Does anyone have experience buying gold and silver bullion?

I've never invested in precious metals but i want to put a good chunk of my savings in gold and silver since the dollar is sucking. what are the best places to buy? are there fees that take a large percent of your money or anything?

You really have more than one choice.

1. Invest in a Mutual Fund that invests primarily in valuable metals. "GOLD" is one such fund but there are others out there.

2. Buy actual "REAL" gold and silver bullion. There are loads of sellers out there who sell at the current spot price OR you can always find Gold and Silver Eagles available online at eBay (and can sometimes find some real bargains out there).

Remember that Gold has generally NOT been a very good investment over the years and has regularly been outperformed by both the stock market and real estate. In fact, had you bought 1 ounce of gold in 1980 - you could have spent as much as $850 at that year's high. That would have been equivalent to $2,150 in today's dollars (adjusted for inflation). In other words, you would have had a net loss of about 60% over the last 27 years!

Hate to be the bearer of bad news ... but the hype about gold is just that, hype.

Hope that helps!

whadda whadda?

I agree with the guy there are several options.

But let's say you wanted bullion. From experience, I've ONLY bought silver, and it's because of the following

1. Cheap
2. Diverse (you can buy bars, bullion coins, old silver US coins, and US Silver Eagles)

Best places to buy have been eBay, because the buyers control the price. According to experts, don't pay more than 7% above spot price (I usually don't pay more than 10% including shipping and taxes)

The good thing about bullion and commodities is its hard to divide (solid, frozen and stable), so the middle man fees are usually just shipping.