Gold is the oldest form of money generally recognized everywhere in the world. It is also traded as a futures market commodity, and daily trading activity worldwide affects the price.
The global trading activity can cause the gold spot price to change every minute around the clock, six days per week.
Today’s gold spot price is based on buying a futures contract containing 10, 50, or 100 troy ounces of gold. Beyond the price of the metal, additional costs can stack up for fulfillment and delivery.
Some of the gold bars moving out of the COMEX vaults in recent months have made their way to both government and private mints for pressing, pouring, machining, and casting into smaller and more affordable weight denominations.
Today, there are thousands of available products when shopping for a gold investment. Investors who are considering fractional gold bars have many to choose from.
Fractional gold bars are minted with a weight of less than 1 troy ounce. In some cases, they are measured in fractions of an ounce in increments similar to coins, such as 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, and 1/2 oz.
Most of the newly minted gold bullion in the marketplace today is produced by refineries and mints in Europe and Asia, where measuring with the metric system is standard. It’s becoming much more common to find gold bars for sale measured on a gram scale rather than in fractions of an ounce.
Gold gram bars are an excellent addition to your investment stack. They are highly liquid and easy to convert to fiat if needed. They are also much more friendly on the wallet than buying a full ounce.
Having an assortment of different-sized gold gram bars may be a practical way to be prepared if you ever need to barter. There are even some options available to buy half-gram gold bars from various manufacturers.
Regarding pricing, smaller gold bars are typically affordable to a broader range of investors. However, smaller bars will frequently have a higher dealer premium than larger sizes.
Less than $100
One Gram Gold Bars
Fractional one gram gold bars are a practical and popular investment option. They are perfect for stacking and can be purchased affordably.
Online bullion dealers offer newly minted 1 gram gold bars in their factory sealed assay card which helps assure that you’re buying an authentic product. Many local coin shops that carry products from Valcambi will often break off gold Combibars into the 1 gram increments. A variety of online dealers do this as well and will sell them as secondary market 1 gram gold bars.
Less than $500
2 Gram Gold Bars & 2.5 gram gold bars
Various refineries manufacture 2 gram bars and 2.5 gram gold bars for investors to capture some savings on the premiums. Both of these sizes are convenient, interesting and unique size denominations.
Sometimes you can find these in the bargain bin at local coin stores as there are only a few refineries making newly minted bars in these sizes.
5 gram gold bars
Five gram gold bars offer a significant savings in premiums over smaller sizes. You will find that premiums will be lower on Random 5 gram gold bar than smaller size fractional gold bars.
Newly minted bars are manufactured by notable private mints such as PAMP Suisse and Valcambi. There are also various 5 gram gold bars that are backed by government mints such as Perth and the Royal Mint.
Less than $1,000
10 gram gold bars
The next option for those with a slightly higher budget is the 10 gram gold bar. These bars contain .3215 troy ounces of gold, just slightly less than 1/3 of an ounce.
The denseness of these bars can be felt in your hand. Newly minted bar will come sealed in a sealed plastic assay card holder, while secondary market 10 gram gold bars will most likely be shipped in a plastic coin flip.
