A gold IRA, aka precious metals IRA, presents the opportunity to hold a range of other assets, which include precious metals, such as gold. Nonetheless, all kinds of gold bullion bars as well gold bullion coins do not qualify for gold investing in a precious metals IRA.  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has laid very precise specifications regards purity of gold that may be used in an IRA. Actually, there are several gold coins plus gold bars which are not acceptable as deposits for gold investing by the IRS for your precious metals IRA since these gold bullion coins and gold bullion bars do not meet with the minimum level of gold purity as specified by the IRS.

Here is some helpful information enabling you to select the correct kinds of gold products for gold investing in your precious metals IRA. You’ll learn the specifications approved gold investing by the IRS. You’ll also find a list of acceptable gold coins, as well gold bars that do not meet the approval of IRS for making such an investment in your gold IRA.

In simple words, instead of making investment in cash in IRA, you can invest in the form of gold in your IRA. It helps safeguarding your funds against inflation and simultaneously generates retirement wealth that is free from taxation. The IRS has framed the following specifications for investing gold in IRA.

The gold coins or bars that you intend depositing in your IRA must have the specified minimum level of purity, which is 0.995.

The gold being deposited into the IRA must be stored in an approved depository. A depository for precious metals should provide an extremely secure storage facility. IRS has approved certain depositories for the purpose of holding IRA gold. Usually, bullion brokers and dealers would have already chosen one or even more depositories.

A custodian must be appointed as the trustee of the IRA. Most often, an investor would need to look for some bullion dealer for buying gold for its requirement of IRA. Then, the same dealer would help them in opening an account with an associated depository or custodian. So, the investor is generally required to handle just one entity (broker or dealer) for starting his/her investments in their Gold IRA.

MBelow, please find a list containing the most popular gold bullion coins that are actually eligible for a precious metals IRA.

American Gold Eagles – The purity of this coin stands at 91.67. Meaning, its weight of 1.0909 troy ounces gets you one troy ounce of gold.

American Gold Buffaloes – The United States Mint for the first time introduced 1 ounce gold coin of .9999 purity during 22006. Soon, the coin provided to be a good competitor of its counterpart, the Canadian Maple Leaf.

Australian Gold Kangaroos – During 1987, Gold Corp, a wholly owned company by the Western Australian Government introduced Gold Kangaroos. Apart from being considered among legal tenders of Australian Government, these have continued to be a favorite collectors’ item and investment over the last twenty-five years.

Austrian Gold Philharmonic – Its typical Musicverein design, which makes it popular, comprises of sonata of regular instruments which include bassoon, cello, French horn, harp and violin.

Canadian Gold Maple Leafs – The Royal Canadian Mint guarantees the weight and purity of these coins. Generally, you get these in a bunch of ten.

Credit Suisse Gold Bars – The esteemed Credit Suisse mint with its headquarters in Zurich mints these 99.99 percent pure bars in gold.

Johnson Matthey Gold Bar – Though guaranteed for 0.999 percent purity, these gold bars are not sold so frequently as the rest of the bullion bars. Gold bars from Johnson Matthey in various denominations enjoy the reputation as the premium gold bars that one could buy.

Valcambi Gold CombiBar – These gold bars are also made from 0.999 percent pure gold. A distinct feature of these bars is that you can easily split one bar into fifty small bars, each weighing one gram.

Take special note, that there are also quite a few widely-popular coins that are actually not eligible for gold investing in your precious metals IRA. Below, please find a list of some of these gold coins:

Chinese Panda coins

Chilean 100 Peso coins

French Napoleon coins

French 20 Franc coins

Dutch 10 Guilder coins

Israel Tower of David coins

Italian Lira coins

Mexican Peso coins

United Kingdom Sovereign coins

UK Britannia coins

Swiss 20 Franc coins

South African Krugerrand coins

Somalia Elephant coins

Switzerland Vreneli coins

USSR Chervonet coins

US Liberty coins

US Double Eagle coins

Other than the above noted coins, you should refrain from investing in all numismatics, collectors and commutative gold coins in your precious metals IRA. Though sold at unreasonably high prices, none of these coins is meant for the purpose of gold investing in a precious metals IRA. You should be careful, as many sales persons will try to convince you to buy such “special”, “limited edition” or “rare’ coins. In fact, such gold coins are steeply priced, with just a couple of them rarely getting you more than what you paid at the time of buying these gold coins.

The difference is that instead of holding assets in the form of paper currency, it holds gold coins or bars. So, one obvious benefit is that despite depreciation of currency (meaning dollar) the worth of your assets is not affected adversely because unlike any other kind of retirement account, including 401k, you are not holding your wealth in the form of cash. You may have realized that as the price of dollar becomes low a number of people tend to invest in precious metals like gold to avoid depreciation of their wealth. Under such financial circumstances, there is an increase in demand of precious metals leading to an increase in its prices of precious metals. It means the value of your assets in the form of gold investing gets enhanced. You should understand that the price of gold is inversely proportional to that of dollar.

You should appreciate that apart from safeguarding a portion of retirement assets from devaluation of currencies because of rising inflation, gold investing offers the opportunity to generate a sizeable return on investment upon its maturity. Some analysts forecast the price of gold to reach a level of $5,000/pound within the next ten years. Add to that the estimation of gold mining companies that the so far known deposits of gold would have been mined over the next two decades, and you have a golden opportunity for a precious metals IRA with IRA approved gold.