Best Gold Bar Brands

We sometimes wish buying a gold bar was just as easy as picking something up from the store. But the reality is that there are hundreds of gold bars in the bullion market, and choosing the best gold bar brands can be a complicated process. Luckily, precious metals investors have quite a few resources to help them identify and purchase the best gold bar brands for their growing gold portfolios. 

We’re here to help new and old investors improve their investing game. Today’s Hero Bullion Academy guide will walk readers through some of the best gold bar brands money can buy. We’ll be covering Royal Canadian Mint, Valcambi, Perth, and Asahi gold bars. However, we want you to be equipped with the skills you need to make informed decisions about gold bullion bars for yourself.

Let’s start with a look at some of the main factors to consider when you search for the highest quality gold bar brands. 

Factors to Consider

Before you can really dive into the best gold bar brands, smart investors will develop a method of discerning between different types of gold bars. We’ll cover three major factors below: purity and fineness, reputation and trust, and packaging and certifications. 

Purity and Fineness

Most investors who prefer gold bars over gold coins appreciate the high purity and fineness they offer. When you factor in premiums to determine the total cost of a gold bar, the product’s purity is an important consideration. The purer your gold bullion bar is, the more fine gold you’ll get with each ounce you purchase.

Purity for gold products is generally expressed as a percentage or decimal. A .9999 pure gold bar, for example, contains 99.99% pure gold bullion. Some gold bars will contain a lower gold percentage, like 99.9%. While it doesn’t make much of a difference, these small changes in purity do ultimately affect the amount of gold bullion you get with a larger purchase. 

Reputation and Trust

Some investors don’t pay much attention to the reputation of a gold bar manufacturer. But the best gold bar brands distribute gold bullion products with collectable or numismatic value. If you’re looking for the purest, cheapest gold bar possible, you’ll want to look into smaller mints with limited recognition. These eager distributors often make highly pure bars with little aesthetic or numismatic value to collectors. 

But investors who want to profit from both pure gold content and collectability should carefully evaluate the reputation of any mint they choose to do business with. We’ve chosen some of the best gold bar brands based on reputation and trust, and you’ll get to know these brands later on in our guide. New collectors should think carefully before choosing a new gold bar brand. Brand recognition and reputation helps ensure the purity of your gold bar, as well as its potential resale value later down the line. 

Packaging and Certifications

Many of the best gold bar brands take deliberate steps to make sure that your investment remains as valuable as possible while being shipped to your home. Keeping your gold bar in pristine condition is an important part of maintaining the value of the investment. If a gold bar is given to you inside of a secure package, we suggest not opening it. 

Some of the best gold bar brands you’ll find come with assay cards, which are used to assure buyers of the purity and legitimacy of a gold bar. Most assay cards include a tamper evident case, so opening it prematurely can wreck buyer confidence for when you finally want to resell your gold for cash. 

Any certifications provided with your gold bar should also be secured and kept handy. It doesn’t matter if you plan to hold your investment for a decade – or you want to sell in just a couple of months. These certifications provide a guarantee of authenticity to your future buyer, which helps you get as much resale value as possible from your investment. 

Best Gold Bar Brands

We’ve finally made it to the part of the article that you’re here for. Below, you’ll find reviews for four of the best gold bar brands on the bullion market. 

Royal Canadian Mint Gold Bars

We begin with the Royal Canadian Mint. Originally a subsidiary of the British Royal Mint, it gained its independence and became a Canadian government corporation in 1931. Since then, it has become one of Canada’s top employers and a formidable leader in the world of bullion bars. The Royal Canadian Mint’s gold bars are highly pure and beautifully designed, making them one of the best gold bar brands on the market. 

Purity and Fineness

The Royal Canadian Mint’s gold bars are .9999 pure gold, which is the highest purity you’ll likely find in the gold bar market. 99.99% fine gold is about as good as it gets, and the high purity of this gold bar makes the brilliant obverse and reverse designs even more beautiful. 

Packaging and Assay Certifications

Each Royal Canadian Mint gold bar comes with an assay package. Like we said in the section above, you’ll want to hold onto this package and avoid removing the gold bar it contains. Your assay certificate guarantees the source and fineness of your gold bar. 

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction for the Royal Canadian Mint’s gold bars is particularly high. The obverse design is textured and includes the Royal Canadian Mint’s logo, as well as the bar’s weight, precious metal content, and purity. The reverse depicts a repeating pattern of the mint’s logo.

Along with the exceptional reputation of the manufacturing mint, these factors help make the Royal Canadian Mint one of the best gold bar brands available. 

Valcambi Mint Gold Bars

The Swiss Mint Valcambi is known for its high quality gold bars. As one of the best gold bar brands in the world, the mint has quickly become a dominating force within the bullion market. Valcambi gold bars were an easy choice for one of our top gold bar picks. 

Purity and Fineness

Like the Royal Canadian Mint, Valcambi provides gold bars with the highest purity available – .9999. We also appreciate how the texture of this gold bar brings out its exceptional fineness, even with the simplistic obverse and reverse designs. 

Packaging and Assay Certifications

Every Valcambi Gold Bar comes with an assay card and protective plastic casing. Valcambi also provides a unique serial number on each bar, which functions as an added assurance of its legitimacy and uniqueness. Its obverse shows off the refinery’s logo, the bar’s serial number, and the weight, purity, and material of the piece.

Simplicity marks the reverse of the Valcambi Suisse Gold Bar; it includes only the full name of the mint. 

Customer Satisfaction

There’s definitely a reason why Valcambi has secured their reputation as one of the best gold bar brands in the business. The high quality and unique attention-to-detail on their bars make them both numismatically valuable and reasonably priced. 

Perth Mint Gold Bars

Like the Royal Canadian Mint, Perth was once a branch of Britain’s colonial mint system. But they’re on their own now, and Perth has become a premier producer of some of the best gold bar brands you can buy. Perth Mint Gold Bars are extremely fine and offer one of the most beautiful obverse designs of any gold bar we’ll cover today. 

Purity and Fineness

Like most of the best gold bar brands, bars from the Perth Mint are struck using .9999 pure gold bullion. They’re also available in multiple different denominations, making them a highly customizable way to invest in gold. 

Packaging and Assay Certifications

Perth makes their own tamper-evident cases to protect their gold bars, each of which comes with its own assay card to guarantee authenticity. Even the design on the Perth Mint tamper-evident case is impressive; it features a black swan-like logo of the manufacturing mint and is set against a dark gray. 

Customer Satisfaction

We tend to see many customers impressed with the design of the Perth Mint Gold Bar. Its obverse shows off that beautiful logo of the Perth Mint – a stylized Australian Swan surrounded by the name of the manufacturer and the country where it was made. Below the textured seal of the Perth Mint, you’ll find the purity, material, and weight of your gold bar.

The reverse of the Perth Mint Gold Bar also puts a unique twist on the classic look of gold bullion bars. Repeating reflective kangaroos are shown off and stand out against the opaque golden background of the bar. These beautiful designs are part of why many consumers consider the Perth Mint to be one of the best gold bar brands on the market. 

Asahi Gold Bars

Asahi is the first US Mint on our list, and they’ve certainly earned a spot as one of the best gold bar brands in the world. The high quality of their designs, paired with an exceptional fineness in each gold bar, makes them a major player in the gold bar market. 

Purity and Fineness

If you expected Asahi’s gold bars to be less than the highest purity possible, you’re sorely mistaken. Asahi mints each gold bar using 99.99 percent pure gold bullion. This high fineness is only the start of what makes Asahi one of the best gold bar brands available today.

Packaging and Assay Certifications

Like the other products in today’s guide to the best gold bars, this piece comes with its own plastic packaging and assay card. When you decide to sell your gold bullion bar, you want to make sure that it comes with the original assay and packaging. Just like you want a guarantee that your bar comes straight from Asahi and features pure gold bullion, your future customers will want the same. 

Customer Satisfaction

We love the look and feel of Asahi’s gold bars, and our customers seem to feel the same. The obverse of the Asahi Gold Bar makes it one of the best gold bar brands. It shows off the fine Asahi logo, as well as the material and purity of its composition. The weight of the bar is followed by a unique serial number, which adds just a little extra bit of security to your investment. 

Pricing and Accessibility 

Gold bars are generally one of the more affordable ways to invest in gold bullion. Bullion itself is, of course, a great way to diversify your portfolio with non-correlated assets. But the value of your investment is diminished when you fail to secure gold products at favorable prices. High premiums on gold items like American Gold Eagles might provide increased numismatic value, but gold bars offer a lower premium over spot – and more gold for your money. 

Price Considerations

Because so many of the best gold bar brands offer multiple different weights/denominations, price considerations are important for new investors to keep in mind. How much money do you want to spend while buying the best gold bar brands? Perhaps more importantly, try to think about how a given gold bar fits into your larger investment objectives. 

Budget is an important part of investing smartly. Investors might be working with minimal capital, and investing in large gold bars can cut down on premium costs paid. Most bullion distributors offer discounts for bigger buys. During times of a low gold spot price, making larger purchases might make it easier to buy the dip. 

Availability and Purchasing Options

You have several options for where to buy the best gold bar brands. We tend to favor online distributors, but we’re a bit biased! Take some time to look at the different distributors near you, as well as online. Local bullion dealers might be easier to negotiate with, but they also offer a much lower variety than larger online gold bar sellers. 

Wherever you choose to buy your bullion, take concrete steps to make sure that you have everything you need to sell your bars later down the line. If a mint provides assay cards with their gold bars, you’ll want your dealer to provide these with your purchase. 

Consumer Reviews and Feedback

The digital age has given us more tools than ever before to evaluate feedback and make more informed decisions about which bullion dealer you want to do business with. Customer reviews can be used to gauge both the quality of a product and the reputation of the distributor selling it to you. In the next couple sections, we’ll outline how you can leverage consumer feedback to find the best gold bar brands. 

Importance of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback should be your best friend as you look for the best gold bar brands. Customers aren’t just other people who have made the same purchase you plan to make; they also function as potential future buyers. Customer reviews for popular gold bars can help you to gauge the popularity of a gold product. 

Customer feedback specific to dealers can also serve an important role in your research process. Even the best gold bar brands are useless for your portfolio if they arrive damaged because of your dealer’s negligent shipping processes. Vetting dealers before making a purchase can save you quite a bit of money and stress in the long term. 

Online Resources and Forums 

Gold forums are an underrated way to measure investor demand and evaluate potential purchases. Don’t take our word for the best gold bar brands to buy – shop around, read reviews, and try to find the gold bar that best fits into your investment needs and objectives. 

Aside from gold forums, you can also read blogs, newspapers, and expert commentary to help substantiate your research findings. Experts who have been buying and selling bullion for years know what products are worth buying, and leaning on their seasoned opinions is a way to ensure the value of your purchase and predict future resale opportunities. 

Final Thoughts: Best Gold Bar Brands to Buy

There are a number of factors that go into picking the best gold bar brands to buy. Investors don’t just need to understand the basics of gold bars. It’s also important to consider how your investment works alongside your other investment objectives. Some investors are buying gold as a collection, while others view gold as an effective way to diversify their investment portfolios and protect themselves from market volatility. 

Before you invest in a gold bar, be sure to do your research. Determine sound investment objectives, survey some of the best gold bar brands, and pay close attention to reviews by seasoned bullion investors. Always keep anything that comes with your gold bar – packaging and assay certificates can improve the resale value of your piece, especially if you keep them safe and sound for years. 

Hero Bullion is always happy to help new investors find their footing in the volatile and highly variable gold bar market. Please feel free to reach out to our customer support team of bullion experts with any questions, comments, or concerns you might have about the best gold bar brands to buy.