What is BullionMatch?
BullionMatch aggregates gold, silver, and platinum bullion listings from online dealers and mints from six different world regions. It provides the simplest and fastest experience to get up-to-date information on prices, availability, and other key information required to make informed and strategic purchases of precious metals.
Why should I buy bullion?
Bullion is a strategic asset that every individual should own some small portion of, and not for speculative purposes. Gold and silver (occasionally platinum) are historically seen as real money, also known as “sound money.” Many qualities distinguish gold and silver from fiat currencies, but first of all, fiat is solely backed by faith and trust in the government that issues it. When societies face the prospect of currency debasement by their government, gold and silver have been safe havens to preserve wealth in the face of inflation and even more so in times of hyperinflation.
Why should I use BullionMatch?
The online resources for finding the best bullion for your growing portfolio seem dated to the Bronze Age. BullionMatch has the best interface and filtering experience to get you exactly what you want. It brings the experience of buying actual (and not paper) bullion to the digital age.
What is bullion?
Bullion refers to precious metals of high purity kept in bars and coins. It can be privately held in most countries and is commonly held in reserve by central banks and financial institutions.
What is gold bullion?
Gold is a precious metal with limited reserves in nature (on Earth, that is). Like silver, gold has a range of industrial uses, including electronics manufacturing. However, its high value as a monetary metal dampens industrial demand due to high prices. Gold can be made into gold bullion bars and coins and has historically been the anchor for most commodity-backed currencies, like the U.S. dollar pre-1971. J.P. Morgan famously said, “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.”
What is silver bullion?
Silver is a semi-precious metal that is more abundant in nature than gold and has a wide range of industrial uses, including in the manufacturing of electronics and renewable energy infrastructure like the photovoltaic cells of solar panels. Silver can be made into silver bullion bars and coins and is far cheaper than gold, with a gold-to-silver price ratio in the approximate range of 85:1, therefore offering new precious metal investors a lower point of entry into the market.
What is platinum bullion?
As an industrial metal with large swings in demand, platinum’s prices are usually more volatile than gold’s. Platinum tends to perform better in good economic times when industrial output is steadily increasing. Historically, there have only been rare exceptions where platinum bullion is used as a monetary metal, including in Russia, for a brief period of time.
How is bullion measured?
Bullion is measured in one of two ways: using the U.S. customary system inspired by the Imperial system or the International System of Units (SI) system, the modern equivalent of the metric system. The U.S. customary system weighs precious metals in Troy ounces and pounds, which are approximately 10% heavier than your typical ounces and pounds, also known as Avoirdupois. The SI or metric system weighs precious metals in grams and kilograms.
What is a Troy ounce?
A troy ounce (Troy oz) is used for weighing precious metals and is based on a pound of 12 ounces as opposed to the traditional 16, giving it approximately 10% more weight than a typical ounce.
What precious metals do you support?
BullionMatch supports three types of precious metals: Gold, Silver, and Platinum.
What bullion formats do you support?
BullionMatch supports two types of bullion formats: Coins and Bars.
What is the difference in purity of bullion?
Gold and silver bars and coins can be bought at varying levels of purity, also known as fineness. For gold, there is a standard expectation of 99.5% purity, meaning that 0.5% of the bar or coin comprises another metal. You can get gold at higher levels of fineness, like 99.9%, which is closer to pure gold. However, both 99.5% and 99.9% gold are considered 24Karat gold. For silver, the standard expectation is 99.9% purity to be considered high-quality bullion. However, for silver coins that have been in circulation, you’ll often find a purity of 90% or less due to silver being a soft and easily tarnished metal that would wear substantially with regular use in exchange.
What is a bullion mint?
A bullion mint manufactures gold, silver, and platinum products such as bars and coins. There are state-owned and private mints. The most well-known state-owned mints are the Canadian Mint, U.S. Mint, South African Mint, Austrian Mint, British Mint, and Perth Mint. Some prominent private mints are Valcambi Suisse, PAMP, Asahi, Johnson Mathey, Scottsdale Mint, and First Majestic.
What payment methods do bullion dealers support?
Depending on the online bullion dealer, you can pay via ACH or Bank Transfer, with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, or with a credit card.
How often are your gold, silver, and platinum spot prices updated?
Our spot prices are updated every day at 6 a.m. US-Pacific Time are delivered via a real-time API with an accuracy of 2 decimal points.
How are your gold, silver, and platinum spot prices sourced?
The API we use for gold, silver, and platinum spot prices is based on 15 reliable data sources retrieved every minute. Sources include banks, financial data providers, and the London Metal Exchange (LME).
How up-to-date is your bullion product catalog?
Our bullion product catalog is updated at least hourly.
What bullion dealers do you support?
We are relatively new in the market, but we already support three bullion dealers and plan to add more every week. Currently, we support JMBullion, APMEX, and PIMBEX.
How can I recommend a new bullion dealer?
If we should add a particular bullion dealer or represent a bullion dealer next, please email Ludvig at mises@bullionmatch.com