In life, there are really only two guarantees. You’ll pay taxes, and you’ll die. We know that’s kind of a morbid way to start a blog, but we’ve heard occasionally about how purchasing rare gold coins is a guaranteed way to make money. It’s not, at all, but we understand the temptation. In today’s world, money is just numbers on the screen of your online bank account, and it can’t replace the satisfying heft of feeling the weight of gold in your hand.

Investment carries with it a certain degree of risk. Read on for a few pros and cons to investing with gold coins.

CONS

• The value of a gold coin or bar can fluctuate, and it’s not outside the realm of probability that you could wait years for the value to go up significantly.

• If your bank is robbed, you don’t need to worry about losing your money because of the FDIC. It protects your checking and saving accounts as well as money market deposit accounts. Gold, on the other hand, is a physical object, meaning that it can be stolen.

• If you buy stocks, you’re buying shares in a company, and you can earn interest and dividends with your investment. You won’t earn either of those with gold.

PROS

• Speaking of investments, there’s a tendency of the value of gold to go up when other investments go down. Gold can act as a stabilizing influence upon your financial portfolio.

• If you sell a coin or bar, you don’t have to pay capital gains tax on it.

• If it’s important to you, nobody needs to know that you own gold.

• In the case of a catastrophic financial collapse like massive currency devaluation, silver and gold can be used to buy and sell things. While it’s incredibly unlikely, this has happened in other countries.