3 Things To Do If You Want To Keep Gold And Silver As Part Of An Emergency Fund

If you're trying to add precious metals to your emergency cash stash, you have to plan your strategy. Gold and silver are good forms of emergency currency and don't require massive amounts of thought, but they're not forms you can approach haphazardly. Here are three strategies you should add to your gold and silver buying and selling plans.

Add Jewelry

Don't rely solely on gold coins, or even silver coins. Add some jewelry to your stash in the form of small gold and silver chains. These are easier to find than gold coins and often much cheaper because of their lighter weights. That does mean that the jewelry won't get you as much cash as a gold coin would, but if you don't have a lot of purchasing power to begin with, a chain can at least get you started. Another reason to add jewelry is that, historically, it hasn't been treated like gold coins, which have been subject to government confiscation in the past.

You may want to stay away from obvious alloys like rose gold (a mix of mostly gold with copper). Even though rose gold is valuable, it's easily mistaken for pure copper by people who aren't paying attention. And while copper is valuable, too, it's not as valuable as gold -- you wouldn't want to spend lots of money buying rose gold only to have people pay you the copper price instead.

Get Unofficial Appraisals

Don't just throw gold and silver into your filing cabinet. Find out the weights, karats (for gold), purity (for silver), and other information like country of origin. Keep a record of these so that if you ever do find yourself needing to sell the items for cash, you can estimate what you'll get and so you can bring only the items you want to sell to the gold buyer. The alternative is to bring lots of what you own, which opens the items up to theft when you're traveling to and from the buyer's store.

Diversify

When you're just starting out, going with the basics can be a good idea -- a few small chains, maybe a Canadian maple leaf coin or two. As you buy more gold and silver, though, start to branch out. Get silver dimes and quarters, silver proof sets, gold coins in different weights, and also coins from different countries. This helps you if the political or cultural climate shifts and has an adverse effect on one of the forms of metal that you have.

For example, in response to the South African government's old policy of apartheid, sales of the krugerrand fell sharply (then-President Reagan banned imports of the krugerrand in 1985 as well). While it was still possible to possess the coins, few people wanted them. If something like that happens to another type of coin that you have, you want other coins so that you don't have to worry about your coins being refused.

Buying gold and silver can be a really interesting endeavor, and selling them can help you out quickly in tough times. If you want to sell some of what you have or would like to find out weights, possible sale prices, and sale percentages, contact a gold and silver buyer in your area.

Share