Has anybody ever read if some of the (smaller) mutual funds and ETFs have purchased gold coins...specifically, Double Eagles (easiest to trade and count ounces)....as a substitute for other forms of bullion ? I've been looking but no luck so far. With all the investment-quality lower-graded coins, you would think there'd be a market for them in lieu of bullion bars or paper gold. Especially if they avoided the usual price premiums.
My memory gets hazy, but I believe that Wall Street tried a fund of rare coins a number of years ago. I do believe it laid an egg. Is somebody’s memory on this better than mine?
I've never heard of any of the gold ETFs indulging in coins or any physical gold for that matter. I thought they only dealt in gold futures and gold mining company stocks. But maybe check Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab to see if they know of what you're looking for.
I remember a rare coin fund around 1986 or 87. I believe they were a limited partnership. I can't find their name but I did find this: http://numismaticinvestmentsllc.com/ ^Don't know anything about them.
Hey Guys, thanks for chipping in.....but I'm not talking about a coin fund with NUMISMATIC coins. I'm talking about using generic gold coins -- Liberty's and Saints -- as a substitute for GOLD BULLION. So figure MS63 and below. The reason was when looking at a supply/demand analysis for gold coins/double eagles, I saw that there was probably HUNDREDS of thousands of excess low-grade Double Eagles available. So you are talking about $250,000,000 to maybe $2 billion in gold bullion via double eagle coins. Some mutual funds/ETFs say in their prospectus that they will not hold paper gold or stocks of gold mining companies, but the actual metal. I believe the Central Fund of Canada is one such fund/ETF.
OK, the Central Fund of Canada has been taken over by Sprott's fund family (CEF) and it's about $4 BB. IAU is $28 BB and GLD is $57 BB. So clearly....a decent-sized position of double eagles is viable for something like CEF, less so for IAU and GLD since they are much bigger. However, if their bullion holdings are maybe a percentage of the total assets, then maybe storing 1,000 - 2,000 bags of 250 ounces of coins is feasible. Larger bags mean fewer bags needed.
