Gold Bars

Gold Bar

The most traditional way of investing in gold is by buying bullion gold bars. In some countries, like Argentina, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, these can easily be bought or sold "over the counter" of the major banks. Alternatively, there are bullion dealers which provide the same service.

Bars are available in various sizes, for example in Europe these would typically be in 12.5kg or 1kg bars (1kg = 32.15072 Troy ounces), although many other weights exist, such as the Tael, 10oz, 1oz bar, 10g, or 1 Tola. Gold bars can be held either directly (i.e. held directly by you or in your own safe) or indirectly (held in a vault on your behalf).

Because of the many difficulties of transporting, storing and verifying pure gold bars, an increasingly popular method of investing in gold bars for the small investor is via allocated holdings using a gold account such as those provided by Swiss Banks or one of the online accounts like BullionVault or GoldMoney.

For smaller investors or those looking for smaller unbits of gold then Pamp Suisse produce a series of different weight ingots enclosed in a tamper-proof holder with assay card.