While best known for its large selection of consumer goods and services ranging from groceries to electronics to clothing, travel booking, insurance, and optical, Costco has recently added several 1 oz gold bars to their lineup.
Periodically, warehouse club now periodically offers both Rand Refinery 1 oz Gold Bars and PAMP Suisse 1 oz Gold Bars available for sale on their website.
When the bars are available on the retailer’s website, members must be logged into their account in order to see the pricing. The pricing is based on the spot gold price, plus a traditional retail markup that conforms with their pricing model.
Observations comparing recent sales show against the prevailing gold spot price during the same time have shown that the premium appears to be in the range of 2.3%-3%.
“I’ve gotten a couple of calls that people have seen online that we’ve been selling one-ounce gold bars,” CFO Richard Galanti told investors during a recent quarterly earnings call.
“Yes, but when we load them on the (web)site, they’re typically gone within a few hours and we limit two per member.”
Both of the brands that Costco has made available so far are also readily available from many trusted and reputable online bullion dealers.
In general, gold bars come with lower premiums over the spot price of gold than coins. Meaning, investors can often get more gold for their money when buying bars compared to coins.
Buying gold bars from Costco may be a convenient option for some investors, but it is important to consider other factors before making a purchase.
Costco sells only a single gold denomination
Both PAMP Suisse and RAND Refinery offer fractional gold bars that are available at a variety of price points, making them more affordable to a larger group of investors looking for a trusted store of value.
The Lady Fortuna line has been PAMP’s signature line for decades and fractional gold bars are available sizes as small as one gram and in industry standard increments of 5 gram, 10 gram, and 20 gram. These fractional gold bars are more accessible and also make an excellent store of value.
Costco does not offer a buyback program for gold bullion. So when it comes time to sell, you will need to find a different gold buyer. Looking through the number of bullion dealers and coin stores in your area is a good way to check how easy it might be to sell locally.
Online bullion dealers update their prices in real-time according to changing market conditions, while Costco prices their gold bars at a fixed price. These bars are sold only on their website for a limited time.
Depending on the timing of your purchase, this could lead to paying a substantially higher premium to Costco for the same 1 oz gold bar than you might from an online bullion dealer.
Costco also has a strict no returns policy for bullion products, which deviates from their normal return policies.
Cheaper Alternatives to Costco Gold Bars
The PAMP Suisse Azure Dragon 1 oz Gold Bars that are offered by Costco are an excellent value for collectors, as these bars are a limited mintage and quickly sell out from online bullion dealers when they are available.
RAND Refinery is a large South African company that produces a variety of gold bars for investors, often at a much lower premium than other mints.
There are many private mints, like RAND, that have longstanding and trusted reputations of delivering pure .9999 fine gold to both industry and investors. These refiners have long standing affiliations with international gold markets like the LBMA, Shanghai Exchange and COMEX.
Some are based here in the United States, such as Sunshine Minting, located in Coere d’Alene, Idaho, which has been operating as a full service private mint since 1979. Sunshine Mint 1 oz Gold Bars incorporate the MintMark SI security feature on the reverse and etched with a unique serial number. This will match the assay card that comes encapsulated with newly minted bars.
Arizona based Scottsdale Minting produces coins on behalf of a variety of governments and issues both gold bars and rounds for investors and collectors under their own hallmark.
Scottsdale Mint 1 oz Gold bars often contain innovative designs that incorporate advanced security features and laser etched features.
