In the language of credit cards, gold has long been used to describe a certain level of benefits and consumer protections. Many banks issue Gold Visa or MasterCard credit cards, and American Express features a Gold card in its charge-card lineup.

Soon, gold will be used to describe a new type of credit card but in more literal terms. The Gold Bullion credit card promises to be backed up by the value of your own gold bullion coins. Don t have any? The company marketing the card can buy them for you at market rates.

The Gold Bullion card may sound like something you d see on a late-night infomercial and it doesn t help that the card s web site offers few details. But the card sounded so different from everything else on the credit-card market that we decided to take a look. Here s what we found out:

The basics

Say you own several one-ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins, whose price closely tracks the price of an ounce of gold. (Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people these days own gold bullion coins as an investment, according to Scott Schechter, a vice president at the Numismatic Guaranty Corporation of America, a company that evaluates and grades collectible coins.)

You re in a cash crunch and could easily sell the coins, but if the price of gold continues to rise, you will miss out on a potentially richer deal in the future. Enter the Gold Bullion credit card, which basically acts as a secured credit card only instead of cash, you use your gold coins as collateral.

Gold Solutions Marketing, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based company behind the card, will ship your coins to Delaware Deposit Service Company, where they will be stored along with other investors gold coins, and in exchange issue you a credit card with a credit limit of 75% of the value of your gold at the time it is pledged. The 75% limit will give the card-issuing banks enough of a buffer if the price of gold drops unexpectedly, so card holders shouldn t expect to see their credit limits fluctuate daily with the price of gold, says Jeff Silver, a spokesman for Gold Solutions Marketing. Rather, credit limits will likely be reviewed every six or 12 months and adjusted accordingly. Credit-card activity will be reported to the credit bureaus. Should you decide to close the account, you will be able to choose between receiving cash equal to the value of your gold on that day or request to receive your coins back. (All coins are stored in an aggregated account, so you will probably not be returned the same coins you sent.)

Many unknowns

Many of the card s features are still unknown. The company has not disclosed the issuing banks nor some specific terms, such as fees and interest rates. Because the credit line is guaranteed by your gold, Silver says the APRs will be competitive -- ideally, in the single digits. There will likely be an annual fee and a gold storage fee, as well as an additional fee if you want to add to your position (i.e., purchase or send more gold to increase your credit line).

Who should consider the card?

People who can qualify for a regular credit card needn t bother, says Curtis Arnold, founder of the credit-card information web site CardRatings.com. That said, if you have bad credit, are short on cash and own gold coins, you may benefit from having access to your coins worth while retaining ownership of the gold. Review the terms carefully (when they become available) and compare them with those offered by other secured credit cards on the market. A good secured card has a nominal annual fee of $20 or $30, an interest rate in the low-teens and reports to all three credit bureaus, Arnold says. Make sure the card has a grace period, so you can avoid paying interest altogether if you pay off your balance in full each month.

Keep in mind, there are other ways to borrow against the value of your gold. Companies like Santa Monica, Calif.-based Collateral Finance Corporation offer six-month loans (currently at 7.25% APR) for 75% of the value of your gold. Banks and institutions have lent money against gold for at least 50 years now, according to Greg Roberts, the chief executive officer of Spectrum Group International, which owns Collateral Finance Corporation.