Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve Review

Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve is what you might call a "mint's bullion company." For starters, they place as minimal of a focus as possible on precious metal IRAs, from what we've gathered. While the gold IRA is listed as one of their products, there is practically no information on how this ties into the company and what those opening a retirement account might expect. Instead, it's all bullion.

Furthermore, as many gold companies pick prominent names in various sectors for their endorsement, NCaBR went back to the basics. It seems that they went with Don Everhart, the U.S. Mint's very own former head sculptor. This looks to be a partial endorsement, as Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve claims that Everhart picked the company to be the sole distributor of his signature series.

Having designed over 1,000 items on the Mint's list, Everhart comes off as a pretty recognizable name to bolster your company's appeal. The inventory is good, the reviews are mostly good and the prices are competitive.

There are certainly a couple of quirks about the company we'll cover, and if you don't find them off-putting or a deal-breaker, Nationwide Coins can probably serve your needs well.

Important note: Before we get started on our Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve review, know that we've ranked and rated the 7 top gold companies for 2023 here. 

You can also skip directly to visit our top gold IRA company for 2023 here.  Ok, let's get started on our Nationwide Coins review!

About Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve

Nationwide Coins opened up shop in 2009 and operates out of Houston, Texas. If you visit them online, the company website is very minimal when it comes to the who, when and what. No owner or owners are listed, and there's minimal information about the company's founders or executive team.

As mentioned, they give off the appearance of a strictly bullion dealer that doesn't provide service for U.S. retirement accounts. This doesn't appear to be true, as precious metals IRAs are listed as part of their offering, yet with little explanation. While their website does have a knowledge base of sorts, it's also a little spotty in some areas.

Nationwide reveals that their team consists of precious metals experts, including those specializing in rarities and numismatics, along with economists and analysts. Both foreign and domestic bullion is mentioned on the website, and we've come across information supporting the notion that Nationwide ships to Europe, making them one of the few companies we've reviewed that does. Perhaps "Global Coin and Bullion Reserve" would be more fitting, then?

As some steer clear of trying to offer investment advice, Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve hardly has an issue with it. They even tell us that you'll get a pretty much foolproof investment guide if you reach out to them. Whether this is a good or bad thing is something we'll let you decide on your own.

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Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve reviews

What did we mean by parts of the website being spotty? For example, the Frequently Asked Questions part of the website does not work at all, appearing to have had a back-end malfunction. The "Reviews" section, which is featured prominently on the website, also has only one sentence directing us to Trustpilot.

We'd imagine their favoring of Trustpilot has to do with the website having the most reviews, but also a relative lack of complaints compared to other watchdogs. Their profile on TrustPilot is pretty good, with 675 reviews out of which 76% are excellent and only 3% containing negative feedback.

The aggregate rating they've garnered on this site is 4.5 out of 5 stars, and the amount of reviewers means they probably have a considerable volume. Interestingly enough, while Trustpilot says they pay for additional features, it also says they don't reply to negative reviews, which seems true enough.

On the Better Business Bureau page, they have a considerably lower rating: 3.31/5 stars and no accreditation. The BBB even says that they're receiving a lot of complaints with the same trend. 

We're not sure we'd say 26 reviews overall and 16 complaints in the last 3 years are a lot, but maybe. Interestingly enough, one reviewer took the effort to lament on both the Trustpilot and the BBB pages how someone named "Eric" was rude to him. Talk about one representative giving you a lot of bad rep, eh?

The Business Consumer Alliance profile is a little better, sporting an AAA rating. They’ve attained a 4-star rating based on twelve 5-star reviews and two 1-star ones. In general, the negative reviews mostly have to do with either rude representatives or misrepresented promotions.

The positive Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve reviews praise the representatives they've talked to, the company, the pricing and the products. Given the large number of positive reviews and what they have to say, along with the company's engagement on BBB, we'd say that this isn't a scam company but simply one that could put a little more effort into customer relations. 

Related: How to Diversify Your 401(k) or IRA with Physical Precious Metals

Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve products

Precious metal IRAs

There is a kind of mysterious tint to the gold IRA seemingly offered by Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve. For starters, we were almost going to go ahead and say that this is a gold bullion vendor until we stumbled upon a mention of "IRA rollovers" in their About section.

What does this translate to? Your guess is as good as ours, possibly better. We haven't a clue to what extent Nationwide offers IRA services. It's pretty clear that they aren't nearly as extensive as some of the more specialized companies.

Do they simply put you in touch with a custodian, and if so, which? What about storage? Are there any services or promotions here? No indication of an answer to any of these questions. The only other detail they have on their website about this is that they provide gold and silver starter packages, which is also short on specifics.

For a company that looks as large as Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve, we don't quite understand why they wouldn't elaborate on this and almost conceal their catering to retirement investors. 

The products on their website are split into three categories: Gold, Silver and Pre-33 Gold. Let's see what each is about.

Gold

In what is a highly unusual sight for bullion stores and an almost bizarre one for companies providing gold IRAs, Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve says that they offer a single 1oz American Gold Eagle and a single 1oz gold bar to each customer.

No, that doesn't mean you get these for free: it means that, supposedly, you can only buy one of each from them, and that's it. The reasons listed are limited reserves, and while we know that products can sell quickly, we have to wonder what's up with this. After all, the 1oz American Gold Eagle is probably the most popular investment-grade coin in the U.S. and likely a contender in other countries. While the pricing for this coin is spot and it's listed with free shipping, it's still a strange sight.

Their other gold bullion coins seemingly focus on contemporary numismatics. There are Everhart's proofs of different varieties, 1/10oz Gold American Eagle coins, contemporary American Liberty coins and American Buffalos. Some products have pricing, others don't. Some are sold out, others aren't. While we don't like to see a lack of pricing, we do like it when bullion shops leave their inventory even when sold out. It gives customers a better idea of what to expect from a company now and in the future.

Related: How to Buy Physical Gold & Silver with Your 401(k) or Employer Sponsored Retirement Account

Silver

The silver category is quite a bit thinner and consists of 1oz American Eagles and 10oz silver bars. How many American Silver Eagles can you buy? You guessed it... One. Now, some reviewers say that they were able to purchase entire rolls of American Eagles from Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve. This again makes us wonder if this is some intricate promotion where the cheap coin attracts you and you want more. But, again, not much detail in this regard.

While the gold bar is sold with an option to choose the mint, silver bars are sold without a limit but with no mint listed. Oh, and they also say "Sold Out". Other silver products include an Everhart proof and 1964 Kennedy Silver Half-Dollars. 

Pre-1933 Coins

This is where the spottiness of the website again comes into play. This category only has three gold coins. However, by examining other categories, it seems that they offer one more variety of a 20th century coin along with 50-coin rolls of pre-1933 silver coins. These should all be in this category for greater clarity.

The coins here are 19th and 20th century American collectibles that are most commonly found in the rare coins section of the bullion shops that offer numismatics. Pricing is absent, which is the norm with most shops that feature numismatics precious metal coins. 

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Buyback, promotions... platinum?

Since all of these things are important but there is so little info on any of them, we'll group all of them together. Let's start with platinum. Even though Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve says they're a top provider of platinum, there are no other precious metals besides gold and silver listed on the website.

That they've left out-of-stock products in the inventory makes us believe that they haven't offered any platinum yet and are only planning to down the line. But maybe that's not the case and extensive scouring of reviews could tell us more.

One of their main promotions appears to be "an ounce of gold with no markup". Does this refer to the American Eagle or is it a separate promotion? Reviewers say that they were lured in by various other offers of which there isn't too big of a mention on the website.

They have a laid-out Ethics section where they outline their promise to deliver gold, silver and platinum coins as-described, with competitive pricing and no funny business. They even explain how they're doing it out of their good will, as there isn't a regulatory body governing the sale of bullion. Still, it's a nice touch.

The section gives some sound-enough investment advice and says you're eligible to receive more by getting in touch with the company. However, there is no mention of buybacks. Many bullion shops offer the option to sell back the bullion you purchased, even with some delays. 

Some even do it in a no-questions-asked manner. While we can't say that Nationwide doesn't offer any buybacks, it seems that you'll be fortunate to get the option to sell back the coins or bars you've purchased.

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Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve review – Verdict

We always advise would-be customers of any bullion company to check what the website and the company looks like to them. Are they getting a good vibe or the feeling that they should look elsewhere? And while this holds true for any company we've come across, Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve's quirks make this advice a must.

From offering investment advice without issue to their exceedingly strange listing of American Eagles, it can take some getting used to what this company is about. They seem to place a heavy emphasis on the customer reaching out to them for more details as opposed to providing them up-front.

This isn't exactly a red flag: it's probably just a way of attracting new customers. As we said, there are hundreds of satisfied customers, and those that aren't don't exactly paint the kind of "they ruined my life" picture that you might encounter with other bad-apple companies. 

Still, transparency is important, all the more so when you are doing business in the precious metals industry, which Nationwide Coin and Bullion Reserve itself reminds us isn't particularly regulated.

We also have to mention that you're probably feeling a little wanting if you're a retirement investor looking to open a gold IRA. While we can't speak to how many retirement account purchases they facilitate, we imagine that having a single sentence dedicated to IRAs on the entire main section of the website doesn't instill confidence. After all, just as precious metals investment, retirement investment is a long-run thing and not something that the facilitator should hardly pay attention to.

Mixed with the empty or incomplete sections of their website, we have to say that this company gives off a considerably less professional vibe than what the feedback outlines. It's a shame, especially with a company that's nearing 15 years in the competitive precious metals market and appears to have held onto its reputation well enough from the start.

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