I Don’t Understand Numismatic Coin Investing vs. Bullion Investing

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Damon Geller
President
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It’s good that you want to understand numismatic coin investing before making a major investment in numismatic coins. The good news is, it really just comes down to a simple definition of each. “Bullion” refers to gold that trades solely for its weight and “numismatic” refers to a coin that has a value premium in addition to its weight, usually because it is limited in population and has some privacy advantages. Bullion can be a bullion coin like a Canadian Maple Leaf or it can be a bar or ingot in various sizes. Bullion is worth nothing more than its weight when selling and, when buying, will be its weight plus a mintage fee. Mintage fees are larger on coins and fractional coins than larger bars but all bullion has a mintage fee to buy it. Numismatic coins have an expanding and, sometimes, contracting premium to their weight and can be sold for their weight plus whatever the current premium is. Numismatic coins tend to be more stable than bullion as they do not have a paper-traded component. Numismatic coins also offer more privacy than bullion as they are non-reportable and less visible to the government.

As a rule of thumb, if you are trading in and out of gold several times a year, bullion would be a better asset for that strategy. Numismatic coins would be geared to the saver/investor who wants wealth preservation over a longer time-frame, and when privacy and a lack of government interference is important.