How Do I Buy Gold and Silver?

I am hearing more and more questions about how to buy gold and silver:

• How do you buy gold and silver?
• Why should I buy gold and silver?
• What kind of gold and silver should I buy?
• What is the difference between numismatic and bullion coins?
• Which of these should I buy?
• Where can I buy gold and silver?

Including the following important questions:

Will the government confiscate my gold and silver?
Can the government make owning gold illegal?
How do I know if my gold and silver dealer is reputable?
Do buyers get some kind of confirmation that what they are buying from these shops is real and certified?

These are just some of the questions I will try to answer in this post.

Why You Should Own Gold and Silver
First off, why should you own precious metals? Read this:

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. Read more.....