When markets teeter and analysts see signs of a recession, people turn away from traditional markets and buy gold and silver instead.
That’s exactly what people are doing right now. Confusion over whether the Fed will hike interest rates soon, along with worry that the Brexit vote will take the United Kingdom out of the EU, have people scrambling to make sure they have something of value in their pockets, not just paper money and stock certificates.
It’s a great time to buy into gold and silver too, both have bottomed and are trending upward. Gold is at $1,313.00 /oz and Silver is at $17.73/oz.
Some of the world’s greatest investors have bought into gold again. George Soros, valued at $23 billion, just invested in gold for the first time in three years.
Watch Out for Fakes
But if you are buying physical coins you need to watch out for fakes. Thousands of fake coins are flooding the market, and it’s hard for the average investor to distinguish real from false. Imposter coins used to be fairly easy to spot, but now counterfeiters are getting more sophisticated.
Coins are being created with tungsten, then plated in tiny amounts of gold that will pass an acid test, the standard method that indicates if there’s real gold present. Well made fakes will even weigh the same as the real coins they’re trying to imitate, like the American Eagle and Canadian Maple Leaf.
Buyers don’t know they’ve purchased fake coins until they go to sell it to a dealer and are told it’s fake –a mistake that could cost thousands of dollars.
If it is too good to be true, you’re probably getting a fake. While shopping at a reputable dealer or website will cost more than the guy selling them on eBay, you’ll know that when the times comes to sell, you’ll be able to make money from them. Better that than being the guy who’s holding tungsten covered in gold leaf.
To continue reading about the fake coins on the market, read the NBC article.
Christian DeHaemer
Check us out on YouTube!Christian is the founder of Bull and Bust Report and an editor at Energy and Capital. For more on Christian, see his editor’s page.
