Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Trade Gold for Platinum or Palladium now, and the Opposite Later

I think I'm going to sell off a little gold and try to get some platinum for around $1000 an ounce, or less. If I can find silver or Palladium for it's current spot price I'd do that too. The platinum and palladium I have, though, I'll hold it. I could still sell the palladium for over $400 an ounce though, which is strange. It's rare, people want it, but you can't buy it for the cheap price it's worth. When platinum does go back up to $2000 I'm trading it for gold, provided gold is around $1000 at the time. I don't have the money right now and would actually like to trade in some metals for cash, but can't do that now without losing money.

Palladium Under $200! Platinum Under $1000!

The metals are cheap! I'm really very surprised. Gold is relatively high, but we have cheap palladium, cheap platinum, and cheap silver. They are ridiculously low! Palladium has fallen under $200 this morning and platinum has fallen under $1000.

For those with cash in their pockets now is a good time buy platinum online, or buy palladium online if you can find it. You can buy silver bars online much easier, but not at it's current low price. You can get these metals for under half the price they were selling for a few months ago.

I was thinking about this yesterday and thought about selling some gold and buying Au, Ag, or Pt. I don't think it would be a bad strategy. $8 silver, $180 palladium, or $900 platinum while gold is were it is now would definitely lead me to make that choice. However, I'd have to be able to actually find the metals to buy at that low price! Right now you can't find palladium 1 oz for under $350!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Coin Palladium: Who Coins Palladium?

Who are the main makers who coin palladium? There are a few main coins and bullion so you know who coins palladium for your investments.


Canada Maple Leaf.
The Canadian Government has coin palladium from 2005 to 2007. They made the very popular Palladium Maple Leaf Bullion coin. These are generally worth their bullion value









Pamp Suisse
coins palladium. They coin palladium one ounce Pamp Swiss bars. They are very popular, and individually wrapped and numbered.







Russia.
Russia coins palladium 1 oz and half ounce coins. They have pictures of ballerinas on them. The different poses are worth a different numismatic value.







USA
. The US government coins palladium Stillwater coins and bullion. If lucky, we'll soon see Palladium St. Gaudens coins!








China.
In China they coin palladium Panda coins. There are only about 20,000 in all of the years.

Palladium Coins Rare and Rare Bullion to Buy

It's so hard to get palladium right now. Palladium has never been a popular precious metal, but people own it seem to be hoarding it and not wanting to sell it. Even with palladium cheap, those selling it are selling it for over double its spot price!

What's weird:
1. The prices of precious metals dropping this year (perhaps because it's an election year)
2. The low palladium price compared to gold (it should follow it's big brother)
3. The unavailability of palladium to buy (likely no one wants to sell so low)
4. The way palladium is selling for so much over spot (people want their original investments back)

How you can win either way:
1. If it drops you can buy more cheap palladium
2. If it goes up we can sell our cheap palladium for more than we paid
3. I know where to buy it (coin shop owner knows some people) ;)

Cheap Palladium: Will We Continue to See Palladium Cheap?

I'm pretty sure we won't find palladium cheap for much longer. It likely won't go much lower than what it is right now: $214. Now that's some cheap palladium! I said the same a few weeks ago when it was $220 and I'm still right. In fact, I wish I were wrong, though. I wish the price would go down to $100 so I can BUY MORE!

Afternoon Price of Cheap Palladium
(I got this from Monex, since they haven't updated their site since this afternoon)
I'm starting believe the prices really are manipulated because although it's hard to find there IS palladium available, but you definitely can't buy it for anywhere even close to the spot price of $214. Right now the people selling it for $330 are the ones with cheap palladium!

If you call up a big seller they will sell it to you for around $260 or so, with a minimum of 5 or 10 ounces. On Ebay it's still for sale, but they are listed for $400, and more--and selling for that! So, there is a shortage, and people who have the coins or bullion are selling them for at least $50 over spot. So, is the cheap palladium really worth $214 and an ounce, or is it worth more?

To me it's worth more; I paid $300 when it was worth $240 because the only other cheap palladium options would have been to buy 5 ounces; and I didn't want to spend that much at the time. And if you walked up to me I wouldn't sell you my palladium coins for any less than $350, because it would take around that to replace it. How the palladium bullion and coins are selling for double spot is WEIRD!

Cheap Palladium this Evening
(from The Bullion Desk)

And what about gold vs. palladium? Gold 1 oz is way up over $900 and platinum prices, palladium, and even silver prices are extremely LOW! So, we know they're going up eventually, and we know now's the time to invest. I'm new to the palladium market, but my guess is that gold moves first, by a certain percentage, then silver and platinum follows by a slightly larger percentage, and then palladium. Am I right?

I'm baffled by all three: cheap palladium as well as cheap platinum and silver...and also for them not selling that low! Weird. But, it's cheap palladium so if u want palladium cheap now is your time to buy!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Palladium One Ounce: Palladium Most Popular Coins

Palladium one ounce coin or bullion are the most popular ways of investing in palladium. The most popular palladium one ounce palladium coins are the Canada Maple Leaf. The most sought-after bullion is the palladium one ounce Pamp Suisse bar.

This is just going to be a quick entry for those who want to buy palladium one ounce now and aren't sure what you can trust to be something you can resell later.

1. Canada Maple Leaf palladium one ounce. The Canada Maple Leaves have by far been the most popular palladium one ounce coins of the past few years. They only minted these coins in 2005, 2006, and 2007, but they made nearly 150,000 of them. If you have a 2007 Maple Leaf let me know. I need it to finish off my collection! Palladium Maple Leaves are shipped in their plastic container and for numismatic value, should be kept that way to be easier to sell.


2. Pamp Suisse 1 oz. Palladium one ounce Pamp Swiss bars are also very popular. I didn't look up the number minted, but I do believe they are more readily available than the 150,000 palladium one ounce Maple Leafs. They are packaged in a nice holder and even show the serial number and how many are minted. So, they should be easier to sell because everyone knows what they are. But, the Maple Leaf might demand more of a premium.


3. Russian Ballerina palladium 1 oz. There are also around 150,000 of these in existence. They are pure palladium, one ounce, and should be in a protective case. However, there are about 10 different poses for the ballerina and although it has the palladium one ounce value, to a collector it may be worth much more.


So, that should get you started. The USA is making Stillwater coins and bullion and there are a few others. We'll get to those later. For now, any of these should be a solid investment and when you want to sell, you shouldn't have any troubles!

Use for Palladium

Before you invest, you want to know the use of palladium, right? Palladium has many uses and many, many more are possible, making it the "sleeper" precious metal. I'll give you the shorthand version of uses of palladium, then I'll give you a link or two with the technical terms about palladium uses.


An obvious use of palladium is in coins. We have Canada Maple Leaf Palladium 1 oz coins and Pamp Suisse palladium bullion. Russian Ballerina palladium coins and Chinese Panda 1 oz coins are also popular. There are many more.

Another use for palladium is jewelry. Everyone wants gold jewelry, but some don't like the color (and others don't like the price!). Some people go for silver, but you'd be a pretty lousy husband to give your wife a cheap silver necklace or bracelet! Platinum costs more than gold, but, it may cost TOO much! So, we have a good use for palladium: a platinum substitute! If gold is $1000, platinum might be a hefty $2000, silver a cheap $10, but palladium, will fall perfectly at around $500. Give or take, sure, but if you give the give of palladium, it will be pretty, not fade, and last a lifetime.

I had a run-in this week for another palladium use: spark plugs! I live near AutoZone, but before going in I looked online to see what was available. Here, I'll show you the pics and even give you the link to AutoZone's spark plug page.

Single electrode palladium-gold mix spark plug

Yes, the above spark plug, folks, uses palladium mixed with gold. Some people swore by them, but they stopped making them and replaced them with platinum. Why? I didn't look that up yet! They make several kinds now, some with 2 and even 4 electrodes! They make platinum and even iridium!

Double electrode platinum and quadruple electrode iridium spark plugs.

And what did I buy? You guessed it, the single electrode $2.99 platinum! The iridium seemed cool because I've never owned anything iridium before, but it's not worth $7.99. I don't think dual or quad electrodes make much of a difference anyway. In the spark plug world, while they're using platinum cheap, they have no use for palladium. You'll see them again though, I'm sure!

Another use of palladium is in catalytic converters. These are included in all cars and include platinum, rhodium, and palladium. I believe platinum is the main ingredient, but they are likely to start using palladium more because it's cheaper. Just another of many uses for palladium.

Dentistry, electronics, mobile phones, and plating of various jewelery are also among the uses of palladium. Palladium is extremely rare, 30 times as rare as gold, and even rarer than platinum. More and more car companies are making cars with fuel cells: they need palladium.

So, that's my quick explanation for the use of palladium. Check Wikipedia, The Market Oracle, and any of the other sites for info. Thanks for reading!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Gold, Silver, Platinum, or Palladium?

Are you looking to invest in the precious metals market? You've already made a great choice for investing your money! Now, what type of coin or bullion do you want to buy? Gold and silver are the obvious choices. Gold is your safe bet, and you have silver which is more volatile. But then you have platinum and palladium. Both silver in color, and just or even more volatile.

If you want an investment that will move up and down slowly, then you should choose gold. If you want something more volatile that in the past few months has lost nearly half of its value, you want silver or maybe even platinum. If you want something volatile, rare, mysterious, at the bottom of its price range, and with the highest chance to double, or even triple, you want palladium.

Gold (50 grams)
Tanaka Melters, Japan

We've watched gold and even more silver and platinum fall in the past few months. I don't think any of the four main investment metals--gold, silver, platinum, palladium--will lose much more than 5% of their current values. Gold, if it rises to where it was, will go back to $1000 an ounce, a 25% gain. If platinum, palladium, and silver return to what they were a few months ago, you get a 45% gain.

Silver (Various Size Bars)


However, palladium has been over $1000 per oz before. I personally don't think it will go that high again anytime soon, but if you figure it the same way I figured the rest, you'd be at 75%, meaning it will gain 75% of its old $1000/oz value (or rise 400%). Any of the four are sound investments, as they are all as low as they will be for now. But, how much do you want to make off of your investment?

Platinum (10 Grams)
Tanaka Melters, Japan

Gold: was at $1000 oz (over $30 per gram). It went down below $750, and is up around $830 or so today. Now, if gold returns to $1000 an ounce, are you going to make a killing? Not exactly.

Silver: was at $22 a ounce. Now it's down to $12, and was even around $10.80 for a while. Does this have a chance to double? Absolutely.

Platinum: was at $2200 and ounce and is at $1100. You don't need me to tell you it's on sale. Get it while it's cheap!

Palladium (One Ounce)
Pamp Suisse, Switzerland

Palladium: fell from $550 to it's low of $230 today. That's over a 50% drop! Now, does this have potential or what? Remember, it is the only metal that had ever reached FOUR TIMES of its current value. With palladium you get the best of both worlds: Likely to double like silver and platinum, but also the chance to increase to 4 times its value. I'll take some!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Should You Buy Palladium Online?

So you're thinking about investing in precious metals with the market down? Now is the time to invest. With a stock market crash closer than ever and stock prices down, gold coins, silvers coins, and platinum coins will skyrocket. But what about palladium? Palladium coins and palladium bullion are also available for collectors. Why Paladium coins? Palladium, like platinum and silver, follows gold. Palladium is fourth in line though. Gold's risen $100 per ounce in the past couple days after the Leyman Brothers and AIG government bailouts. Palladium bullion prices haven't risen yet. Palladium is slower, and gives you time to think about your investment. That's how some investors see it anyway.

With this site I'm going to introduce you to the different types of palladium coins, palladium bullion, and palladium pools you can invest in. For collectors, there are palladium Russian Ballerina coins, palladium Canada Maple Leaf coins, and Pampa Suisse palladium bars. I'll address these all in the future. I'll also look at places to buy palladium online, palladium ebay, and other sources. Stop back often!
WAIT! Thanks for reading, but you're not done yet! This site has nearly 50 FREE ARTICLES regarding how, why, and where to buy palladium online. To see these simply see the "Blog Archive" atop the right hand column. Here are two favorites: Inflation Adjusted Charts and Fail-Proof Wealth Plan.