Spot price is the live benchmark for one troy ounce of raw, unrefined metal. It's set by trading on two main markets: COMEX in New York — the dominant futures exchange for gold and silver in the United States — and the LBMA in London, which sets a twice-daily reference price used by banks, refiners, and large buyers worldwide. The number updates every few seconds during trading hours and holds at Friday’s close over the weekend.

Spot isn't the price of a coin or a bar. A finished product must be refined to purity, struck or cast into form, packaged, insured, shipped, and stocked. None of those costs appear in the spot number. Every physical product trades at spot plus a premium — a real charge that covers the full chain from raw metal to the buyer’s hand.

The premium is not a surcharge. It's the cost of turning raw metal into something a household can hold.

Sovereign gold coins — American Eagles, Maple Leafs, Britannias — typically carry premiums of three to eight percent over spot in normal markets. Gold bars from major refiners like PAMP or Valcambi run one to four percent. Silver premiums run higher as a share of cost — often ten to twenty percent for coins — because the making cost is a larger fraction of the metal’s value per ounce. Smaller pieces always carry higher premiums per ounce than larger ones because the fixed making cost is spread over less metal. Premiums also rise during surges in retail demand, as they did sharply in 2020.

For the household reader, spot is most useful as a comparison tool. If gold spot sits at $2,400 and a one-ounce American Eagle is listed at $2,510, the premium is $110 — about 4.6 percent over spot. That number lets the buyer compare the same product across dealers, and it shows how much of the price is metal and how much is making and margin. A product with a low premium isn't always the best buy — American Eagles carry higher premiums than generic rounds, but they also sell more easily on the second-hand market. The honest comparison looks at the full picture: spot, premium, and how readily the product sells when it's time to leave. Everything in writing, before a dollar moves.