How to mine the different methods of gold investing You probably don't want to hide gold bars under your bed, so those buying gold bars or bullion are advised to use a specialist company who will store and insure them for you for a fee. Alternatively, you can keep coins or small bars in a bank deposit box. BullionVault.com allows you to purchase gold and store it in vaults in London, New York or Zurich. You'll pay 0.8pc commission every time you buy or sell, and an annual 0.12pc storage fee. Bullion coins and small bullion bars contain a minimum 99.5pc fine gold. Contact bullion dealers such as Baird & Co (goldline.co.uk). You can also hold gold in a self-invested personal pension (Sipp) - ask your adviser if you are interested in this. Coins are smaller - so you don't need as much money to invest. But the margins can be higher. Make sure you ask about selling as well as buying costs. If you do keep gold coins at home make sure they are insured. Jewellery This is the other way many people choose to "invest" in gold. Be aware that the spot prices quoted are for "pure" 24-carat gold. Most jewellery is a mixture of gold and alloys, so ounce-for-ounce will be worth far less. A nine-carat gold necklace contains just 37.9pc fine gold, while 18 carat is only 75pc fine gold. Jewellers also charge a significant markup to cover manufacture and sales costs. An investment fund The most popular of these is BlackRock Gold & General, which invests in the shares of gold mining companies. General commodity funds are also a good option, as most dabble in gold-related stocks, one of the biggest being J P Morgan's Natural Resources fund. Mining equities tend to be more volatile than the gold price and won't mirror its price. The rule of thumb used to be that when gold prices rise these stocks tend to perform well, and vice versa. But as the graph opposite shows, this has not held true in recent years. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) These are not technically funds because they follow a single security. ETF gold securities are traded on the London Stock Exchange. They track the gold price and can be traded daily - all you pay is the dealing charge of around 0.4pc. They are also regulated financial products. However, there are different types of ETFs, some will buy the asset whose price they are tracking, others rely on hedging techniques and other complex derivatives to mirror the gold price. Some ETFs will allow investors to cash in their holding for physical gold at any time; most will only redeem the investment for a sterling equivalent. A gold account Rather than buy bullion and have it stored in a bank vault, it is possible to opt for an "unallocated account" with a bullion dealer. Here you are still buying gold, but investors don't have specific bars allotted to them. Traditionally, one advantage of unallocated accounts has been the absence of storage or insurance charges, because the bank reserves the right to lease the gold out.