Never felt unsafe. But I'd rather avoid narcos and Shining Path and such.

Mossy wrote:Some people have relatives who can be trusted. I don't. The one branch that might be trustworthy has decided to shelter a relative who is a meth user. Forget it. Maybe you have someone who can be trusted, and will not shelter such scum. If you do, and and if they live somewhere fairly safe, you might use them as a drop point. Be sure they will be willing to turn away, kill if necessary, parasitic relatives and "freinds".

I definitely have trustworthy relatives, but I have other concerns here. How difficult would it be to safely and quickly have my relative convert some of my gold to cash and get it to me? And if the dollar has really dropped, I'd rather sell it directly into some other currency. Also, what if hard times befall my relative? I'd feel pretty crummy having them take my gold to a bank and sell it, then deposit the money into my account, all the while they are struggling to make ends meet. Things like this worry me. I'm not sure if there is a good solution, other than a safe deposit box. But then only *I* could get into the box, so we lose a lot of convenience there.

My brother currently has a fire-proof box with my important documents in it, but it isn't attached to a wall or floor and is thus susceptible to theft.

ok, my brain hurts now...

You could also buy smaller coins like 1/10th oz GAE's or (older) Swiss 20 Franc Gold Coins

you should be able to get .1867 french or swiss franc coins for $10-$20 over spot. its a more convenient size.

i think you are nuts to travel with coins. there was a guy who took some to mexico and ended up in jail for a week. google this. i think the story was on casey or sovereign man.

you might want to check out goldmoney.com. it should meet most of your goals. its not perfect, but its very good. basically, you send money overseas, they convert it to bullion at a premium that is better than you are paying for coins, and they store it. they will also buy back at spot. so you get gold, you get it offshore, its convenient and reasonably priced. downside is its effectively an unallocated pool account, but with a solid company (James Turk). if you are willing to pay a bit more, there are outfits that will buy specific coins for you and allocate it to you but the minimums are high, the premiums both in and out high, and storage costs not insignifcant. i know little about these companies but one to check out is global gold.