Buying safely in Canada
How bullion is priced, taxed and stored in Canada, and the scams regulators warn about. This describes the market; it does not recommend any product, seller or allocation.
Pricing
Spot versus premium. Spot is the market price of raw gold. Coins and bars cost more because of minting, distribution and dealer margin, and dealers buy back below spot. Bullion usually sells at about 5–10% over spot, while numismatic coins are often sold at 40–200% over spot [cftcr].
Bars and coins. Bars usually carry the lowest premiums; coins are easier to recognise and resell. The Royal Canadian Mint's Gold Maple Leaf is 99.99% pure, with a radial line pattern and a micro-engraved maple-leaf security mark [gml][dna].
Melt versus collector value. Melt value is fine weight times spot. Anything above it depends on rarity, grade and demand. The FTC notes grading is partly subjective, suggests expecting to hold collectible coins at least 10 years before a possible profit, and warns collector prices can fall while gold rises [ftc]. The CFTC calls "semi-numismatic" a made-up industry term [cftc10].
Tax
Investment-grade gold is exempt from GST/HST: bars, ingots and wafers refined to at least 99.5% and accepted for trading on Canadian markets, and government-issued coins of that purity usable as currency. Jewellery and lower-purity gold don't qualify [gst][eta]. Gains on sale may be taxed as capital gains or income.
For registered plans, the CRA treats only certain bullion as a qualified RRSP investment: Royal Canadian Mint legal-tender coins of at least 99.5% gold worth no more than 110% of their metal value, or hallmarked bars from an LBMA-accredited refiner, bought from the Mint, the refiner or a regulated Canadian institution or registered dealer [folio].
Storage
Home storage has no fee but carries theft risk, and home insurance may cap bullion coverage. Bank safety deposit box contents usually aren't insured by the bank. Dealers offer insured, segregated vault storage for a fee. The CFTC lists storage questions to ask before buying [cftc10].
Scams regulators warn about
- Unsolicited pitches by phone, email, mail or ads that play on economic fears [cftcf][nssc].
- Pressure, unusually high promised returns and fake dealers [cafc][nssc].
- Retirement-savings pitches. The NSSC lists advice to liquidate retirement investments to buy metals as a red flag [nssc]. In a US gold-IRA case, a dealer and custodian took nearly $150,000 in fees on a $300,000 rollover [cftcr][sec].
- Overpriced "collectible" coins sold far above melt value [cftcr][cftc10].
- Counterfeits. Barrie, Ont. police warned of gold-plated copper bars stamped to resemble Perth Mint or Royal Canadian Mint bars [cbc]; the FBI warns of fake coins and bullion sold online [ic3].
- Phantom storage. Dealers have charged to store bullion in vaults that didn't exist, or sold financing on metal never bought [cftcf].
- Fake "police safekeeping". Callers posing as a bank's fraud team get victims to buy gold and hand it to fake officers; the RCMP says police never do this [rcmp].
Some scam sources are dated (CBC 2018, FBI 2021) and the gold-IRA example is US-specific.