Why hold Gold….just look at Turkey

[dikefalos]

10 hours ago, HerefordBullyun said:

 

 They should try a president, that spends the turkish people's money for turkish people, instead of o president, that needs a palace,  and gives the order for 750 airspace violations and 75 low flight over greek islands, terrorizing the people on them, in April 2022 alone. There is obviously enough money in Turkey, to support war in Lybia, Syria, Northern Irak, Karabach and Ukraine. 

[LemmyMcGregor]

To be fair, Turkey has been that bad for ages, it's nothing new.

Before the new currency cut a large amount of zeros the inflation was already ridicolous, I lived near Antalya in 1998, I landed around early April and left mid-October, foreigners were paid in foreign currency as the Turkish Lira wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, I recall my first job being paid $450 a month and then getting DM 650 after moving to a new location, my last salary exchanged to TL was somewhere North of 110.000.000.

In the 6 months I spent over there the currency lost nearly 50% of the value, a pack of smokes was about 450.000 when I landed and around 700.000 when I departed. I'd use 50k/100k coins to play at the arcades. Fantastic products, I still wear a knockoff Nike sweater that I bought at the market in Belek.

[dicker]

On 24/11/2021 at 10:22, dicker said:

Earlier in the year Erdogan asked citizens to sell gold to support the Turkish Lire.

Turkey has cut rates sharply over the last three months which (as the Turkish people know all too well) will ramp up inflation which has long been an enemy of the Turkish people.   To be able to cut rates he fired treasury officials who wanted to follow a policy of defending the Lire.

Yesterday, Erdogan commented that Turkey is “fighting an economic war of independence” and crashed the Lire by 15 percent.  This brings the decline of the Lire to around 40 percent this year against most currencies.  

Turkey currently has an inflation rate of 20pct, and that’s only going to go up….  

I can see few better examples of why citizens of any country should hold gold.

As of today Turkey (roughly a year after my post) Turkey has an inflation rate of 85.5 percent.

A fundamental failure of govenment.  

[scotwasp]

33 minutes ago, dicker said:

As of today Turkey (roughly a year after my post) Turkey has an inflation rate of 85.5 percent.

A fundamental failure of govenment.  

Let’s hope we don’t join them 🫣😂

[27carrots]

A smart Turk would hoover up all the pennies he could get his hands on.

For £1 you can buy 2000 1 kuru coins which has about 4kg of copper.

Extract it and melt it into a bar and sell on ebay for £100+.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_Turkey

[Solachesis]

Gold is very important in Turkish culture, they love it. My fiancée is Turkish, and thankfully this means I can stack gold without judgement hehehe

[dicker]

6 hours ago, Solachesis said:

Gold is very important in Turkish culture, they love it. My fiancée is Turkish, and thankfully this means I can stack gold without judgement hehehe

All power to you!

[Silverlocks]

On 04/11/2022 at 11:20, Solachesis said:

Gold is very important in Turkish culture, they love it. My fiancée is Turkish, and thankfully this means I can stack gold without judgement hehehe

It's a bit like that in Indonesia too.  It's an Islam thing - interest bearing savings accounts are technically usury, so the Quran's prescribed method of saving is to hold gold.  This tends to have an influence on social norms anywhere Islam got big, so a lot of folks stack gold, even if they're not particularly devout.  In Indonesia the market is so big that there's a state owned mining company (P.T. Anneka Tambang) that produces retail gold products specifically for that market, and a lot of jewellers operate a franchise to buy and sell investment gold.

Antam is LBMA Good Delivery accredited and the market is somewhat regulated as it functions as a proxy for banking, so the bars themselves are by all accounts pretty kosher.  They even have a PAMP-style verification app that you can install, but it's iPhone only.  Their small bars (1-3g) also tend to have relatively modest spreads - by London standards anyway.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Silverlocks

[RRH87]

Don't forget Argentina, they just introduced a 25% foreign exchange tax to keep people on the peso. Now there's a black market for foreign currency. They never recovered from the Latin America debt crisis and a strong dollar is taking them back there.

[Roy]

11 hours ago, Silverlocks said:

Their small bars (1-3g) also tend to have relatively modest spreads - by London standards anyway

Silverlocks, mate... 😊

Can you pick me up an Antam 1g bar in assay next time you're in Indo please?

I don't mind paying up front. 

I collect 1g bars, well, my son and I do 🤣

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Roy

[Silverlocks]

8 minutes ago, Roy said:

Silverlocks, mate... 😊

Can you pick me up an Antam 1g bar in assay next time you're in Indo please?

I don't mind paying up front. 

I collect 1g bars, well, my son and I do 🤣

 

I'll see what I can do.  Maybe I'll get a few and see if anybody else wants one.

[Roy]

Cheers. 

The assay cards are nice, and would make great gifts.

I'm a buyer 👍

[Silverlocks]

Actually there's one little caveat with this.  Gold used to attract VAT at 11% in Indonesia, and there are some moves afoot to abolish this, but I can't get any definitive answer as to whether this has actually happened.

[Solachesis]

11 hours ago, Silverlocks said:

It's a bit like that in Indonesia too.  It's an Islam thing - interest bearing savings accounts are technically usury, so the Quran's prescribed method of saving is to hold gold.  This tends to have an influence on social norms anywhere Islam got big, so a lot of folks stack gold, even if they're not particularly devout.  In Indonesia the market is so big that there's a state owned mining company (P.T. Anneka Tambang) that produces retail gold products specifically for that market, and a lot of jewellers operate a franchise to buy and sell investment gold.

Antam is LBMA Good Delivery accredited and the market is somewhat regulated as it functions as a proxy for banking, so the bars themselves are by all accounts pretty kosher.  They even have a PAMP-style verification app that you can install, but it's iPhone only.  Their small bars (1-3g) also tend to have relatively modest spreads - by London standards anyway.

Yeah, I don't have any interest bearing accounts, gold is my savings. We hope to visit Indonesia one day, do they mainly have bars there, or is there an Indonesian bullion coin that I've never come across? 

[Silverlocks]

15 minutes ago, Solachesis said:

Yeah, I don't have any interest bearing accounts, gold is my savings. We hope to visit Indonesia one day, do they mainly have bars there, or is there an Indonesian bullion coin that I've never come across? 

There are some older ones dating back to the Suharto era, but I don't think they've minted anything like that for a while. Gold bars are pretty much where it's at.  This is P.T. Antam's online retail site (in Bhasa).  Unfortunately you need an Indonesian I.D. card number to open an account.

https://www.logammulia.com/id/purchase/gold

Emas Batangan means Gold Bar in Bhasa.

Most jewellers in a shopping mall have a franchise for buying and selling investment gold.  The price and spreads are regulated by the government but tends to track spot prices.  I'm not sure how often they are updated.

And here's a search for emas batangan on Tokopedia (a local equivalent to Ebay).  Kuningan means Brass and Tiruan means fake, by the way.  I'll leave translating imitasi and replika as an exercise for the reader.

https://www.tokopedia.com/search?st=product&q=emas batangan

Edited November 7, 2022 by Silverlocks

[Solachesis]

1 minute ago, Silverlocks said:

There are some older ones dating back to the Suharto era, but I don't think they've minted anything like that for a while. Gold bars are pretty much where it's at.  This is P.T. Antam's online retail site (in Bhasa).  Unfortunately you need an Indonesian I.D. card number to open an account.

https://www.logammulia.com/id/purchase/gold

 

Thank you I'll have a browse Tis a similar story in Türkiye too, I tried to make an account on the Turkish mints website but they required a Turkish ID number, consigned myself to just go into the bazaar next time I am there and get a coin in person

[Silverlocks]

@Solachesis - Most of these are well overpriced but these are some Indonesian gold coins (mostly proofs, collectibles and commemorative coins)

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-25-rupiah-prince-diponegoro-thn-1952-14-9-gram-ngc-ms63

https://www.tokopedia.com/gold-dinar/koin-dinar-emas-gold-dinar-antam-4-25-gram-sertifikat-asli

https://www.tokopedia.com/givemimport/koin-emas-sukarno-tanpa-box-tanpa-serti-tanpa-kapsul-asli-ori-antik

https://www.tokopedia.com/myjewelid-1630717842/my-jewel-idn-garuda-pancasila-koin-emas-2-g-24k-999-9-fine-gold

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-bi-general-sudirman-jenderal-sudirman-61-71gram-ngc-pf62uc

https://www.tokopedia.com/wienumismatika/gold-coin-koin-emas-45-tahun-kemerdekaan-45-gram-rp-750000-thn-1990

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-bi-nusantara-45th-anniversary-of-independence-17-gram

https://www.tokopedia.com/wienumismatika/koin-emas-soeharto-suharto-rp-300-000-thn-1995-ngc-pf-69-high

https://www.tokopedia.com/gamangstore/koin-emas-200000-badak-1987-asli-bank-indonesia

https://www.tokopedia.com/dafriant/koin-emas-logam-mulia-edisi-50-tahun-kemerdekaan-ri-67-gram-antam

[Solachesis]

20 minutes ago, Silverlocks said:

@Solachesis - Most of these are well overpriced but these are some Indonesian gold coins (mostly proofs, collectibles and commemorative coins)

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-25-rupiah-prince-diponegoro-thn-1952-14-9-gram-ngc-ms63

https://www.tokopedia.com/gold-dinar/koin-dinar-emas-gold-dinar-antam-4-25-gram-sertifikat-asli

https://www.tokopedia.com/givemimport/koin-emas-sukarno-tanpa-box-tanpa-serti-tanpa-kapsul-asli-ori-antik

https://www.tokopedia.com/myjewelid-1630717842/my-jewel-idn-garuda-pancasila-koin-emas-2-g-24k-999-9-fine-gold

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-bi-general-sudirman-jenderal-sudirman-61-71gram-ngc-pf62uc

https://www.tokopedia.com/wienumismatika/gold-coin-koin-emas-45-tahun-kemerdekaan-45-gram-rp-750000-thn-1990

https://www.tokopedia.com/finegoldgallery/koin-emas-bi-nusantara-45th-anniversary-of-independence-17-gram

https://www.tokopedia.com/wienumismatika/koin-emas-soeharto-suharto-rp-300-000-thn-1995-ngc-pf-69-high

https://www.tokopedia.com/gamangstore/koin-emas-200000-badak-1987-asli-bank-indonesia

https://www.tokopedia.com/dafriant/koin-emas-logam-mulia-edisi-50-tahun-kemerdekaan-ri-67-gram-antam

Quite a lot of them are rather nice! And I can imagine they go for a lot, maybe I'll stumble across one in a pawnbrokers one day, occasionally you find a hidden gem 

[Silverlocks]

They were quite overpriced IMO, but most of these were proof coins or commemoratives.  IDR to GPB is about 18,000 to 1 (give or take), so one would expect a typical 1oz bullion coin to go for something like 28m-30m IDR.  As far as I am aware the Indonesian mint doesn't currently make 1oz bullion coins.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Silverlocks