Where to buy gold

All that glisters is not gold. You have to know where to shop or your '23 karat' gold necklace may turn black after a couple of years....

Thailand

There are gold shops on just about every street corner in Thailand. Thais use gold, in part, as an investment in place of cash. With so many shops and so much buying and selling of gold  you might expect that the Thais  would be gold experts. This is not the case. It is estimated that up to 90% of gold jewelry sold in Thailand contains only 90%-92% gold. Gold shops  will sometimes put their own mark on gold they buy from the factory. However this does not mean that they have actually made it themselves or guarantee the purity.

Yaowarat

Originally, there were four main gold shops on the 'Golden Road': Seng Heng Li, Hua Seng Heng, Tung Jin Aeng and Tang To Kang . Now there are more than 130 gold shops with new ones starting up continually on both sides of the road. Most shops are members of the Gold Merchants Association. Gold products here are of high standard and quality; many are hand-made and of beautiful intricacy.

2 shops where you will never be cheated are:

Hua Seng Heng - to find your way to this shop print out this map, and give it to the taxi driver.

Tang To Kang - the oldest gold shop in Bangkok. It was founded by Tohkang Saetang, a Chinese immigrant, in the 1880s. It was the only gold shop in the Sampheng areas during the reign of Rama VI to be granted a royal appointment to use the Garuda emblem in 1921. 

The shop has a high reputation for quality and craftsmanship and will repurchase any piece for not more than 1% lower than the prevailing market price of gold. Some shops maintain a margin of up to 5% on repurchased items.

 This shop is to shortly start franchising its business. It should be noted that at the moment there is only one shop and other shops using the Tang To Kang name are doing so illegally.

The best way to get to Yaowarat to take the subway to Hualampong and then get a taxi to Yaowarat (pronounced Yaowaraat). A motorcyle is faster but more dangerous.

You can have jewelry custom made for you. The cost will depend very much on your bargaining skills and the amount of work involved.

Virtually all the gold shops in Thailand are Chinese owned. To find traditional Thai gold designs, you will have to go to the town of Petchburi.
One visitor to this site writes: "If your looking for high quality hand made gold, beautiful workmanship, some pieces with enameling, or even dragon bracelets go to Petchaburi. Lots of shops near the market. Well known to Thais, who come shopping here on the weekends from Bangkok. Jae Ju 1 & 2 are my personal favorite shops."

Using a Credit Card

You can use a Credit card for gold purchase at most shops on Yaowarat Road although .there is usually a surcharge of 2-5%, depending on the shop and the credit card. Amex is more expensive than Visa or Mastercard. In addition to the shop adding a surcharge, your credit card company will most likely charge you a fee for "foreign currency conversion". Debit cards also have a similar charge structure, although it is hard to see how the companies justify this...

Buying Gold Buddhas

The best place to buy statues of Buddha, Ganash, Rama or other religious paraphanelia is probably Sao Ching Cha (เศวตชิงช้า) in Bangkok.

Exporting Thai gold

It is illegal to export gold. This includes 23k gold jewelry, but not 18k gold.

Buying Thai jewelry on the Internet

Finding 23 karat Thai gold on the internet is not easy.There are some companies selling it from Thailand. However as exporting 23 karat gold is illegal, they are breaking the law. Perhaps they don't realize this, or perhaps they don't care. The postal services, such as EMS, DHL and TNT are aware of the law and refuse to handle 23k gold. As they will carry 18k gold, which it is legal to export, and as they are unlikely to assay the pieces, in practise it is possible to use their services.You would have to accept, however, that any pieces sent would be uninsured.

There are some people selling Thai gold on ebay. The problem with ebay is that their fees are so high. You have to pay an initial Insertion Fee and a Final Value Fee of 5.25%.  For some products this is not significant, but for gold jewelry, where the cost of the metal  makes up most of the price, it becomes an important factor. If you pay by Paypal there is an additional 2.9% you need to pay in order to fund your Paypal account.

The total costs of buying a piece on ebay and using paypal to pay for it, all of which must be born by the buyer in some way, can be calculated using this calculator.

One way to reduce charges on Ebay is to sell the item for a very low value but include a large shipping cost.

Much of the jewelry sold on ebay is fake. A study of certain pieces of "Tiffany" jewelry sold on eBay earlier this year showed that 73% of the jewelry was counterfeit.

Buying gold in Singapore

Nearly every bank in Singapore has a precious metals counter where you can buy and sell coins and bars in various denominations ranging from a few grams to ounce coins to kilogram bars. The downside of buying gold in Singapore is that you have to pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which tacks on an additional 5% to the price.

Singapore’s banks have figured out a way around this and are now offering “Gold and Silver savings account programs that are slightly similar to GoldMoney.com. You can also open an account with a bank like UOB and buy/sell unallocated gold at prevailing market prices (plus a premium). Your account is thus denominated in ‘grams’ instead of dollars. The transactions, as well as your gains, are not subject to Singapore’s GST.

Buying gold in Laos

Gold jewelry in Laos is 99% pure, and may offer an ever better bargain than that sold Thailand. The best place to buy it is probably the second floor of the Morning Market (Talat Sao) situated on orner of Th Lan Xang and Th Khu Vieng. Despite the name it's actually open until 4 PM or so.

Although Laos has its own gold mines they are scarce so most of the gold is imported from Australia. If the gold you are offered is less than the spot price you are buying a fake.

Buying gold in Dubai

The best place to buy gold is probably the Gold Souk ("Souk" is the Arabic word for market), on the Deira side of town near the mouth of the Creek. It is an impressive sight. Rows upon rows of windows are filled with elaborate 24-carat gold necklaces, and throngs of Arab and Indian women clamour for a better view. You will find row upon row of shops with dazzling displays of gold jewellery in every conceivable design and purity: Much of the stuff is geared for Indian tastes (24-carat gold is very yellow), but contemporary European styles can also be found (mainly in the more shiny 22-carat gold), and at fairly reasonable prices. If you wish you can also purchase kilo bars, ten tola bars, small minted bars and gold bullion bars. You buy by weight, and the price of any given bracelet changes twice a day. The quoted price does not include the design fee which varies according to according to shop and style of jewellery.

Gold is certainly cheaper here because you escape the duty and sales tax that is levied in many countries. Though the price difference is minimal in fashion jewellery, you can still save up to 20 per cent, with the quality assured.

The best time to visit the Gold Souk is in the evening after sunset; when most of the tourists will have gone home and your chances of finding a merchant willing to make a deal before he heads home increase dramatically. While credit cards are accepted, you will get a much better deal by paying in cash.

Buying gold in Austria

The ‘Philharmonic’ is produced by the Austrian mint and is one of the most popular coins in the world.

The Philharmonic coin is struck in four sizes at 999.9 weight -- 31.103 grams (1 troy oz), 15.552 grams (.5 troy oz), 7.776 grams (.25 troy oz), and 3.121 grams (.10 troy oz). Each carries legal tender face value of 100 euro, 50 euro, 25 euro, and 10 euro respectively.

The Austrian mint also produces a one troy ounce silver Philharmonic coin, as well as gold bars in 1 gram, 2 gram, 5 gram, 10 gram, 20 gram, 50 gram, 100 gram, 250 gram, 500 gram, and 1000 gram weight.

Philharmonics and gold bars can be purchased at the Austrian Mint’s shop in Vienna (Am Heumarkt 1), Innsbruck (Adamgasse 2). Coins and bars cannot be purchased on the mint’s website. Also, virtually every bank in Austria sells Philharmonics, usually kept behind the cashier’s station near the bank tellers. Larger banks tend to keep more inventory, so if you’re looking to make large purchases, try main branches in the downtown area of Vienna like Bank Austria or Raiffeisen Zentralbank.