A funny thing happened on the way to the bullion market:
Provident Metals had stopped taking Bitcoin as payment! That was a shock, so I had to open an account with jmbullion.com who still did. I have not checked back with Provident to see if they have changed their minds, but for whatever reason they stopped taking BTC
Interestingly, you used to receive the max discount for using bitcoin on JM Bullion (same as paying with check or bank transfer), but now it's more expensive to pay with BTC there lol. So bullion dealers no longer like people paying with BTC for whatever reason even though they stated people who purchased using bitcoin spent more money than normal customers.