Investment Gold is HARD to buy here in Peru

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And why would that be? I sure don´t know, but now I have some time to find out. Gold jewelry is easy to buy (at reputable shops even), but I have not "found the key" to find bullion coins or similar. The couple of times I briefly looked for gold coins were Peruvian ones that circulated (at least some) decades ago, but the mark-up was around 40%, yow!

Peru does not produce bullion coins even though they are No. 6 in world gold production. THAT might make a nice little item for them to make, maybe at a slight premium...!

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Another possibility might be to buy local gold in bar form.

I once in another US city was buying a gold coin when a guy entered who needed a few grams for his jeweler employer. The shop did not have gold shot or other 24 kt around, so he opened up a 1 oz gold bar container and melted off the amount that his customer needed. I did not find out how much nor what the mark-up was (but I imagine it was kind of steep).

I do know that PLENTY of jewelry is made here (and the work is cheap), but I do not know how & where the jewelers get their gold.

Also, Peru does not, to my knowledge, have a reputable refinery. Most Peruvian doré bars (from the mines, typically some 60% pure) are exported, many to Miami (!), Miami I believe is the No. 1 US city importing gold -- surprised me when I learned that.

Anyway, if I get news, I will pass it along for our community´s interest.

(And next time, I want to see a gold mine!)

Peru doesn't have any coin shops? What about pawn shops?

Doing a bit of poking around on this subject, found these articles.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/mercury-in-perus-gold-shops

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/peruvian-gold-health-risks/

So you might want to be careful handling any Peruvian gold.

but its still perfectly safe to put mercury amalgam inside our mouths ..........

Think it smacks of an anti gold article.

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Mmm, mercury amalgam...

Sounds like it tastes great!

Besides, how else am I going to get my Vitamin B12?



EDIT: Bug, it was AT a coin shop where he quoted me a Peruvian gold coin for 40% over spot., grrr...

Ah.. I see. I'm guessing then that there is likely some govco reason (taxes, fees, regulations somewhere along the supply chain) for the 40% markup as that is far beyond anything you would expect from a free market dynamic.

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I had an hour or so this morning (actually Mon morning) to check around. I went to two reputable-looking jewelers, they both quoted me (rough numbers here) for about $2050 for +/- 30 gm of 18 kt gold as a bracelet (heavy links). By my calculation that works out to be about 23 gm of gold worth about $800.

The jeweler at the five-star hotel wanted $2800...

So, from what I have seen, there are no bargains here.

But I did find ONE Peruvian One Libra coin from 1916, very close to .24 toz, so I offered $400 for it, and they took it (originally wanted $450). So, these coins are not the relative bargains as are bullion coins in the USA, Canada, Australia, etc.

The Peruvian coin is rather nice though...:

http://www.apmex.com/product/50014/peru-gold-1-libra-au-agw-2354

And APMEX has it at some $390 (depending) or so. Ah, well, no bargains so far here on gold.

SILVER is a different story, there are LOTS of unique pieces of jewelry and trinkets of silver.

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Today my wife visited her favorite jeweler here (Lima, Peru). She asked about getting a gold-bling bracelet for me, this one would have been heavy at 45 gm (the ones I got quoted earlier were 30 - 33 gm approx.), 18 kt gold.

Still works out to price of way over 100% above spot. Three places quoted about 2.5 times spot, one quoted some 3 times over spot. Yikes!

So I settled on buying that Peruvian "One Libra" coin I mentioned before, approx 8 gm, 22 kt, date 1916 (not rare or special) for $400. A bit more than a common date US $5.00 gold piece (pre-1933), so while not a bargain, not ridiculous like having jewelry made.

The thing I liked about bling (heavy bracelet or chain) is that it would not be suspicious should I decide to implement a "Plan B" should Hillary be our next capo... Who at the airport is going to take a bracelet or chain? Coins might look like wealth transfer...