It's Back! The American Gold Buffalo

Starting tomorrow, October 22nd, the American Gold Buffalo will again be available for purchase. As you may know, production of this popular 24 karat gold coin was stopped late last year when the U. S. Mint couldn't keep up with the demand for U. S. gold coins.

The American Gold Buffalo is the first .9999 fine gold coin struck by the U. S. Mint beginning in 2006. They can be purchased from the Mint directly or from dealers who are making them available for their customers. Expect to pay a minimum 6% premium over the spot price of gold which could easily go up a few percentage points depending on demand.

If you invest in these beautiful gold coins, follow the advice I gave you in Basic Gold Investing about handling your coins. Gold is a soft metal and easily scratched or nicked so always handle your coins, especially pure gold coins, by the edges only.

Categories of Gold Bullion Coins

In my article on Basic Gold Investing, I recommend that investors start with gold bullion coins. Not discussed are the three categories I assign to gold bullion coins which you may find useful. These categories are:

1. The most common gold bullion coins that are universally recognized and accepted by coin dealers. In this category, I include Gold American Eagles, Gold Canadian Maple Leafs, South African Krugerrands, American Gold Buffalos, Austrian Philharmonics, Chinese Pandas, Australian Nuggets, Mexican 50 Pesos and maybe one or two others;

2. Not as common gold coins as those above but still recognized by coin dealers and readily tradeable (liquid). This would include one or more denominations of The Angel (Isle of Man), Hungarian Korona, French Twenty Franc "Rooster", Dutch Guilder, Austrian Corona, British Sovereign, German Mark, Italian Lira, Russian Ruble and Swiss Franc;

3. Lesser known gold coins which coin dealers are hesitant to accept because of low demand by investors and low acceptance by other dealers.

When first starting out with your gold investing, concentrate on those coins in the first category. There is much less chance you will make a bad decision with any of the gold coins in this top category.

Happy Investing!