Imagine this scenario: you’ve been thinking about buying gold or silver for a while now, and the current low price and bullish sentiment have finally convinced you.

You grab your credit card and… and questions start buzzing:

Who can you trust with your gold purchase?

What is the best website to buy gold and silver online?

How big is the risk of choosing the wrong precious metals dealer?

To help you find the answer, here are the key things you need to know if you want to buy physical gold or silver safely.

Where can I buy gold or silver?

Today, investors can easily find a wide range of precious metals dealers to buy their gold and silver products.

But most of these dealers will offer a different selection of products with different purity levels, different services, and even different storage and resale solutions.

Gold resellers mainly fall into 3 categories: local physical stores, banks, and online dealers.

Let’s see what their advantages are and what risks they can potentially pose.

Buying gold in a local physical store

First-time gold buyers often go to their local gold shops because they imagine it would be safer to see their gold products in reality. If this is important to you, it might be a good idea to contact your local dealer beforehand to see if the product you want to buy is in store. Indeed, some shops will need to have it sent from their external storage facilities, which can take a few days, sometimes even weeks.

While some of the silver and gold products sold at physical stores will come directly from a mint or a reputable refinery, many of them will be pre-owned by other investors. Therefore, in order to ensure the purity of your pre-owned product, it might be useful to do some extra research to make sure you’re dealing with a reliable reseller who’s able to guarantee the quality and authenticity of his products.

Another important factor that you should pay attention to is that brick-and-mortar shops will usually charge higher premiums or extra fees. This is to factor in costs that are specific to their physical business, including commercial rent, on-site storage, and commercial insurance.

Finally, a common mistake made by first-time buyers is to often forget about how they will store and insure their precious metals. While your local dealer might offer some form of on-site storage, it tends to be costly and requires extra insurance. As it might not be a good idea to hide your gold at home uninsured and unprotected, some buyers choose to install a private vault in their home to keep their precious metals within arm’s reach.

Buying gold in a bank

Nowadays, fewer and fewer banks actually hold physical gold they can sell over the counter. For example, in the U.S., it’s become quite rare to find a financial institution selling gold bullion (unless you have really deep pockets