Anyone else find these Gold IRA minimums a bit steep sometimes?

• •Okay, so I've been doing some serious digging into opening a Gold IRA lately.
• •As a professor here in Richmond, my research usually involves dusty manuscripts, but lately it's all about precious metals and IRS regulations.
• •The inflation scares from the last couple of years really got me thinking about adding a tangible asset.

Okay, so I've been doing some serious digging into opening a Gold IRA lately. As a professor here in Richmond, my research usually involves dusty manuscripts, but lately it's all about precious metals and IRS regulations. I've got a decent chunk saved up, north of $300k in my current retirement accounts, and I'm looking to diversify a good portion of that, probably somewhere in the $50k-$75k range, into physical gold. The inflation scares from the last couple of years really got me thinking about adding a tangible asset.

What's been tripping me up, though, are these minimum investment requirements some of these custodians have. I'm seeing a pretty wide range, from $10k all the way up to $50k in some cases. While $50k isn't entirely out of the question for my planned allocation, it feels a bit restrictive if I wanted to, say, start with a smaller test batch or add periodically without hitting those big minimums every time. It almost feels like they're trying to push bigger investors.

Are these high minimums just part and parcel of the Gold IRA world? Or am I just looking at the wrong providers? I've been using that Retirement Planner tool to model out different scenarios, and while it's fantastic for comparing long-term growth and understanding the tax implications, it doesn't really highlight minimums in the initial search phase.

Any other folks here run into this? Or have you found custodians with more flexible entry points? I'm trying to be strategic here and not just jump into the first option that looks good on paper. Insights from actual investors would be hugely appreciated!