Gold bars remain the lowest-premium form of bullion ownership. On single-transaction purchases above $50,000, bars carry a 2, 4 percentage-point pricing advantage over coins.
Refiner Selection.
LBMA Good Delivery bars carry the strongest resale liquidity. PAMP Suisse, Credit Suisse, Royal Canadian Mint, and Valcambi are the common retail-available names. A non-LBMA bar from an unfamiliar refiner is a significant liquidity haircut at resale. Pay the small premium for provenance.
Size and Liquidity.
One-ounce bars carry roughly 2% over spot. Ten-ounce, around 1%. One-kilogram (32.15 ounces), about 0.5%. One-hundred-ounce bars run under 0.3%. The tradeoff: larger bars are harder to partially liquidate. A 100-ounce bar is an all-or-nothing exit. Match bar size to the liquidation pattern you expect.
Dealer Selection.
JM Bullion, APMEX, and SD Bullion lead retail bar sales on spread. Above $100,000, direct relationships with refiners' authorized distributors often price better. Augusta and Goldco also sell cash bars, but at IRA-custody pricing rather than retail-competitive pricing.
Augusta Precious Metals.
For the $50,000+ allocator executing a Gold IRA rollover, Augusta is the custodian we recommend without reservation. The firm's contractual buy-back, named-analyst relationship, and segregated-default storage at Delaware Depository place it at the top of our register for the fourth consecutive cycle.
Storage Decisions.
Private storage. home safe, safe-deposit box, private vault. carries insurance, theft, and discovery risks. Depository storage at Delaware Depository, Brink's, or IDS runs 0.1, 0.5% of stored value annually and eliminates those risks. Above $100,000, depository storage is structurally appropriate.