Business
How to buy gold in Thailand – from bracelets to baht
Jett Gunther visits Bangkok’s Chinatown and discusses why you should buy gold in Thailand, and how.
Bangkok is home to one of the largest Chinatowns in the world, and the Chinese love gold! Not only is gold highly regarded as a sacred metal, gold has held its value for thousands of years! In the past 20 years alone, the price of gold has gone up almost 500%! Gold is also a great diversifier to your stock portfolio. Compared to the stock market, gold tends to just do its own thing. Even when stocks crash, gold is often not affected.
Thai gold is 96.5%, which is a little over 23 karat. This is considered very high by international standards. In other countries, it’s common to find purities as low as 18K, 14K or even 9K.
Love it or hate it, Thai gold comes in this distinctly bright, almost “cartoonish” yellow, while gold in other countries are much darker.
One of the best things about buying gold in Thailand is that if you buy gold jewelry, the craftsman fee is incredibly cheap, sometimes as little as 35 dollars. In many countries, the craftsman fee can cost even more than the gold itself!
One thing to keep in mind is Thailand has its own unit system for gold. Whereas gold is internationally quoted in ounces, Thai gold is quoted in baht. One baht is a little over half an oz, 0.54oz to be exact.
There’s also some pitfalls you should be aware of.
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MasterOfDisaster
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 12:35 pm
If you are white buy gold with someone who is expert in it otherwise you will be rip off because for them you are just “stupid farang”
Richard Thomson
Friday, December 25, 2020 at 10:31 am
Not true. The price of gold is advertised in each shop and if in doubt you can ask. If you want to buy gold jewelry it’s all laid out in sections according to what weight you want to buy (0.5 baht, 1 baht, 2 baht and so on). If you don’t like any of the designs you see move on to the next shop. The price between shops won’t vary by more than 10-15 baht regardless of which shop you go to.
Toby Andrews
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 1:38 pm
There is no guarantee is there, such as an independent government test of the purity of the gold.
In Britain a goldsmith sends the gold to be tested for purity and it is returned hallmarked.
I do not think that happens in Thailand, and therefore it will give an opportunity for certain persons in Thailand to swindle.
I do know this: the purer the gold the softer it is, and if worn the gold wears away.
This is why 9k is good for wearing.
As for a gold craft man’s fee being cheap, they should be. Most of the Jewelry I see is very crude
James Goodnight
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 2:18 pm
Feel like half the article is missing. What are the pitfalls?
Geoff
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 3:10 pm
Nothing clever about buying gold in Thailand. I just hand over money to my girlfriend and she buys it. For herself of course.
Jowen CNX
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 8:19 pm
I do buy gold every time I travel to Thailand. Basically I started with one baht necklace at a price of 18 000 baht. The year after was about 20 000 baht and so on. Few months ago, what I understand is that most Thai people buy gold when it’s very cheap and invest on it. As soon as the gold price rises, they resell. imagine this year, a baht of gold was at around 30 000 baht, so people sell and buy again later.