It looks like online my buy sell pricing would be buy at $66.00 over spot and sell at $18.00 over spot. If I can find a dealer that can beat that I would go with him but that online pricing looks pretty good.
Just talked to one of my local dealers. He's selling AGE's for $65.00 over spot and buying it at $20.00 over spot. Sounds good.
At the coin shop where I work we sell 1 oz gold eagles at $65 over spot and buy them at spot, so I think you're ok with the prices you've found.
If you are unsure of the validity of a gold coin this might be useful: https://goldcoinbalance.com No, I do not have an interest in the company or know any of the principals.
So, the question I have is should I buy online or go with the dealer? What are the pros and cons if the prices are the same or even a little better with the dealer?
Let me preface this by saying this: this is only my opinion. Whenever possible, do business face to face with local merchants. That way, you know where to find him when issues arise and it helps your local economy. Internet retailers come and go, sometimes overnight. They are faceless and have no interest in your community.
I am going with well known online sites. They are more consistent on the buy back side of the game than the local merchants are. That happened to me with silver, when the dealer's buy back changed significantly over a couple of weeks. The online dealers stay consistent on the buy back.
If you watch the ebay daily deals page, they have gold eagles/buffalos/maples as low as $15 over spot (and often under $40 over spot) from trusted dealers. For example, now there is a 2017 gold eagle for $35 over spot from Apmex. http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPECIAL-PRI...irculated-/142234092340?rpp_cat_id=5000006556
Ebay is fairly safe with the buyer protections. And if you stick to some of the big dealers, like Apmex, JM Bullion, Bay Precious Metals, then it is usually fine. I have picked up a few items from the Apmex ebay store. The deal prices are sometimes better than the check price on their website and you can use a credit card too...so another 1%-2% off via CC rewards! Note that this listing is a presale, so it won't ship until the date they have listed (but if you use a check on their website, it still takes a while, so the wait time here isn't too bad).
Depends on what you want. Flips are the least expensive; air-tites are safer and still fairly inexpensive (especially in relation to the price of the AGE). Most of these are still just bullion, so a few marks aren't a big deal.
This site has air-tites for 55C each, but the shipping would likely make it expensive for just one: http://www.air-tites.com/Air-Tite_Direct_Fit_Coin_Holders.htm#.WG3LYlMrLIU Check with some local coin stores to see if they have any (likely should cost $1-$2 max...maybe less)
Not sure if you know but, "The American gold Eagle, at 1 troy ounce and with a face value of $50—currently the most popular bullion coin in the world—weighs in at 33.93 grams, of which 31.1 grams is pure gold, the rest being an alloy of copper and silver." A lot of people who go from silver to gold investing are usually shocked when they weigh their first gold coin.
Never buy direct from apmex. Go to Apmex ebay store. They always have free shipping, and they don't have different prices for check, paypal,etc. Just 1 price.