About The Goldback Guide
The Goldback Guide is an independent publication covering Goldbacks — the privately issued gold-foil currency notes produced by Goldback Inc. — and the companies, products and terms surrounding them.
Why This Site Exists
Goldbacks are a small market with a great deal of confident writing in it. A lot of what circulates is out of date, copied second-hand, or repeats a figure nobody has checked against the source.
That matters more here than in most niches, because the companies involved change their published terms without announcing it. In a single fortnight we watched a dealer rewrite its entire lease rate structure with no notice, and found the same company's own pages disagreeing with each other about early-termination fees. Anyone relying on a guide written three months earlier would have been reading fiction.
This site exists to be the version that is actually checked.
What We Publish
- Product guides — denominations, gold content, state series, Alpha and Limited Early Release editions.
- Dealer comparisons — where to buy, what you actually pay, and what the exit looks like.
- Account and lease coverage — the Alpine Gold Account, leasing terms, custody structure and the risks attached.
- Purchase-analysis calculators — premium over melt, premium over exchange value, break-even resale.
- Original diagrams — every graphic on this site is drawn by us. We do not use product photography we do not own, and we do not reproduce Goldback's artwork.
How It Is Funded
Through affiliate commissions. If you follow a link to a dealer and buy something, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
That relationship is disclosed at the top of every page carrying such a link, and again in the footer of every page on the site. It is a real commercial interest and you should read our commercial coverage with that in mind. Full detail is on the affiliate disclosure page.
What it does not do is decide our conclusions. The clearest evidence of that is what we publish anyway: that a "free" Goldback programme has a buried condition sending out-of-state participants silver instead of gold; that a dealer's own pages contradict each other on lease exit fees; that nobody has published mintages for the notes currently being sold. None of that helps conversion. It is on the site because it is true.
What We Are Not
Not affiliated with anyone. The Goldback Guide has no relationship with Goldback Holdings Inc., Goldback Inc., Alpine Gold Exchange, or the United Precious Metals Association beyond ordinary affiliate arrangements. We are not endorsed or sponsored by them, and nothing here should be read as their official position.
Not financial advisers. Everything here is educational. We do not know your circumstances and nothing on this site is a recommendation to buy or sell anything.
Not a dealer. We do not sell Goldbacks, hold customer metal, or process any transaction.
Our Standard
Four rules govern everything published here. They are set out in full on the editorial policy page:
- Primary sources only — if we cannot reproduce a claim from the source, we do not publish it.
- Every figure carries the date it was verified.
- Where official sources conflict, we report the conflict rather than quietly picking one.
- We say plainly when something is unknown.
Corrections
We get things wrong, and when we do we fix them visibly. Our corrections policy explains how, and how to tell us about an error. If you have spotted one, please get in touch — a reader pointing at a wrong number is doing us a favour.