Gold bars, or gold ingots, have been a major source of investment for generations. Gold is a tangible asset that is resistant to corrosion and tarnishing. It holds its value in the long run and can even outperform stocks in times of economic uncertainty when demand is high.
Much like any other investment asset, such as bonds, stocks, or even real estate, there is a time to buy and a time to sell your physical gold bullion bars. This process, however, can be nerve-wracking, especially for those who are new to this market and are selling their bullion for the first few times.
Unless you are in a personal financial crisis, or you are liquidating your assets in order to make a big purchase (house or college tuition, for instance), deciding on the right moment to sell requires planning and keeping up with the current and historical prices of gold. SD Bullion has a page dedicated to tracking the spot gold price. You will find an interactive chart, showing the ups and downs of gold throughout decades. We also display the current spot price for gold, silver, and platinum on the top of our website, right above our logo. The spot price of gold is constantly updated during the day and you can see those changes live, as they happen.
We’ve prepared a quick “how-to” guide that will help you through the process of selling your gold bars. Keep reading as we give you some tips on how to avoid pitfalls and setbacks, and how to obtain the best bid prices for your gold bullion products.
How is the gold price formed?
The “standard” market value for pure gold is called the gold spot price. It is an average price for one troy ounce of gold formed by transactions happening live during the day on mercantile and derivatives markets around the world, such as COMEX, NYMEX, and CME. Generally, the spot gold price fluctuates slightly, starting Sunday nights in Asia and carrying on with usually minor changes during the workweek. Those fluctuations are typically small percentages and shouldn’t greatly affect sales.
The main reason why the gold spot price is always changing is a basic law of supply and demand. While supply is determined by the amount of physical gold mined each year, demand varies according to market speculation and financial trends. For instance, when interest rates are low in times of economic crisis and there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the stock market, gold demand tends to go up as investors look for a safe haven against fiat currency devaluation and inflation.
Recent reports state that the amount of gold mined each year since 2005 has varied slightly from 2500 tons to 3000 tons. On the other hand, gold demand has increased dramatically, driven by the uncertainty brought up by the pandemic, which even caused the spot price of gold to reach an all-time high of $2,069.29 on August 6th of 2020.
The gold spot price from August 2020, to July 2021.
Similarly to gold, you can also find live and historical spot prices for silver, platinum, and palladium on our website. If you are thinking about selling other kinds of precious metals, such as silver bullion (silver coin or silver bars), make sure to track its spot price as well.
Why is the spot price of gold so important?
As mentioned above, the spot price of gold is the “base” for gold transactions. You shouldn’t expect to buy gold exactly at the spot price, otherwise, bullion dealers wouldn’t be able to cover overhead costs and still make a profit and would be out of business. Dealers charge a “premium”, which is a small percentage over the spot price of gold, for each gold item. That is what is called the “ask price”. Minted gold bars, which usually have a design and require more work than gold ingots, carry slightly higher premiums.
Likewise, when reselling your bullion to a dealer, you shouldn’t expect to receive the same as the “ask price”. The “bid price” is how much the dealer is willing to pay for your gold bars.
Why keep track of historical gold prices?
Investing in gold is a long-term investment. You shouldn’t expect to turn in a great profit by buying and reselling gold in the short run. By keeping track of the current and historical gold prices, you can try to predict its fluctuations (if it is on an uptrend, downtrend, or static). With that information in hand, you can decide whether it is a good time to sell your gold bars, or if you should hold on to your assets for a while longer.
Keep in mind that you should have access to accurate information and, even with the best possible analyzes, there is no 100% proof way of knowing if gold prices are going up or down. At the end of the day, it all comes down to speculation.
You can also check our post: When to Sell Gold and Silver
Local Dealer vs Online Dealer
When you decide on the right time to liquidate your gold bars, you might wonder to whom you are going to sell them?
It is always possible to find another gold buyer who is willing to take your bullion off your hands. However, as a rule of thumb, make sure not to arrange any meetings in a public space. You do not want to walk around on the street, carrying your gold bars, unless you want to be mugged.
Our experience shows that selling to a physical precious metal dealer is the safest choice. Just make sure that it is a trusted and reputable dealer.
A brick-and-mortar coin shop, or even a pawn shop, could be good options if you are looking for a quick buck and live in a big city. However, there is still some danger when taking your gold bar to the shop. In addition, remember that a local gold dealer has a series of business costs to cover in order to make a living. You might get smaller offers for your bullion than if you were selling to online dealers.
Needless to say that, by selling to online gold buyers, you are not entirely safe from scams and con artists. Listing your products on websites such as eBay might also attract ill-intentioned people who could try and fool you. For instance, they might want to set the payment method to check and, after you ship them your bullion, they cancel the check (or wrote you a bogus one, to begin with).
An online bullion dealer, such as us here at SD Bullion, typically has a larger market, so they could, potentially, be able to offer you better bid prices.
At SD Bullion, our team is constantly buying gold, silver, platinum, and palladium products from the secondary market. In the next section, we will walk you through our buyback process and show you how simple it can be to resell your products to us.
How to sell gold bars at SD Bullion?
Selling your gold bullion bar or gold bullion coin online to us at SD Bullion is as easy as 1-2-3. All you have to do is follow these steps:
- First of all, establish communication with one of our representatives by calling us at 1-800-294-8732 or through our live web chat feature on the bottom right of your screen;
- Describe the products you want to sell: brand, the amount you are selling, the gold content of your product (weight and purity), and mint year (if applicable);
- You will receive a bid price from our agent. If you agree upon it, the price gets locked in until the transaction is finalized. You might need to provide your credit card information to lock in your prices;
- Once the sale is locked in, you will receive a purchase order containing the address to where you should ship your metals. The purchase order must be shipped with the products;
- Once your products arrive in our inventory, our team inspects them to check if everything is in order. After your package is fully inspected, the purchase is approved and a payment order is issued in your favor. You should receive your payment within 1-3 business days.
At SD Bullion, we value your investment and it is our motto to provide you with the best price when selling to us, guaranteed. Our expertise in the bullion market and our years of experience allow us to offer industry-leading rates with a simple buyback process and fast payment.
We have been in operation since 2012. We have executed more than $1 billion dollars in transactions from more than 100,000 satisfied customers throughout this time.
Our reputation is backed by 8 straight years receiving the A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, along with over 50,000 positive reviews.
