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.