West Aucklander Mike Collins began investing in precious metals over a year ago as a means of diversifying his property portfolio.
"While I was intending on learning what was going on with interest rates [for property investing purposes], I picked up a lot about precious metals."
He decided to buy
some metal in January 2005. "I had some spare money and I saw that it was going to be harder to make money out of property investment. Things go in cycles."
He didn't trust exchange-traded gold funds - because he feared the share might not be fully backed up by physical metal - and chose to buy physical gold - which can be stored in bank vaults.
The software engineer simply paid for and picked up his bars from Morris Watson, in Nielson St, Te Papapa, and sat back and watched them appreciate in value. The next phase of his investing will be buying Canadian mining shares.
As well as gold, Collins is interested in silver. He says people talk about the two markets synonymously, but silver has additional industrial uses.
