I am Canadian, so I maybe some bias towards the Canadian mint. The Canadian mint carry both gold and silver bullion coins wholesale (the famous maple leaf bullion coins).
They also sell gold ingots or bars. The silver and gold maple leafs are sold by a lot of merchants, which also means that there is likewise lot of buys when you wont on sell you bullion coins.
A word of caution regarding the Royal Canadian Mint. They also sell a lot of collectable, compmenertves coins, and coin sets, you can see them at your local Canada Post. Oddly enough they don’t carry bullion coins??? I reckon if they did sell bullion they would be way over priced as well? They are real nice sets to collect, but most, sorry to say you will over pay for and will more than likely they will go down in value the minute buy.
I have collected them in the past myself, I still have some of them. My advise is if you like that kind stuff at lest put your money into sets that have precise medals in them, like silver, gold, or even copper in the coin.
With that in mind bullion maple leaf are vary collectable by year, you could go with difint gold maple leaf 1/10th Oz coins or perhaps silver 10oz bars. The price will be within reason and is tide to the spot price in general. Just stay with trusted mints, there are lead filled bars out there... I even still have one that, I bought off e-bay years ago. I just cant find it to take a photo of it, to show you.
They have been around 200 year or
so if I remember right. Big company.
There mint is in the good old melting
pot of the USA and in the UK. Most
of there bars have serial number on
each bar.
Like J.M. bars they are one of the
most trusted bars out there in the
market place. Trusted privet
company. They also have serial
numbers on these bars.
They sell the eagle in silver and gold a lot in the same way the Royal Canadian mint. In that they dived the gold into 1/10, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 oz. The eagles is very poplar bullion coin.
5# A-Mark bars
A-Mark is not a mint but sell for J.M. I bring them up because they have the trust factor. The ten oz silver bar is also one of the nicest bars out there. They also have serial numbers on these bars.
Home of Australia. Vary nice bars. They carry 1000oz, 100oz, 10oz, 1oz silver.
Pamp for short (Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux) is a Swiss mint. Gold bars is there big thing in ounces and in gram, also in kilogram bars. Serial numbers come with these bars typically in there own packing telling of there authenticity of the bar purity and weight. Vary nice fruit basket bars, these bars are real beauties.