The only stuff with that kind of spread are 100oz silver bars or 1oz gold coins, all of which are well outside of feasible for $20/wk folks (unless they are willing and able to save for 2 yrs per coin anyway)

Where do you find spreads that low? They’re like 10-20% where I am.

Using reputable dealers that deliver orders placed online. Strange as it sounds, it is, IMO, one of the better and safer (definitely low commission) ways to get gold. BD Bullion, APMEX are good ones. I did not check very recently, but when I did the difference with spot price were under 1% (slightly higher for APMEX, slightly lower for BD). A friend in Australia mentioned the same ballpark, 1-1.5% spread (combined, not each way). 10-20% is a highway robbery!!

An important caveat: this only applies to reasonably large orders, 1 oz or larger. You cannot buy $100 of gold with 1% spread.

I stand corrected -- currently, the difference with spot price is about 2% each way. Lower than 10-20%, but much higher than ~0.5% I remember earlier. I suspect this is due to recent gold price volatility, but not sure.