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best place to buy gold (especially bars)

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  1. #1

    best place to buy gold (especially bars)

    I am interested in buying gold.

    Physical gold, not that semi-fraudulent "paper gold" sold by banks in HK.

    My goal is to get as close of a price to spot gold as possible.

    I love the visual appearance of well done pure gold coins (anything from the Perth mint, maples, etc--but not impure coins like krugs). But I am now cheap and do not want to pay the premium that coins usually command over spot.

    I have been told that my best bet is to buy gold bars. I was told that the major jewelry stores in HK all sell them. So, about 2 weeks ago, I investigated. My results are below. (The prices that I give are for that time, so the numbers are really only good for relative comparisons.)

    What I would love is to hear if anyone has any better sources than the best I list below (Chow Sang Sang).

    There are some old threads on this website (like this one), but I did not quite find what I want.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Luk Fook: only sells fancy designed bars. They give you a very bad "spot" rate (their initial sell price) of HK$ 470/g. This is significantly worse than the actual real time gold spot price (see below). Then they want a 2% commission on top of that plus a "labor" fee of about HK$1,000 (depends on how fancy the design is on the bar). In the store I visited, I was able to negotiate the price of the bar down to 1% commission and low labor IF I bought a decent amount(e.g. 5 taels).

    Chow Tai Fook: seemed to be the same as Luk Fook, except they are arrogant and will not budge from their commission at all.

    Chow Sang Sang: they were distinctly the best for what I want. They give you a mediocre spot rate of HK$ 445/g <--> US$ 1,780/oz. I recall that kitco said that gold spot was around US$ 1,735 at that time, so they are effectively charging you about US$45 for the bar <--> a 2.5% markup. Very good is that they charge ZERO commission and "labor" fee. The bar that you get is quite plain, not fancy, but that is OK for me, as I hate pay the premium.

    If anyone knows who can beat Chow Sang Sang, please speak up!


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    Why not buy Krugerrand or Maple leaf? Most major banks sell them at a premium of about 4-5%

    Mat likes this.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Oct 2003
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    金銀業貿易場 The Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society

    I guess the general public probably can't buy at the exchange directly but they'd probably be able to point you in the right direction.
    Mat likes this.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Oldtimer:
    Why not buy Krugerrand or Maple leaf? Most major banks sell them at a premium of about 4-5%
    For the reasons that I mentioned in my original post. Krugs are out because they are impure, I hate that in precious metals. Maples I do like, but I find 4-5% premiums to be excessive. It looks like the Chow Sang Sang premium on bars is about half that of coins (will confirm today), and I would like it even lower, if I can get it.

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    2

    There are international gold suppliers that sell 23.9999 pure gold bars with a small premium over spot prices, mainly supplying to gold jewelry manufacturers - Heraeus, Metalor and Kaloti are the best known in Hong Kong. But their minimum size is 1kg bars.

    shri and Lemontree21 like this.

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    The closest you can get is with Hang Seng bank, Hong Kong gold 99.0%
    The spread between buy and sell is 20 HK$ per Tael (37.5g) (only during banking hours, else 50 HK$).
    The bars have 5 taels (187.5g). The only place where they keep stock is the central main branch.
    For Transactions over 100000 HK$ you need to have an account with them.

    Gold Prices - Hang Seng Bank Limited


  7. #7

    Join Date
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    I heard bank of china offers the best deals.


  8. #8

    Join Date
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    Good luck with Bank of China.
    I have tried them many times and they never had stock neither could they find out which branch has. Completely incompetent. Furthermore, can you get a better deal than 0.06% above spot (like at Hang Seng) at all, an if so, how much better can it get


  9. #9

    Join Date
    Jun 2010
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    44

    bank of china garden branch usually has a large inventory of maples! the 1oz sealed has a bid/offer spread of only hkd50


  10. #10

    Join Date
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    there are a few options:

    coins: maples / pandas (personally i prefer pandas over maple as they are much nicer)
    you pay 3~4% over spot for the 1 ounce coins. price is quite consistent at HSB (HQ branch) or BOC (the central branch beside wing on department store, which is actually their largest gold coin selling branch). HSB tend to have krug or AGE and those are the 90% that you dislike. so just BOC i guess.

    for maples at BOC, if you keep the receipt and go back to them when you want to sell, they will bid it back at 50hkd cheaper (37bps spread, but seal of the coin must be intact). If you get the panda and you want to sell next year the bid-offer will be alot larger. but if you sell within the issuance year the bid-offer is just 40hkd.



    gold bars >> if you are fine with poured bars, go to one corner shop just along the sheung wan road. those guys deal with exchange recognized gold bars (i.e. can be delivered to exchange) and the premium over spot is quite low (IIRC, around 1~2%).

    forget about the jewellery shops. all of them are quoting 10%~20% above spot for the .999 purity bullions.

    batagor likes this.