Why Our Review Process Exists
The retail gold market thrives on opacity. Dealers hide their margins. Salesmen push high-premium collectibles. Investors lose money before their metal even ships. We built this review process to strip away the marketing noise. We buy the metal. We track the premiums. We test the buyback friction.
You need to know exactly how much of your capital goes into actual gold and how much pays for a dealer’s overhead. We expose the exact gap between the spot price and your final checkout total. Three years of testing. Zero shortcuts. Real results.
How We Select Dealers and Products
We ignore press releases. We ignore affiliate pitch decks. We look at market footprint and retail volume. If a dealer moves significant tonnage of American Gold Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs, they go on our radar. We want to know how the biggest players treat everyday buyers.
We also target aggressive marketers. The companies buying late-night television ads and sponsoring podcasts get our immediate attention. We audit them to see if their pricing matches their promises. Usually, it does not. High marketing budgets often mean high retail premiums.
Our Evaluation Metrics
We do not rely on user reviews. We run a standardized gauntlet for every dealer, IRA custodian, and storage facility we cover. We grade them on hard numbers.
- Premium over spot: We track the exact percentage over the COMEX spot price at the moment of purchase. We check this across 1 oz bars, fractional coins, and sovereign mint releases.
- The bid-ask spread: Buying is only half the transaction. We initiate sell-back requests to measure the exact spread. A dealer offering cheap retail prices but terrible buyback rates fails our test.
- Hidden fees and shipping friction: We audit the final checkout screen. We catch the mandatory insurance upcharges, the wire transfer fees, and the credit card penalties. We calculate the true cost per ounce.
- Storage and IRA compliance: For depository services, we verify the segregation of assets. We demand proof of allocated storage. Commingled metal is an absolute dealbreaker for us.
The Time We Invest
We do not write summaries based on a weekend of browsing. A standard dealer review takes 45 days. We open an account. We wire funds. We wait for the physical delivery. We document the packaging, the tracking accuracy, and the condition of the bullion upon arrival.
We hold the metal for exactly 30 days before testing the buyback process.
This cycle exposes the operational reality of a company. Customer service is easy when you are buying. The real test happens when you try to liquidate. We measure email response times in hours and phone hold times in minutes. We record exactly how long it takes for a dealer to wire funds back to our account after receiving our shipment.
What We Refuse to Cover
Trust requires strict boundaries. We draw a hard line on what belongs in a serious precious metals portfolio. If a product relies on subjective valuation, we reject it.
- Numismatic and rare coins: We focus strictly on bullion weight. Graded, rare, or historical coins carry subjective premiums based on collector demand. We leave that speculation to hobbyists.
- Fractional gold under 1/10 oz: The manufacturing premiums on one-gram bars destroy your cost basis. You lose 20 percent of your investment the second you complete the purchase. We refuse to recommend them.
- Paper gold derivatives: We cover physical metal and fully allocated storage. We do not review unbacked ETFs, mining stocks, or digital gold tokens. If you cannot take physical delivery, it does not belong on this site.
Who Tests the Metal
I am Martin Tremblay. I spent twelve years in capital markets before shifting entirely to private investing and physical assets. I know how institutional desks price assets. I know how retail brokers pad their margins to pay commissions.
I lead every dealer audit on this site. I fund the test accounts. I make the buyback calls. My background is in risk management and portfolio allocation. I treat gold as a financial instrument, not a doomsday hedge. I expect dealers to operate with the same financial rigor as a prime brokerage.
How We Keep Data Accurate
The physical gold market shifts rapidly. Premiums compress. Dealers change ownership. A review from two years ago is useless today. We revisit our top recommended dealers every 90 days to ensure our data reflects current market reality.
We run ghost-shopper audits to verify current premiums on standard 1 oz American Gold Eagles. If a dealer raises their shipping minimums or widens their bid-ask spread, we update the review immediately. We drop their rating. We warn our readers. You get the exact numbers we see on our screens.