Out of New York, Schiff Gold is known as a dealer in bullion, coins, bars, and other forms of precious metals. Formerly known as Euro Pacific Precious Metals, the rebranded company was founded in 2010 and offers a variety of services to investors.
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About Schiff Gold
As you might expect from the company's name, Schiff Gold is owned by financial commentator and investment broker Peter Schiff. With several decades of experience in the industry, he's widely considered a leading name in finances.
Schiff is perhaps best known as one of the predictors of the 2008 financial crisis that left so many American investors in ruins. Shortly after the financial meltdown, Schiff founded a precious metals brokerage to aid investors looking for a bit more security than traditional markets could provide.
Schiff's brokerage was founded on the idea that investments in precious metals can often work as a counterweight to inflation. Given that precious metals also tend to move up in value safely, they also help to balance out the volatility of real estate.
Of course, precious metals acting as a buffer against certain types of market volatility doesn't mean that all types of precious metals are created equally. As such, Schiff's company also set out to provide clear and easy-to-understand options for those looking to create a safe haven in precious metals.
The good news for those looking at Schiff Gold is that Peter Schiff himself has an excellent reputation in the world of precious metals. He is known as being someone who tends to offer sound advice and deals somewhat with clients, both qualities that have led many to credit him with saving them from financial ruin during times of stock market uncertainty.
Schiff Gold also has two executive directors, Matt Malleo and Jonathan Sosnay, as well as a directory of technology, Fabian Gambino. These individuals not only work as directors for the company but are also employed as specialists in the field of precious metals.
Rounding out the team are metals specialists River Allen and Joel Bauman, as well as accountant Valeria Alikakos.
What Services Do They Offer?
Schiff Gold offers consumers several different products and services. The leading product is, of course, precious metals which are offered in the form of bullion, bars, and coins.
Schiff Gold does not, however, offer collector coins. The company finds them to be a poor investment in most cases, given that they are marked up significantly from their actual value and that making a sale of these coins after purchase tends to be far too complicated for the average collector.
This doesn't mean that these coins aren't fun for collectors or should never be bought, but rather that they aren't the best fit for most investors. As such, Schiff Gold tends to stay away from those coins as a rule.
While the company doesn't offer collector coins, it does offer plenty of types of metals. These include not only gold but also palladium and platinum. The company also offers limited edition types of bullion to its investors and various barter metals.
Offering products is excellent, but only if they are priced reasonably. Luckily, the fluctuating prices of the metals provided by Schiff are generally considered competitive with the rest of the industry and only change due to market value.
Regardless of the type or price, Schiff Gold does make it very easy to purchase its products. The company does an excellent job of guiding new and experienced investors alike, with recommendations tailored to individual clients.
Other Services
Schiff Gold does do more than sell precious metals. If you want to ensure that your metals are properly vaulted, you can pay the company one hundred fifty dollars per year to do so.
The company also works with individuals to roll over their existing IRAs into precious metals IRAs or to purchase products for new precious metals IRAs. If you choose this option, the company will also help you store your metals in vaults that meet IRS guidelines.
Selling Metals
Schiff Gold doesn't just sell precious metals; instead, it also buys them directly from those looking to liquidate their holdings. Schiff purchases metals from its clients and those who bought them elsewhere.
It should be noted that Schiff Gold doesn't buy all metals products. Selling anything that the company offers is easy, but you will need to contact the company to find out about selling anything that the company does not offer.
Steps to Sell
Selling your precious metals to Schiff Gold starts by contacting the company. You can do this via email, the website's chat feature, or a quick phone call.
Once you contact the company, you'll chat with an employee who will walk you through the sales process. The employee will verify whether the company can buy your metals and will give you a price quote if they can do so.
After you choose to sell your metals, you'll package them yourself and ship them to Schiff Gold. You will almost certainly want to insure the metals for transit if you choose to ship them, but those who want to avoid risk altogether can drop off their packages at one of Schiff's locations.
Once the metals arrive and are processed, Schiff Gold will send you a check for the quoted price or send the money to your bank account via wire transfer.
Company Standards
The bulk of what you see on Schiff Gold's website comes from Peter Schiff himself. Virtually everything in the company is based on Schiff's own personal life and investment beliefs. Schiff claims to want to offer metals are a reasonable price, and thus the company tends to follow his lead.
What this means for the consumer is that you can generally trust the company's employees to treat you well. It doesn't matter if you're making a huge purchase or something smaller; you'll still get treated with respect.
The company does try its best to keep prices down, though it's hard to compare their unlisted prices with what you might find elsewhere online. What is easy to tell, though, is how the company keeps costs low. They do so by doing minimal advertising, buying metals in bulk at discounted prices, and general trading on Peter Schiff's reputation in the industry.
The company also stands behind its products. The company won't sell anything Peter Schiff considers risky, so don't expect to see collectibles here. Instead, always expect to see items that can be used as a hedge against inflation or market volatility.
Another primary standard of the company is the refusal to pressure customers. There's no upselling or any attempt to earn more significant commissions. Customers are simply offered products that meet their needs and budgets.
The specialists' goal is to create long-term relationships with their clients. The goal is to ensure that you'll keep working with Schiff for many years. Given that everyone who works for the company seems quite committed to the process of investing in gold, so they seem like a good fit for encouraging clients in their investment journeys.
Customer Reviews
One note that will puzzle many would-be investors is that you can't find any company reviews on the internet. Schiff Gold isn't accredited by the Better Business Bureau and doesn't have any data on Trustlink. You really just can't find consumer reviews about the company online.
This is honestly odder than you might realize, given that the company has been around for quite some time. While it may have only been in operation under this name since 2014, it's been around since 2010 in other forms, and one would think that more customers would speak up online.
The company has some consumer testimonials, but they are all on the company's website. This is indeed unusual for companies in the industry and should give anyone pause when trying to find out more information about Schiff Gold.
The other big oddity regarding Schiff Gold is that the company doesn't list any of its precious metals prices online. You will have to contact a salesperson if you want to get a price quote for purchase. This isn't entirely out of the ordinary, but it's not something done by most of the more reputable companies. Likewise, the fact that you have to be emailed your purchase data before paying is more odd than alarming.
What this means for consumers is that Schiff Gold makes it challenging to figure out if they offer better prices than the competition. Given that the company touts competitive prices, the lack of data here makes it difficult to take them at their word.
Steps to Get Started
The good news for investors is that getting started with Schiff Gold is easy. There are only four steps in the company's investment process.
You will start by contacting Schiff Gold. While you can always call the company directly, Schiff Gold makes things more accessible by providing a chat feature on their website.
Once you contact the specialist, you'll have a brief chat about what the company does, how precious metals can benefit your portfolio, and what the market looks like at the moment of the phone call. The specialist will ask you a bit about your current investments, what your budget looks like right now, and why you are investing. From there, they'll make recommendations suited to your needs.
Next, you'll place your actual precious metals order. While this can be complex, the precious metals specialist with whom you have been working actually does the heavy lifting. This specialist will not only place your orders but finalize your order details and send you an email containing your order information.
Once you get a confirmation email, you'll hit the third step of the process - payment. Most payments will be made via wire transfer or check, with the company releasing your metals once payment is received. You'll have to wait five days for processing if you use a check, while wire transfers tend to clear in about a day.
Schiff Gold now also offers its clients the ability to pay for their orders with cryptocurrency. Not the pretty streamlined process that one might hope, the company has been dealing with crypto since 2014 and now accepts Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash for their orders.
Paying with crypto requires direct payment after making an order. You must use a BitPay-compatible wallet to make the payment, and you'll only have fifteen minutes with your order price due to the way that crypto tends to fluctuate in price. Once you finish paying, you'll get the same kind of order confirmation you would have received if you had used a check or wire transfer.
Once you're done paying, you'll get to the final step of having your metals shipped directly to you. You'll just let the company know where you need the metals shipped, and the company will send them out. All of your metals will be insured for transit.
It takes about one to two days to get an order processed by Schiff Gold, and receiving your metals will take up to five days, depending on where you are having them shipped.
Final Verdict
Schiff Gold is a company that lives and dies by the reputation of Peter Schiff. Schiff is a well-known quantity with a lot to say about investment and the government, and it's his expertise that drives how the company works.
Unfortunately, Schiff's reputation makes up the bulk of the data consumers have to go with when working with this company. The lack of reviews and pricing means you have to start working with this company without much to go on, which is never pleasant for an investor.
Simply put, Schiff Gold makes it challenging to compare the company's prices and practices to that of its competition. It's entirely possible that your experience could be wildly different than that of other customers, and you would be none the wiser once it's done.
There's also not much information about how much Schiff Gold pays when they buy metals from customers. You can get a quote quickly enough, but there are no reviews online to let you know if you are getting a reasonable or even standard price from the company.
If you're looking to sell metals, you should know that many other dealers will help you liquidate your holdings with much more information available upfront. Likewise, plenty of companies are much more open about how much they charge when selling metals to clients. While Schiff may have a good reputation in the industry, there's not enough hard data for most consumers to use when making an educated choice about investing.
Schiff Gold is undoubtedly a good company, but there are thousands of gold companies, and you want to invest with the absolute best there is. They are a solid option to consider but did they make the top 5 gold dealers this year?
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