“There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality, and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.” – Charles de Gaulle
Hello Hivers! In my last post, I said, I'm going to have a delivery of a gold bar, which made me really excited and at the same time quite skeptical because the worst scenario that might happen is that the product will turn out to be fake. Actually, the delivery included not only a gold bar but also an 18K gold pendant purchased from the same online shop.
Yes, this is the gold bar. 😉
It is not what you think—a solid, heavy, and big three-dimensional shining yellow bar. It is what it is. A tiny, one-gram 18K gold bar is complete with a receipt. I don't mind measuring its dimension because my finger is still much bigger than that. It is not even pure because the 24K bar was already sold out.
The first ever Philippine-made gold bar.
The product was advertised as the country's first ever-made gold bar that was offered to the open market. Except for jewelry, I really thought that buying gold bars was illegal in this country. Maybe I can dig up more information about this before trying to buy again. I already saw this ad on social media since last year, but when I checked it, it was selling at a very high premium. I remember it was around 50% more than the gold's melt value at that time, the first time I checked the price of it. Of course, it is a big no to buy it, but still, I want it, so I just add it to my cart list and check it every time I open my online shopping app.
It was a steal!
I don't know what happened, but the shop suddenly offered every jewelry and gold bar with a huge discount in a limited time. So I thought this was an opportunity that I couldn't afford to miss. So I checked the price, used every voucher, and the final price was just 5% over the gold melt value, including the shipping fee. It was for the gold bar. The pendant was much cheaper, just selling at 3% over spot.
No more discounts
The last time I checked, the prices seemed to be back to the normal 20–30% overspot on all gold bars and jewelry. For sure, there will be a day that might give huge discounts again, so I am saving currencies for that. I'm going to put this gold bar among my silver coin collection, and the pendant will be in my wife's jewelry box.
The real money
What the government issues as "money" is not real money. It only benefits those who can have and use that newly printed currency first, before inflation hits 90% of the population. Unless the distribution of newly printed "money" is fair, which is not the case, it will always create huge discrepancies in wealth among the people. Gold and silver, since humans created civilization, were considered the best representations of wealth.
"Gold is money. Everything else is credit." - J.P. Morgan
Thanks for dropping by. I will be posting another interesting Philippine coin soon!
:)
