For those of you out there who want to buy precious metals but are either not sure how, not sure what the best way is, or not sure what your options are, this post is for you. Anyone else who is just interested in the subject matter, this is for you also.

There are a number of ways you can go about it. First and foremost, you need to decide how much funny money you are going to spend to get the real money. The reason for this is that certain coin/bullion dealers have minimum buys. For example, a place that I have bought from a few times called California Numismatic Investments (CNI), has a $2,000 minimum buy. Because gold and silver are so rare right now, a lot of the coins and small bars are selling for 30 to 40% premiums. If you are buying 1,000 ounce bars of silver you'll get a much better deal, and the same with 100 ounce bars of gold. However, most people (like me) can't afford this so what I do is I call around to every place I can find, and last month I found a place in Reno, Nevada that was able to ship me one 10oz bar and 10 one ounce rounds of silver (in three days!!!!) That site/store is called Silver State Coin.

Depending on where you buy from some charge shipping, I know that CNI never does, simply because of their minimum buy policy. Silver State does charge shipping but there is no standard shipping fee's like most places so shipping only cost me $6 dollars, though the premium on the silver was probably around 50 to 60%, so I was paying around $15 an ounce when silver was around $9 an ounce. I think it's still worth it.

Ok, if you really have a lot of money that you want to put into gold and/or silver, here is the best bang for your buck. You can buy a COMEX futures contract on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) (I thought it was on the NYMEX because that is where all of the contacts seem to be listed but after listening to the FSN audio report I guess not). You do this buy first getting a broker ex. Pearce Financial, , and they will make the transaction for you. There are a few different options for buying a gold or silver futures contract. You can either buy a normal size gold contract, 100oz, a normal size silver contract, 5000oz, a miniGold contract, 33.2oz, or a miniSilver contract, 1000oz. With silver around $10 an ounce and gold around $730 an ounce, you do that math (it's a steal if one can afford it). After securing the contract, you will be required to pay a margin cost, usually around $1000 or so, which compared to all of these contracts is nothing, and then you need to start getting money in the bank ready to wire for your first notice day. The reason for this is because I recommend taking delivery of the physical metal because some time next year the COMEX will default on the futures contracts because demand is much greater than supply and the outstanding long contracts are over 3x the amount of short contracts. So, I would recommend do this soon so you can get a December contract and take delivery next month. When you take delivery the metal will be shipped where ever you want it in a Brinks armored truck, though this has a fee as well, depending on where you live. For me, it would probably not be that bad because there's a COMEX warehouse in the county that I live in. You may want to find out what the delivery will cost before buying a contract.

For more information about buying a precious metals futures contract, listen to the Financial Sense News Hour: November 8th 2008 3rd Hour Part 1 audio report with guest voice Jason Pearce.

So, if you can't afford a COMEX futures contract, want the metal immediately, or don't want the hassle of the futures market, then buy it directly from a dealer. If you care about premiums, buy it from the futures market. If you don't give a hoot about any of this, buy it from ebay (100% premiums).

But, when **** hits the fan, all that will matter is that you have it.

Until Next Time,
Sam