Many of the people who call us to ask about acquiring precious metals naturally ask about the process of selling them. I believe it’s responsible to address these questions head-on. In this article, I will list some of the considerations you’ll need when you want, or need, to liquidate all or part of your precious metals portfolio.
I’ll start by stating the obvious: You will want to be sure that you’re receiving the best price possible. You have spent many years building your wealth, so you want to get the most out of it. You will also want to consider how fast the liquidation process is—will it take hours, days, weeks, or months.
Will it be easy to sell my precious metals?
Physical precious metals have high liquidity, which means they’re easy to buy and sell. Generally, gold and silver coins and bars hold their value well through resale, and there are literally thousands of dealers and coin shops nationwide that will gladly buy gold and silver from anyone.
The most sought-after coins are usually those issued by a government and minted at globally recognized mints — the list is long and includes mints such as the US Mint, Perth Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint, St. Helena Mint, and the Royal British Mint.
Often, there is a correlation between popularity and liquidity. For example, you may pay a little more upfront for the American Eagle coin made by the US Mint because it is so popular, but when you sell it, it will likely fetch a better price than a bar made of the same metal with the same weight. Gold and silver bars are privately minted. Privately minted bars will often be a bit cheaper to buy than government-minted coins, but they may be slightly less liquid or harder to sell to a dealer other than the dealer from whom you bought the product.
Storage conditions may also affect the resale value of your precious metals, especially for coins. You should ensure that your metals are stored under optimal conditions, which is one of the reasons Precious Metals IRA accounts protect the value of your coins and bars by having your gold and silver stored in a climate-controlled depository. This also means that anyone choosing to hold metals outside of an IRA at their home should keep them in sealed containers to prevent humidity from causing discoloration.
Where can I sell my precious metals?
As stated above, when deciding where to sell your precious metals, there are two main factors to consider.
First and foremost is the price — you want to ensure that you’re getting the highest price possible. Second, you want the process to be as quick and hassle-free as possible.
While you have many options, we hope that you, as one of our clients, will consider us first when you wish to sell all or some of your metals. We like to provide our clients with true peace of mind in case life happens so they can sleep better at night knowing they have an exit strategy in place for not only themselves but also for their loved ones. That is why we have never refused to buy back metals from our clients, although the law prohibits us from guaranteeing to buy back the precious metals we sold them. In this article, I will describe how we have handled our clients’ liquidations to date.
Other options include your local coin shop, other precious metals dealers, or even online marketplaces. When considering your options, bear in mind the prices offered by the buyer and the amount of risk involved in the transaction. For instance, coin shops typically pay the lowest prices and will be looking at acquiring only minimal amounts of inventory.
How do I sell my precious metals?
I cannot cover in an article all the different options you have when you want to liquidate your metals as there are thousands of dealers that can do that for you. However, since we believe our liquidation process is as good as our acquisition process, I can give you an idea of how we help you liquidate your metals and how long it takes so that you have a measure to compare others to.
At Gold Alliance, we are committed to our promise of a quick, secure, and straightforward ordering process — and we show the same commitment to buying back gold and other precious metals from our clients.
Liquidation of a Gold Individual Retirement Account (IRA)
If you want to liquidate precious metals from your Gold or Silver IRA through us, you have a few options, including asking for an in-kind delivery of the coins directly to you. Please note that early liquidations of an IRA account may cause IRS penalties.
One of the reasons that I wrote this article is the real-life situation of clients who needed to liquidate fast due to an emergency. To address emergency cash-outs, we were able to work out a process with the IRA custodians so that once these clients confirmed in writing (it only takes a DocuSign signature) their liquidation request and acceptance of our buy-back offer made per the terms of their client agreement, the IRA custodians allowed us to forward the payment for the metals to arrive in the client’s account before the metals were even shipped to us. This saved these clients precious time with a fast-track liquidation that got them the funds in just one to two business days, and this is the fastest liquidation process in the industry, period.
Liquidation of metals you hold outside of an IRA
For clients who wish to sell us precious metals held outside of an IRA — such as metals they hold in their home, a depository, or a local safe — all they have to do is call us and we will provide an offer for their metals in the way described in our client agreement. Once accepted, the buy-back price is locked and will not change with market fluctuations.
We guide our clients on how to ship the metals safely and insured to our account at the Delaware Depository. When the depository receives the metals, it takes approximately one day for them to confirm the metals’ authenticity. Gold Alliance will then send the client the payment via check or wire transfer.
This process is industry-leading for speed, and, most importantly, the price is locked to give our clients peace of mind. This means that once we send your offer and you ship the metals, your price is locked, and all our clients receive the agreed-upon offer amount once our depository has received and confirmed the metals.
We at Gold Alliance wish you health and safety during these trying times.