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What's the Story with Thais and Gold?


bumblebee

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Another "What's the story ....?" question for you guys.

 

How come the Thai's and perhaps other SE Asians know so much about the price/value of gold? 

 

Back home perhaps only people with an interest in the jewelery business would be up to date on the value of the stuff, but here it seems any local worth their salt knows about how much gold is valued.  Apparently they talk about it in half a Baht (50 satang), 1 Baht, 2 Baht worth etc, it seems half a Baht runs at about 10,000 Baht to buy.

 

  I presume what they call 1 Baht of gold is connected in some way with how we in the west value it by carat.

 

Can anyone shed some light on all of this?

 

 

 

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I remember buying 1/2 baht bracelet's back in 2004 when it was around the 6.5 thousand Baht mark and when it was probaly close too 70 Baht to £1

 

Then it went up to the 10.000 mark and Im sure even touching the 13,000 mark one time when the Baht was only 55 Baht to £1

 

If a bar girl is wearing a 1 Baht necklace or bracelet she has stung someone is doing well and mostly used as an kind of insurance when/if she gets short of money :biggrin:

 

Anyway to answer your question BB, here goes while your drinking your Ovaltine :hi:

 

Thai Gold is famous worldwide for its high purity of 96.5 percent (or 23 carat). Thai Gold is measured in "Baht" and is not to be confussed with the same word for Thailand's Currency.

Baht is a unit of weight measurement for Gold in Thailand where 1 Baht is equal to 15.244 grams in raw bullion form or 15.16 grams when it sold as jewellery. Thai Gold is also measured in "Salung" which is a smaller unit when compared with Baht, where 1 salung is a quarter baht (0.25 baht) or 3.81 grams.

A purity of 96.5 percent means in 1 Baht of Gold 96.5 percent of it is pure gold while the rest is made of metals such as silver.
Hence, in 1 Baht Gold there is normally 14.71 grams of pure gold which is a little less than half a troy ounce (0.473 ozt). To calculate the weight or price of gold in different units go to Gold Calculator

Every shop in Thailand follows the gold price set by the Thai Gold Traders Association. Thai Gold price does not fluctuate very often like the world gold market, because it only changes in multiples of 50 baht and Thai Gold shops are required to immediately change their display prices when the price is announced. You can also check the latest thai gold prices here or charts of thai gold price history.

 

Thai Gold shops mostly have all the prices displayed in the unit of baht and of 23 carat purity. 99% pure gold is also sold in some shops in Thailand. Gold is sold in many forms such as jewellery, bars, biscuits, commemorative coins, chinese coins, etc. The price of each form of gold may differ from the standard price for gold bullion bars because of other charges such as making charge, craftsmanship, purity, etc. Many gold shops also buy gold and their buying price is often 100 baht less than the selling price.

There are plenty of shops in Bangkok which sell gold, the most famous area for buying gold is Yaowarat in China Town which have over 130 gold shops lined up selling all kinds of gold. Always beware of scams on gold, there are plenty of scam artist in which they try to sell you fake gold or impure gold. Make sure to buy gold from reputable and trusted shops only.

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Another "What's the story ....?" question for you guys.

 

How come the Thai's and perhaps other SE Asians know so much about the price/value of gold? 

 

Back home perhaps only people with an interest in the jewelery business would be up to date on the value of the stuff, but here it seems any local worth their salt knows about how much gold is valued.  Apparently they talk about it in half a Baht (50 satang), 1 Baht, 2 Baht worth etc, it seems half a Baht runs at about 10,000 Baht to buy.

 

  I presume what they call 1 Baht of gold is connected in some way with how we in the west value it by carat.

 

Can anyone shed some light on all of this?

 

Another "What's the story ....?" question for you guys.

 

How come the Thai's and perhaps other SE Asians know so much about the price/value of gold? 

 

t.

 

Can anyone shed some light on all of this?

 

If you go to RT news channel they have had many documentaries about this subject. Maybe they are still online. A distrust of fiat currencies comes to mind

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  • 10 months later...

Just an observation from the sticks. It's interesting to see how much face plays in this whole gold thing. I notice locals wearing anything from 10,000 to 40,000 B worth yet in the home there are no tables, cupboards, chairs etc but they bristle at the idea of selling it to buy some home comforts. Maybe they are keeping it for a rainy day as savings and suffer to a western eye discomfort in the meantime.

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The favourite look is a big gold chain as thick as a bike chain worn outside a tacky tracksuit  :bling:

I asked a "bling" wearer one day what was the attraction /fascination with the big gold chains........he told me very honestly,that although he didnt have a lot of money,seeing the big thick gold chain around is neck...the ladies thought he did !....(have a lot of money

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I think gold holds an attraction in many developing countries because they perceive it to be a more reliable store of wealth than the local fiat currency. That probably stems from the inexorable loss of value by fiat currencies due to inflation or the sometimes sudden, sharp destruction of value due to revolution, war or crisis.  This means gold, in many parts of the world, has earned a reputation for relative safety.

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In Asia is the price of gold jewelry based only on the current price of gold?

 

Yes.

 

In other words if I bought a gold chain today, could I sell it at some other shop tomorrow for let's say 90% of what I paid for it?

 

90% is about right, it varies from country to country, shop to shop. But it is 90% of today's gold price, not of the price you paid for it. If gold has gone up since you bought it, you've done well. If it went down, bad luck.

 

And the gold price has taken an absolute hammering in the past few years. It's all being manipulated by the Wall Street banks & Hedge Funds in a quid pro quo deal with the Federal Reserve to keep gold down in order to prevent the collapse of the US dollar. The only way they can do it is by short selling the Gold ETF (Exchange Traded Funds) where no actual metal changes hands. If anyone wants to close out their ETF contract for actual gold, they get charged an extra 50+%. Or they were, I don't think anyone will give them gold for a paper contract anymore. When the shit hits the fan, those ETF pieces of paper won't be worth anything.

 

As for the Thais & others, they find the gold price useful for setting the price of their jewellery. Hasn't anyone noticed it is odd that the gold shops in Asia can sell their gold jewellery for the gold price? I first questioned this many years ago. It was obvious that they couldn't be buying their gold at the same price. And it turns out they don't. I was sitting in a gem dealers shop talking about something I wanted made, he told me he couldn't get started on it till the 'man' showed up who he bought his gold from.

 

"What man?" I asked. My colleague smiled & said nothing. Turns out it is all gold sold on the black market for cash, bought from itinerant, uneducated gold miners who operate all the way across northern Africa, through the Middle East right up to the Ural Mountains in Russia. Tens of thousands of them who have never heard of the "gold price", they just wait for the guy to turn up to buy whatever they have for cash. Somehow this gold finishes up in all the workshops & souks of the Middle East, Pakistan, India, Thailand & god-knows where else.

 

100's of tonnes of gold bought & sold without any royalties or taxes paid on it in a network so sophisticated they can smuggle millions of dollars worth into India alone every year. My best guess as to who's behind it is the Russian mafia, all I know is they kill anyone who tries to interfere in their operation.

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