Gold Academy · Lesson 1

What Is Physical Gold?

Physical gold is the metal itself: coins and bars you own outright and can hold in your hand. It is the difference between owning gold and owning a promise about gold.

Last reviewed September 2026

Physical gold vs paper gold

You can get gold exposure through funds, ETFs and mining shares, often called paper gold. These track the price, but you own units in a structure, not metal. Physical gold is simpler: a one ounce Britannia is 31.1 grams of 999.9 fine gold, full stop. It cannot be diluted, frozen, or wound up. If you can't hold it, you don't own it.

What physical gold looks like in practice

For UK buyers it usually means legal tender coins from The Royal Mint, chiefly the Britannia and the Sovereign, chosen because they are free of Capital Gains Tax and VAT, recognised worldwide and easy to sell. Bars exist too, though they lose the CGT exemption. Coins arrive encapsulated, insured and tracked, and from then on they simply sit there holding value, needing nothing from you.

What gold does not do

Gold pays no interest or dividends, and its price moves down as well as up. It is not a get-rich scheme; it is a store of wealth people hold for years, often precisely because it behaves differently from everything else they own.

Next lesson: Why do people own gold? · Back to the Academy

This page is general information, not financial advice. The value of gold can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to future performance.